This was the first meeting of the year with the weather at Oakington having turned from beautiful conditions the previous day to cold and windy (around 9 degrees C).
Due to the conditions combined with the rough surface at this venue it was decided to fly all races as two ups and use the day to “blow away a few cobwebs” as non of the teams wanted to use the third slot. Times will be forwarded to the C/L Technical Committee so that they have the option to take them into account should teams fall short of the required three-up times during the season.
9 teams turned up on the day but just 7 flew in the competition and, although Goodyear had been scheduled to run, this was impossible as only one entry was present.
During practice several models were seen running into the circle due to the conditions but no problems occurred during actual racing – perhaps the teams were concentrating a bit better then !
Racing got underway at 12:30pm saw Ross/Turner start the season with a 3:22.8 (pretty good in the circumstances) and this was to be the best time of the day.
John Broadhead was not available to attend so Bernie Langworth paired up with Taffy Bollen and they had a pretty good day – improving in every race to finish third with a 3:34.3
There were some close races during the day with the best race being between Ross/Turner and Heaton/Campbell finishing with 3:26.0 and 3:26.3 respectively (despite a missed catch by Brian Turner)
Airspeeds were very similar and both models were on the ground at the same time at both pitstops with good flying from both pilots. Heaton/Campbell were using a model with a braking system incorporated into the landing gear to assist with fast landings.
Another good race to watch (albeit a bit slower) was between Holmes/Robson and Miles/Yeldham finishing in 4:11.0 and 4:11.1 respectively.
Dave Rudd was enforcing the new rule whereby a pilot should have one hand in contact with the floor during pitstops. Those pilots who tried using the spare hand indicated that it caused balance problems and was thus a risk to safety (dodgy change !) and most pilots felt it far safer to use the finger tips of the flying hand instead.
Thanks again go to Dave Rudd for acting CD on the Day – Don’t Forget that April 27th is now also at Oakington due to Odiham being out of bounds.
F2C - Team Race Results | |||||||||||
Heat 1 | Heat 2 | Heat 3 | Heat 4 | Final | |||||||
1 | Ross/Turner | 3 | 22.8 | 3 | 27.7 | 3 | 26.0 | ||||
2 | Heaton/Campbell | 4 | 07.7 | 3 | 34.6 | 3 | 26.3 | ||||
3 | Langworth/Bollen | 3 | 50.6 | 3 | 42.1 | 3 | 34.3 | ||||
4 | Fry/Whorton | 5 | 22.5 | 3 | 44.9 | 4 | 32.3 | ||||
5 | Miles/Yeldham | 3 | 47.4 | 4 | 38.6 | 4 | 11.1 | ||||
6 | Holmes/Robson | ret | 41.0 | 5 | 47.6 | 4 | 11.0 | ||||
7 | Smith/Brown | 4 | 42.2 | 4 | 24.4 | dnf |
League Points\were awarded as follows :-
Ent | Plc | Fin | Imp | Tot | |
Ross/Turner | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
Heaton/Campbell | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
Lanngworth/Bollen | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
Fry/Whorton | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Miles/Yeldham | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Holmes/Robson | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Smith/Brown | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |