April Competition Report
Hi everyone, this is the first report of the 2017 Kent Interclub calendar. The aim of this is to inform all the Club members of what the various competitions involve, how easy it is to get involved and, hopefully, may inspire more members to have a go.
The 7 ½ PG is a limited fuel glider contest. The aim being to fly for a maximum amount of time with only 7.5cc of fuel. Typically, the planes are up to 2 metres in span and 2 or 3 function for control purposes. The engines are normally diesel in the region of 0.8 cc to 1.5 cc but there is no restriction on the type or size, only the amount of fuel that can be used. The flight times are normally, 10, 12 and 14 mins. The final round is determined on the day.
There are normally 4 rounds with a number of slots per round flown. The number of slots and competitors per round depends on the total numbers attending on the day. Each round has a 5 min preparation time on top of the flight time allowing the competitor to start their engines, something that can be difficult! Each competitor scores one point per second of flight plus a bonus of 50 for landing on the patch or 25 if only part lands on the designated patch. The individual scores for each round are calculated as follows. The slot winner achieves a score of 1000, for all the other flyers in the slot their score is a percentage of the winning score for that slot. As it is not a precision flight you can overfly without penalty so more than one flyer can get the maximum score in the same slot.
Round 1 – 7 ½ PG – Nomads Club in Dartford – Sunday 9th April 2017
So, in Round 1 at Dartford we saw only 6 competitors taking part. Sadly, our numbers were reduced this year by the passing of 3 previous attendees. Peter Bennett from Nomads continued with the event in memory of those that had passed away in recent months, all of whom were active in this competition in the past.
To the day itself. It was cloudless, warm but with little thermal activity. Engine starting proved difficult for some and poor engine runs contributed to my own dismal performance. Peter Bennett from Nomads suffered a fly away and we think his plane is now in Essex. A party went off at the end of the day to look for it. The landings caught a couple out throughout the day, some just coming up short whilst others were in the next field.
The overall results are shown here. If you want to have a go we can set up a Club competition one Sunday, Round 2 is planned for late summer at our field.
Pos Name Club 1 2 3 4 total
1 Richard Harris Invicta 1000 920 1000 930 3850 50
2 Brian Martin SADMAC 663 1000 685 1000 3348 49
3 Terry Letchford SADMAC 824 1000 738 720 3282 48
4 John Postle SADMAC 670 572 721 1000 2963 47
5 Peter Bennett NKN 1000 1000 OOF DNF 2000 46
6 Keith Benton SADMAC 440 461 1000 OOF 1901 45
TEAMS – Best 3 scores Total
1 SADMAC 49 48 47 144
2 Invicta 50 — — 50
3 NKN 46 — — 4
John Postle assisting Richard Harris from Invicta
Winner – Richard Harris
Second place – Brian Martin