Tonbridge Radio Flyers

 

Update email from Alastair Ramsay

No: 3/07 – 5th April 2007  

Club Website: - Tonbridge-flyers.co.uk

 

 

Hello fellow flyers,

 

Since I last wrote to you early in March, the weather has warmed up a bit, the wind is starting to reduce and the fields at Leigh Park Farm have dried out well enough for us to return to parking on the grass.  I have also noticed that the milk tankers are arriving at the farm during the daytime so please don’t park on the bend by the oast house as large Lorries require extra space on that part of the farm road.  I expect that the cows will be grazing in the fields again before too long so we may have to be prepared to use the lower field at times.

 

Despite poor weather for much of March, we managed to complete several winter league rounds, the results of which have been posted on the club website.  In summary those results were as follows:

 

  1. Thermal League round 4 – 11th March

Winner - Alan Twine. – 2nd Keith Fisher

 

  1. Thermal League round 5 – 1st April

Winner – Simon Smith – 2nd. Keith Fisher

 

  1. Electric League round 5 – 25th March

Brushed Class: Winner – Simon Smith, 2nd Ken Dean

Open Class: Winner - Simon Smith, 2nd Alastair Ramsay

 

With the clock change on 24th March, we have also started to be able to fly on Thursday evenings again from 5pm until dusk.  This also means that the Winter High Time competitions have completed.  The winners were:

 

·         Winter Thermal High Time 2006/7 – Bob Hope with flight of 77minutes 17 seconds

·         Winter Electric High Time 2006/7 – Alastair Ramsay with flight time of 22 minutes 14 seconds

 

Claims are now invited for the 2007 Summer High Time records for thermal and electric flights.

 

Well done to all of the above and particularly to Keith Fisher who is now in an unassailable position as winner of the Winter Thermal League with one round remaining.

 

With the winter internal competition programme almost complete many of you will be turning your attention to the summer  interclub/BARCS and F3J competitions held on flying sites around the county.  I have however been asked if we are going to continue with the Thursday evening Electric league which we ran on alternate Thursdays last summer.  This will depend on the level of support from within the Silent Flight group.  Current thoughts are to continue with the rules used during the winter league but to run a single Open Class competition allowing ferrite brushed motors a 30 second power-on time and all other motors 25seconds.  There would be 4 slots per evening competition and battery limitations would be the same as for the winter competition.  This competition would not preclude normal club flying/practice on Thursday evenings and normal frequency controls will apply.

 

If you would like to enter a model for this proposed competition would you please let me know within the next two weeks?  If there are 6 or more supporters then I will proceed on the basis of running the competition on alternate Thursday evenings for the months of May, June and July.

 

Would you also let me know if you are interested in a one-off thermal RES (rudder/Elevator/Spoiler) competition as follow-on to the 100S competition that we ran until last year?  Would a Saturday afternoon in June be a suitable time for such an event?

 

I would also like to remind the thermal competition flyers that the Ron Finniss Memorial Team Trophy is only a few weeks away on Sunday 6th May, hosted by Invicta club.  TRF is the holder of this trophy.  Last year we fielded two teams of four flyers.  Would you please let either Keith Miller or myself know if you wish to be part of a team or teams representing TRF in this year’s competition?

 

Finally, the usual list of scheduled events for the coming few weeks for you to check against your diaries:

 

DIARY REMINDERS!

 

 

 

Best wishes,

 

Alastair Ramsay - Secretary, Silent Flight Section - TRF

(Email: AandJRamsay@aol.com – tel: 01892 534532)