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27th Aug – 29th Aug
RAF Barkston Heath
BMFA National Championships 2005
RAF Barkston Heath saw the BMFA National Championships 2005, this weekend of
August, the Nationals this year played host to pylon racing, control line
(speed, racing, combat and aerobatics), scale, fun fly, helicopter, air show
and two aerobatics lines (IMAC and F3 aerobatics). There was also control
line carrier landing flying, which proved to be quite more popular than
expected.
During the day there was also free flight flying in the hanger, with the
supervised junior build and fly. Along with the supervised free flight there
were rubber powered models during the day, with models reaching a ten second
to one minute flight time recording
That was just the day time lines, when dusk followed there was flying into
the night with a floodlit off the peg Shocky flying session outdoors. This
session was located at the back of the main hanger. The evening bar in the
hanger also saw the arrival of the Shockys for the lightweight RC flying
sessions.
There were also other events such as the evening bar and a run for your life
free flight jamboree, where free flight powered models were put in the wind
and let go. One of which over flew the crowd (a few feet away) and carried
on to overfly most of the site and land safely back on the runway. Ali
startled the crowds by setting a free flight model off, with elevator set at
head height, I’m told everyone was ducking for cover every time it left the
ground quite humorous
There were over 50 trade stands including Als Hobbies, Just Engines, Only
RC, and Falcon Aviation. There was also a demo by AL50, the aluminium weld
that is amazing with a low melting point, the demonstration is exquisite.
Wren also put on an outstanding presentation by starting a turbo prop
turbine on a test stand; the demo was quite impressive and showed the true
power of the turbine. The trade stands provided a wide selection or products
a modeller would need in their kit, with a few other things that are very
useful. The new Hydro Foam was brought in by a few of the trade stands.
There were a few trade stands that weren’t present in some of the past
Nationals like Inwood Models, Overlander and TJD Models. The food wasn’t
great but it was adequate for a show, if you plan on camping at the next
Nationals I would strongly advise you bring your own food.
On the IMAC flight line our very own extraordinary flyer Tony Robinson
competed for the 2005 International Championship. He performed very well to
a great degree in high wind, performing the known and unknown schedules with
precise flying.
Tony didn’t do too well in the freestyle in the first two days but he
brought it back and his freestyle turned out to get him points putting him
at 4th place overall. His freestyle aerobatics were tremendous, but his
freestyle was let down by not having any (properly working) visual aids on
the Edge but the smoke did get him some points. We thought visual aids would
be a problem in the past, so Tony added a smoke system to the Edge but due
to a crappy smoke pump the system was not working correctly.
Tony got right through his freestyle with the smoke system in a dormant
phase but in the last twenty seconds of his freestyle performance the smoke
system erupted, pushing a nice cloud of smoke out the exhaust. But the timer
had gone.
However Tony’s face was a picture when he was putting the Edge to bed, he
looked down his wing tube (telescope style) and noticed he had bent his wing
tube. After realizing this problem he raced over to IAD Models and came out
of this championship with less money in his bank account.
The verdicts on the bent wing tube were high stress on edges of tube, high
stress; high wind, the conclusion is still to be identified. So the wing
tube is still on Tony’s mantelpiece if anyone wants to examine it. Only
joking, it’s framed!
We are very proud of Tony for winning the BMFA Nationals Championship 2005.
Congratulations Tony.
Also a well deserved thank you goes to the Commanding Officer of RAF
Cramwell, Group Captain M P Colley OBE, MA, RAF for letting the BMFA
Nationals 2005 return to RAF Barkston Heath for 2005.
By Paul Metcalf
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