2010 Competition Reports and Results

ESSA F3F 5th September - Butts Brow E bowl

The annual F3F took place at the east bowl at Butts brow. The conditions could have been better with rain to start off with and light lift, the wind picked up later but had shifted to a south west, making the air very turbulent with very little lift. It was a good turnout considering a few of the usual suspects were not able to make it.

Score Sheet click here
Images of the day

ESSA Fun Fly 11th July - Longman SW Bowl

The annual fun fly took place on the long man SW bowl, big surprise eh? This year we welcomed 2 new (soon to be) members Robert and Adrian who both demonstrated some good flying coupled with competitive streaks (remember the limbo Robert, Tom does ?!!). J

The event followed the normal routine. 2 minutes for as many Limbos as possible, 1 minute of rolls and then loops followed by a catch and a spot landing. All in all I think everyone enjoyed their flying. Sometimes the fun fly reminds us that foamies can be a lot of fun (no really!) because of the reduced damage risk.

Now, this is getting tedious but, congratulations to Tom on his win! Also great to have Robert in joint second with John Phillips!

ESSA Cross Country Comp 6th June

This year’s cross country took place on the Long Man SW bowl with a reasonable 15-20 mph blow. With slightly variable conditions and quite a lot of sunshine we were expecting some good thermal activity, this never really materialised unless you were fortunate enough to hook a small thermal off the slope which then went above the main slope lift and into the thermic areas.

The SW bowl is not the best place for a cross country, so this year the bases were placed in fairly challenging positions. Base 1 was on the south side of the water tower, 2 was on the north side of the water tower before the fence and set quite far back from the slope, 3 was again back from the slope but before the path from the west joins the main path (the normal F3F landing area), 4 was further round on the west side, again set-back a reasonable distance from the slope. The low pass was taken between base 1 and 2. The spot landing was to the left of the normal launching area.

Once a pilot reached the bases they were allowed (in their own time) a minute to make as many 360 degree turns behind the bases. This was particularly challenging due to the positioning of the bases and only Tom Noble managed to get properly off the hill and put in a good quantity of turns on those bases that would allow it. A good variety of models was flown as usual ranging from my Alula Evo, conventional lightweight 2 channel gliders to proper moulded thermal models.

Congratulations to Tom on his second win of the year!

Excel spreadsheet available - click here

ESSA Aerobatic 28th March - Longman SW Bowl

ESSA Aerobatics Competition 28th March 2010, Long Man SW Bowl

With a forecast varying from slightly wet to possibly dry and the clocks moving forward an hour the brave few arrived at the Long Man car park earlier than we really wanted.

There was a 20mph WSW blow with high cloud and little in the way of thermal activity. But it was disappointingly cold...

A rotation of 4 judges was used to try and alleviate and scoring discrepancy, judging was tough due to the penetrating wind!

The same schedule was used as per last year, the only exception being the removal of the fairly ridiculous tail slide (with a glider...).

Lift was best in the west corner of the bowl and most pilots chose to gain height before starting each manoeuvre.

Highlights of the day included Jim having a severe case of brain fade half way through his double Humpty Bumpty and almost taking out the judges, eventually ‘landing’ behind the fence at the back of the bowl. Most pilots were fighting watering eyes and slow thumbs due to the temperature. However, a close fought competition and an improvement on the general standard over last year shows a little commitment from the membership towards this discipline!

Congratulations to Tom who won the event, once he nails the set-up on his Vector III he will be a tough man to beat!

Excel spreadsheet available - click here

Images of the day click here

Report by Julian Perrott