UK National Championship
2012

WEDS AM FLIGHT

This week sees the Brits fighting it out at their British Nationals and as is predictable for the UK the weather forecast for the week is high winds and heavy rain showers.

For the first time ever David Bareford is Directing the event so we expect to be flying most slots come hell or high water….(or strong winds).

Having missed the first two slots due to predicted heavy rain and high winds that turned out to be wrong, David had us all in briefing at 0515 this morning so that we could drove over the western edge of the map in order to fly to the eastern edge.

Five markers greeted us on the table with the task being a JDG, PDJ, FYN, HZW, FLO.

Driving out to the launch common launch field it was obvious from the movement in the trees that this was going to be a fast-ish flight, and from the moment we launched and hit the 300ft wind shear we were not disappointed.

The morning was spent climbing hard to get the right, and then falling fast to drop the markers, to then climbing hard again, and repeating the exercise for all five tasks.

We await the publication of the results.

Forecast for the evening is a trip to the cinema!


THURS AM FLIGHT

After last nights TOTAL REKALL movie event, the weather this morning was surprisingly stable and the winds were reasonably steerable.

Seven Markers greeted the pilots this at briefing with Director, new comer, David Bareford setting another five task flight; a Maximum Distance, followed by two gravity marker drop, Judge Declared Goals, then a Land Run, and a Fly On to finish it off.

Given the amount of steerage good scores were expected.

Crispin Williams was first away and led the rest of the pack to the first targets.  He would probably have had 3 1st place’s if it hadn’t been for the ground contact approaching the furthest corner of the area for the Maximum Distance on the first task.

New comer, Dominic Bareford, put the old timers to shame by winning the Land Run task with a score of 6.07sq/km, a good square km better than the next competitor.  Dom’s sister Stephanie who is also a new comer, had two 3rd’ place finishes in the last two tasks.

An updated total scores has yet to be published but it looks like Andrew Holly might be leading the field followed closely by Richard Parry and Rupert Stanley.

Forecast for this evening is doubtful and tomorrow isn’t looking much better….but this is the UK and if you don’t like the weather then wait 5mins and it will change!



FRI PM FLIGHT

After sitting on the launch field for an hour waiting for the wind to drop out the Director finally cancelled the flight.

For the up to date scores and results go to:

http://compsclub.bbac.org/results/2012/nationals/MobileNot/HTML4/Nat212Index.html