Christchurch and District Model Flying Club
 

 WESSEX Low-Cost 600RES LEAGUE 2010

Final round Saturday 11 September held at Cashmoor by Chris Hague

The day of the final round dawned with wind and rain lashing down and seemingly no hope of flying on the appointed day. However, the Met Office, in a rare spate of wisdom had declared a fine afternoon and so it proved to be the case. Nine pilots assembled after lunch ready to enjoy a full afternoon of thermal gliding competition. The wind, although strong at times, was blowing up and down the landing strip which gave (most) pilots a nice long approach in order to get the model down in one piece.

New entrant Rick Farrer had a beautifully built Watts Up, a design published recently in RCM&E. Although a little heavier than some of the more regular models it performed well and Rick won over half of his flights to finish in fourth place. Malcolm McKendrick’s repaired Swift has failed to bring him the more competitive flights he has previously attained and he shared just the one win with Rick Churchill. Both pilots plan additional models for 2011. Geoff Collins won two rounds but is still searching for the better performances shown on the rare occasions earlier in the year. John Taylor’s OD Black Tail was probably a little lightweight for the conditions on the day but still managed 3 wins before eventually suffering minor damage to the nose. Peter Kessell started the day with a chance of overall victory in the series, but wins in only half of his rounds left him languishing in an unusually lowly fifth place; it was, however, good enough to secure second place in the series with 31 points. Octogenarian Dick Hanley continues to fly superb rounds winning six times, and is still very hard to beat. Dick was only narrowly beaten into third place by Chris Hague in a closely contested fly-off for second place which on the day was enough to give Chris the overall series win with 39 points gained out of a possible 40. A rapidly improving James Parry remained unbeaten all day, despite his protestations that he still doesn’t know how his plane goes so high for so long! His win on the day elevated James to third place in the league table.

At the end of the day prizes were given out for the 2010 series, which included a special award to Nancy Kessell for all her patient score keeping throughout the season.

This year 13 pilots took part in the series, which consisted of four rounds, one round having been cancelled due to adverse weather conditions. We have seen the emergence of a wider range of models and the earlier dominance of the Apollo and Swift designs is now being challenged. Several pilots have realised that only minor damage can eliminate them on the day and so plan to have a fully tested second model available next season. We expect to have Apollo wing rib sets and a moulded fuselage available in the near future to make it even easier to build a new Low-Cost 600RES model for 2011.

Our thanks go to the Wimborne MAC for the use of their Cashmoor site and a special thanks must go to Nancy Kessell for keeping all those scores throughout the season. After a successful season, with no changes to the rules being requested or required, we look forward to 2011for more of the same close thermal competition. Details of all our Wessex League events can be followed on our website: www.wessexaml.co.uk

1 Chris Hague

2 Peter Kessell

3 James Parry

4 Geoff Collins

5 Dick Hanley

6 Denis Grocott

7 Rick Churchill

8 Steve Howe

9 John Taylor

10 Malcolm McKendrick

11 Rick Farrer

12 Roly Nix

13 Bill Longley

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