Archive for the 'FFTC' Category
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PHIL BALL – ONE OF A UNIQUE TRIO OF FLYERS
For Grantham club member Phil Ball the last of three trials to select the British team at the 2009 World Free Flight Championships in Croatia was very special. Flying at Sculthorpe on October 12th, Phil gained a place on the F1A glider team and as a result is one of only three Britons ever to represent this country in all three outdoor free-flight classes, F1A glider, F1B Wakefield rubber and F1C engine-assisted glider. The other two are the late Jack North of Croydon & DMAC and Ray Monks of Birmingham MAC, with Ray even adding F1D indoor to his list of team places.
Phil recently retired from Rolls Royce at Derby, where he was a development engineer working on advanced turbine blades and has been national free-flight champion several times. He trains at Barkston Heath and competes at contests all over the country. His previous team places have taken him to Germany, Italy, USA, Hungary, Romania and Portugal; he was part of the gold medal-winning F1C team at the last two. Phil also managed the British team at the World Junior Championships in Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia and has served on the free-flight technical committee for several years.
A QUARTER CENTURY OF BMFA FLIGHT FORUMS
November 23rd, the day after the AGM and dinner, sees the twenty-fifth Free Flight Forum at the Holiday Inn, Coventry CV2 2HP. To mark the quarter century of what has become, along with the Forum Reports, one of the highlights of the free-flight year, a wide range of topics will be covered by speakers who really know their onions. Tickets are £8 from the BMFA office, or you can pay on the day. The Forum starts at 10 a.m. in the Walmesley Room, with Mike Evatt again in the chair.
To whet your appetite this is what’s in store:
- Roger Wilkes – Balsa and Carbon Rod Structures;
- Trevor Grey – Brushing Up (Brushless Motors);
- Chris Strachan – Sharing Flying Sites with General Aviation;
- Mark Croome – Rohacell D-boxes; John O’Donnell – High Tech Where It Fits; Phil Ball – Contest Analysis;
- Ray Monks – Fabricating Carbon Booms;
- Roger Wilkes – The Torque-Back Trimming Technique and Variable Pitch Props;
- Lindsey Smith – Small Rubber Scale Models;
- Phil Ball – Cutting Ribs from Block on a Lathe;
- Trevor Grey – Radio Dethermalisers – the Policy;
- Chris Edge -Radio Dethermalisers – The Practicalities;
- Mike Woodhouse – A Day in the Life of a Team Manager.
Martin Dilly.
Free Flight European Flight Championships
In the F1C power class, team GBR have won the Team Silver medal!
Alan Jack (7th) and Stafford Screen (9th) made the fly-offs while Peter Watson (12th) just missed, dropping a mere 8 seconds in 22:00 minutes flying time over seven flights.
In F1A (glider) both Chris Edge (18th) and Mike Cook (19th) made the fly-off while
Peter Williams dropped 30 seconds to place 49th. The Team made 5th place – top of the teams who didn’t get all three into the fly-offs – the standard at these events is very high indeed!
In F1B (
Wakefield – rubber powered) our luck was out. Russ Peers dropped 20 seconds to place 33rd, Peter Martin dropped 27 seconds to place 36th and Ray Jones dropped a total of 83 seconds over two flights for 55th. Ray was 5th in the World Champs in 2005 so we know he had a bad day here!
The nine team members made a total of 63 flights, scoring 56 maximum scores and dropping an average of 24 seconds in each of the other 7 flights. When they are not flying, team members are lift spotting or retrieving and had to work very hard in high temperatures over less than ideal terrain.
But all were rewarded!
Team GBR are thrilled to announce that they were declared winners of the Jack North Trophy for the overall best team at the European Free Flight Championships. The Trophy was presented to the FAI by the BMFA about ten years ago in memory of Jack North. Jack was a Croydon club member and famous Free Flight expert, who represented GBR four times between 1952 and 1967. He appeared twice in glider and once each in rubber and power. In his day job, Jack was a well known professional aerodynamicist.
Mike Fantham FSMAE
GBR World Championship Silver Medal – Space Modelling
An individual Silver medal has been won by British Team member Nigel Bathe at the Space World Championships.
Nigel Bathe won the silver individual medal in the Boost Glider class at the recent Space World Championships in Lleida, Spain. A member of the British Team a number of times, Nigel has always had the potential for a podium place and it is fitting that he should be the first ever British medal winner in this duration class*. The particular space model he deployed was developed over the past three years by the British Team members who belong to FAIR, the BMFA Specialist Body for FAI Space Modelling, the only international competition category.
Nigel’s medal brings the number of individual podium places won at each of the last three Space Modelling Word Championships to three.
* I have been informed subsequently that Peter Freebrey FSMAE won the Boost Glider individual silver medal at the 1972 World Championships and the Scale Altitude gold medal at the 1974 World Championships. Apologies to Peter Freebrey and I am happy to set the record straight and to acknowledge that Nigel is following in famous footsteps.