Well it was windy today, averaging about 20ms and there were showers coming through as predicted. However, they were fairly brief and the strong winds meant you dried out pretty quick in between.
Dave and Robert didn’t fancy the high winds but kindly did full time buzzing. Ian also had an iffy landing and decided not to fly half way through, so conscious only 4 out of 7 were flying, we stopped at 8 rounds and decamped to Pillars if Hercules for coffee, cake and chat.
It’s always challenging in high winds, even hearing the buzzer and standing up can be tricky at times! However, I think we all settled into it after a while. Mike and I were pretty close, with big pumps and flying well away from the hill and trying to keep some momentum in the model round the turns, if you pulled too hard today, you were often losing a lot of momentum. Mike took the first two rounds with a 38 and a 37 from my 41 and 37 but then I had a good pair in rounds 3 and 4 with a 36 and a 33 in good air. Mike flew after a shower in less good air with a 39 and a 41 so I stole the lead.
Kevin flew the FS4 at first but seemed low and light, with only brass ballast available he switched to the Vantage, which looked to be going better. He almost went sub-40 in the last round but not quite with a best of 41 and the others mainly in the low 40’s. Ewan flew steady in the low 40’s and went very close to a sub-40 in round 6 with a 40.44. Ian had a best of 45 before he decided to save his pristine Needle for another day.
I ended up with a bit more luck than Mike today and despite him trying like a bear to pull speed out of the bag, diving very deep between the turns in the last couple of rounds, I pipped him in 3 of the last 4 rounds. It was very tight though! Nice to get a result after a few pastings! Possibly a hill record too?
1 Peter Gunning 6995.50 1000.00
2 Mike McCracken 6800.06 972.06
3 Ewan Maxwell 5962.73 852.36
4 Kevin Newton 5793.98 828.24
5 Ian Simpson 3069.90 438.83
FTD: Peter Gunning 33.13
Next comp date is 16th July. Thanks to everyone for coming but especially Dave & Robert for their buzzing.
All the best
Pete