RCGA Thermal (TH6) 7 Feb 16

We had a fantastic forecast for the day but, as usual, at the beginning of the day the actual wind direction was about 180 degrees different to the forecast. So, which way to set up the winches? Within a short time the wind had swung 90 degrees towards the forecast direction so we used our time to set up our models. By the time that this was done the wind had swung further and the decision was made to set up as per the forecast direction. As it turned out, this was exactly right.

For the first time we had a timer display board in action. This counted down the time to the start of working time and then counted down the working time. This gave everybody access to the same time information and in particular, how long they had left to get ready to fly. We only had to pause the system once due to a winch line needing to be brought back. Otherwise it was smooth sailing.

Three rounds were flown before the lunch break and conditions were fairly kind. So there were a lot of high scores and at the end of round 3 we had Marcus Stent and Tom Dupuche on equal first, and Gerry Carter and Dan Haskell on equal third. The flights after lunch sorted that out!

After lunch the conditions became more difficult with the wind strength increasing and the thermals more broken up and harder to find. Most times the pilots made their times but the landing accuracy of some pilots went down, and this was what made the greatest difference. At this time of day several pilots used their F3B gliders because of the wind strength.

Troubles through the day included one pilot launching with the elevator gap seal on the outside, not the inside where it belonged. It was amazing how much this affected controllability. So the model was landed, gap seal put back in place and model relaunched. Time lost was about 1.5 minutes. Another was an elevator push rod super glued in its housing. Super glue seems to find its way into places where it isn't welcome and this was one of those times. This couldn't be fixed at the field so the pilot had to use a model that hadn't been flown for a long time. Another pilot had model issues and had to get a second model from his car and fly that one.

With the wind strength high, and the heat of the day making things very unpleasant, a vote was taken to finish early and so five rounds were completed.

Congratulations to
1st Marcus Stent (4995.7)
2nd Dan Haskell (4988.5)
3rd Tom Dupuche (4987.1)

overallresults.pdf     flightscores.pdf     landingresults.pdf

PS An apology to Dave Pratley and Dave Milward. Their results in round 1 were reversed in the scoring that was originally posted. Now fixed.