60” EPP Foamies on Saturday and F3F on Sunday.
Saturday
A group of us keen foamie fliers turned up at East Lomond on
Saturday morning to discover low cloud and rain. We hung about for a while
before decamping to the Pillars of Hercules for some coffee and cakes and to
hide from the weather. After an hour of chat and banter we went back up to the
East Lomond car park and found there had been no improvement in the weather so we headed to Kilspindie for a sport fly; assuming the lower
hill would be clear of cloud which it was. Not fancying another 30 minutes
driving in the “wrong” direction Colin Murray headed south of the Forth to
sport fly locally on his home slopes.
When we got to the south-west slope of Pole Hill we were
able to set up a 60” EPP course and we flew 15 rounds of two up flying which
meant everyone flew against everyone else. During test flying Ewan and I has a
mid-air which neatly unplugged the battery from the receiver in my Reaper which
subsequently hit the ground hard and meant I had to revert to my modified
Fastbak for the competition. Mike gave his lovely new Stinger a test flight too
and planned to fly it on Sunday at the F3F competition.
After the race much time was spent throwing sticks at David’s
Skua which had ended well up a tree where it was firmly lodged.
He and Peter
returned on Sunday evening to finally dislodge the poor model which was not too badly
affected by spending a day up a tree!
Sunday
The F3F event on Sunday looked less promising when the
farmer decided we could not access the private road to let us park in our usual
place at the back of Bishop Hill. Somewhat nonplussed we discussed other options
and decided we would climb up from Kinnesswood and still fly on Bishop Hill. A very
steep 1000ft climb but all 14 of us made it!! I was well impressed by my climb up the hill because I
really feel the benefit of losing 3 and a half stones!
A rest on the way up
The weather at the top looked a bit grim for a while when we
first arrived and I wandered about on my own for five minutes looking for the
path to the slope when I met up with Tom Foreman who was also “temporarily
unsure of his position”! After a minor detour we found the path and joined Paul
Upton and Ewan Maxwell at the slope and waited for the rest to arrive. When
Peter arrived we quickly setup the course anticipating the weather would
improve which it did.
I had a great day and felt I flew smoothly but just not
accurate enough. I flew my Vikos which went well in the early rounds but as the
wind rose I felt the fully ballasted model was a bit light. My times continued
to improve though so how much better my Extreme would have been I don’t know. Still
a brilliant day though.
By the time I had descended the hill at the end of the day
my legs were trembling. That path is STEEP!!
A brilliant turn-out and another excellent day on Bishop. Great to see support from Tom and Paul who made the journey up from Lancashire to join us for the day.
