August Bank holiday weekend, a weekend that marks the end of the summer and for many thousands of modellers marks a weekend to pack wet and windy weather gear in their cars/caravans & campers and head to Barkston Heath and compete at the British Model Flying Associations National Championships.

The BMFA Nats is the annual event of the year for all Control Line, Remote Control and some of the Free flight modellers to meet fly and talk model aeroplanes together and have a beer at the bar. On that subject whilst doing some research interviewing the Bar Manager he revealed they get up to pulling as many as 14 pints a min at peak times on Saturday and Sunday evenings now that is some serious beer drinking. Sorry back to the flying, each discipline has its annual championships over the weekend and the BMFA Reps are kept very busy driving round with the rostrum awarding Trophies to the new Champions.

Despite the hopes of a few guys from Europe coming to join us and much talk from many other UK pilots we only ended up with a disappointing 19 entries and only 5 in F5D. This however was the hottest field of F5D pilots the BMFA Nationals had ever had and those that came and watched all left with positive comments about the fast and furious racing they saw. I do know that due to new F5D gear items bought at the Nationals over the weekend that we should have at least 4 new pilots joining us in next year’s league.

The Racing

Saturday bought normal Nats conditions, gales and mostly clear sky’s. First off to test the air in F5D was myself flying my New Viper against Darron R and his D05 both us have flow for the UK in World Championships so it’s a good team up for the first heat. We quickly got underway and I posted a 64 sec flight which was very satisfying start for its first race.

Following us was another great paring of Olli and Joe who are the new young guns to join us this year, the competition between the two is great with Olli being an Overlander show Pilot that has quickly been nicknamed “the fastest Show pilot in the country” putting on some very impressive displays with his Voodoo & Demon, and Joe who has come over from F3D a few months ago. Olli’s style is certainly aggressive and he clearly fly’s from each pylon to the next in a triangular course as opposed to Joe’s more smooth style flying an oval, on this occasion Olli’s way came off better however Ollis Demon powerd by a Hacker is quite a bit quicker in the air against Joe’s battered old Jibes putting him in a disadvantage right from the start against the rest of the field.

Finally we have Ben Jones just back from the F3D World Championships where he posted a load of Sub 60 times and was only robbed of a top 10 place by bad luck on the motor front. Ben flew the same set up as Olli and his first heat was only probably only the 5th time he had flown the model and the first with a Hacker in it so the sub 70 time with a cut was a clear indication of what was to come later.

As Saturday progressed the sun sunk lower and lower in the sky and if you were lucky and a cloud came over for your heat it was good news. If not it was almost impossible to fly which hit Both Darron and Myself in our 5th and last heats on the Saturday however I left the field with a nice little lead and fairly content with the way the Viper was going and how things had gone in general.

Sunday Morning was more of the same but the air felt damper and colder mainly due to the rain that passed through in the evening. Right from the first heat I started to struggle to get to the end with Shorter run times on my motor but no extra speed which was not something I had experienced before. All the other guys seemed to be having a bit of trouble but I seemed to be the most affected. I switched to my old faithful Demon with a Neu inside and to my horror I had the same trouble and then started a comedy of errors including only flying 9 laps and pulling off the course resulting in 2 x 200 points and helped my lead slip away very quickly. Both Ben and Olli at that point were picking up there game and although I was having some great fun flying against Olli I could not find out where I had lost all the time. In the last heat I finally realised my main problem was not the motor/cells or even model but I was the problem flying very long on pylon one and making difficult conditions even worse. At the end of day 2 Ben had stomped all over everyone and Olli had also started a charge and I had slipped down to 3rd with Darron and Joe in 4th and 5th.

Monday morning dawned and I was disappointed to see that the gales were still here and it was still damp. However I decided I needed to get back my confidence and went back to the old Demon and my caller went back to the old lap counting method and we immediately got back on the pace and I started catching the top 2 again. Ben And Olli were now flying against each other and this resulted in the best F5D heats I have ever seen and I would have loved to be involved. (bring back 3 man heats please). Both were pushing so hard and there were many near misses of the ground, pylons and each other, excellent! Hopefully someone got it on film.

The day finished with me getting back ahead of Olli but Ben was simply too far ahead and too fast to catch so I have to settle for 2nd place this year. Just to rub salt into the wound Ben also piped my first round 64.72 by 0.07 in the 9th round to set a new Nationals Record of 64.65 which I am sure he will smash easily next year with a sub 60 if we ever get good conditions at the Nats.

Gear

Models – Demons are dominant with 3 being flown in either aileron or aileron and flap versions. They also held the first 3 places. The First Appearance of the Viper was very impressive and it sure did well on the First day until I had wiring problems and had to fly the last 2 heats with the Demon and notably I slowed down. The D05 and Jibe 2 of Darron both have good airspeed and flew over the weekend and Joe used a Jibe 1 which is still a fast model with the right motor up the nose.

Motors – The Hacker 11L seemed very quick in Olli and Ben’s models however my Mega 16/25/2 and Neu 1112 both had the legs as well. Darron used Lehner and all were quick.

Cells – Overlander Extreme 35c cells are dominant with all the first 3 using them in either the 1700 5s or 2200 5s format. We all use a pack of 3 up the nose and 2 behind. Darron has tried the new 30c Thunderpower cells and has realised the benefits of moving from the older 25C cells as they offer smoother constant power and lots more as well but it was too late for him to change.

It was a great Nats for F5D and hopefully pylon in general. F3D (IC Pylon) attracts the crowds as you can hear it all over Barkstone heath and I am sure that the 500 odd tents and caravans pitched near to the pylon flight line just loved F3D models being run up at 8.00am Sunday morning and the first heat taking to the air at 8.30. However once people came over and started talking to us (not me on Sunday as I was in a grump) they realised F5D is very easy to get going in for around £600 and fly at their club field they started to look very interested indeed. Some may see F5D as a step towards F3D some in F3D see a move towards F5D as a possibility to get more flying/racing in. Some real race fans like Ben do both whatever the reason we want to welcome more folk into Pylon so feel free to send emails or ask questions on the forum.

Race you next year I hope.

Rob

More F5D & F3D pics here and here