We arrived on Fairlie moor this morning to the anticipated mist, but it was lifting and there was a promising wind.

After a while chatting, the mist had lifted and cleared the lower slope, Black hill but not yet the bigger Kaim hill behind us. So we headed for the lower one as a first for us F3Fers.

We arrived at the wrong slope first, then headed for the right one and got set up by about midday in a 10ms wind that was a bit off to the North. Despite looking like it would do the business, the slope didn’t flay that great, with times in the 50-60s range. Ian Simpson had a good 52.xx early on and Kevin and I had a 49 each towards the end of the first set of 3 rounds. Something wasn’t right with my model and I discovered I was without one aileron when it came to landing, tricky but landed OK without brakes.

The second three were increasingly crossed and by the time we stopped at lunch time it was fully NW. The times reflected this with nothing sub-50, Kevin did best at mastering the crosswind with a 50 and a 51 amongst his 3. Dave also pulled a 50 out of the bag in round 6. A pair of local flyers approached towards the end of the round so we let them have the slope for a good while as we stopped for lunch, nice guys who were quite interested to see what we were up to.

It had straightened up a bit while they were flying and a PSS spitfire looked quicker than we were! Dave had a good set flying first after lunch with a 50 and a 49 before Ewan stole FTD with a stonking 44.55. Kevin went close to this with a 44.73. The air was a bit more variable after lunch so there was some good stuff out there; Ian went sub-50 in round 11 and Ewan had another good 46.xx in round 11 but Kevin won the round with a 45.82. I only had the one sub-50 before lunch and didn’t really get to grips with the slope. Cole showed real improvement in the last 3 rounds though and flew a 67 which looked really good.

To the results:

1 K Newton 10778.39 1000.00

2 P Gunning 10456.29 970.11

3 E Maxwell 10201.21 946.45

4 D Watson 10026.06 930.20

5 I Simpson 9911.42 919.56

6 C Simpson 7028.19 652.06

FTD Ewan Maxwell – 44.55

Well done Kevin! You mastered the cross winds better than most. And well done Ewan for a really well flown FTD.

Interesting to fly a new hill, but I think the top one is definitely the better one. Also nice to fly in a different place, the views over Cumbrae towards Arran are stunning, as I’m sure Kevin’s photos will show.

All the best

Pete