Tonbridge
Radio Flyers
Email
Newsletter from Alastair Ramsay
No:
10/07 – 12th October 2007
Club
Website: - Tonbridge-flyers.co.uk
Hello fellow flyers,
Our brief summer appears to be drawing to a close with the days becoming
rapidly shorter. After a very wet
and windy July and August we had some good flying weather in September and early
October. Unfortunately the foot and
mouth outbreak in Surrey prevented us from using Leigh Park Farm but the reserve
site, offered to us by the farmer, has proved a reasonable alternative provided
we avoid flying too near to the A21.
Several of our most experienced flyers have tried this site and feel it
is adequate for running our usual winter league thermal and electric
competitions. I would personally
prefer these competitions to be flown at the farm but will set out a schedule
below for you to put in your diaries.
Later in this month I will ask the farmer if it is ok for us to return to
the farm but, in the meantime will you all please continue to use the
alternative site. For any of you
who have not been there yet, a map and directions were included in my last
newsletter which is still available on the club
website.
We have had several new members join during the summer and this will
inevitably give rise to more doubling up of frequency channels. In view of this could I please urge you
to be prepared to switch to a reserve channel in the event that your primary
channel is in use on any given club flying day. The use of the 2.4Ghz band would
alleviate some of the congestion so if there are any of you who could nominate
this as your primary channel please let me know and I will amend the channel
list accordingly.
The club bungee has been giving trouble over the summer period and was
replaced during August with new line and rubber. The replacement rubber has broken on
numerous occasions and will have to be swapped out soon. I have 30 metres, of what is claimed to
be super strong rubber, on order and hope to get a reliable bungee in operation
before the winter league starts.
New members who have joined
this autumn are: Vince Fowler and
Paul Warren. We bid them welcome
and hope to see them at club flying days soon.
May I again thank Ken Dean for his efforts in keeping the club website up
to date with information, competition results, recent photos, links to useful
sites, club rules and the calendar of events. A recent additional use has been to post
any urgent information in a notice area at the top of the Home Page. This has been helpful in showing the
status of our flying sites during the foot & mouth situation as well as
drawing attention to any events cancelled.
In short, the site is a mine of information which we hope you will find
useful on a regular basis. One
section of the site which is currently under used is the members “For Sale”
section. If you are thinking of
parting with some of your models or equipment, why not put them up for sale on
the club website?
Since I last wrote to you, the Towner Trophy thermal competition was
flown on 30th September.
This had to be re-scheduled to Ashurst due to the closure of Leigh Park
farm. Two TRF members are to be
commended for getting into the fly-off with Chris Foss coming 3rd and
Phil Ramsey 6th.
For those of you who are interested in attempting the summer high time
competition, there are two weeks remaining before time runs out on
27th October. The times
to beat are; 80 minutes 13 sec for the thermal event and 34 minutes 54 sec for the electric
version.
The following dates for your diaries are for the winter leagues. It is proposed that the rules remain the
same as last year for both thermal and electric competitions with one exception.
This relates to the thermal league where it is proposed that we use the bungee
as normal with each round consisting of the usual 4 flights but only the best 3
for each entrant counting in the final score. The intention of this change is to
reduce the element of luck associated with competitors not all flying in the
same air due to consecutive launching. Please let me know if you would support
this change. I will confirm the
outcome prior to our first round.
These competitions are generally good fun and should be enjoyed by more
of our members. If you have not
tried it before why not have a go.
If you are uncertain whether your model is suitable for the competition
please contact me for clarification.
The electric league in particular has rules which are deliberately set to
allow a wide range of model gliders to compete.
Winter
League Competition diary dates
All league rounds will be on Sunday mornings starting at 10 am unless
otherwise notified.
Nov. 4th
Electric League
Round1
Nov. 18th
Thermal League
Round 1
Nov. 25th
Thermal League
Reserve date No.1
Dec. 2nd
Electric League Round
2
Dec. 9th
Electric League Reserve
date No: 1
Dec.16th
Thermal League
Round 2
Jan. 6th
Electric League Round
3
Jan. 20th
Thermal League
Round 3
Jan. 27th
Thermal League
Reserve date No: 2
Feb. 3rd
Electric League Round
4
Feb. 10th
Electric League Reserve
date No: 2
Feb. 17th
Thermal League
Round 4
Mar. 2nd
Electric League Round
5
Mar. 16th
Thermal League
Round 5
Mar. 30th
Electric League Round
6
April 6th
Thermal League
Round 6
April 13th
Electric League Reserve date No:
3
Apr. 20th
Thermal League
Reserve date No: 3
Best wishes,
Alastair Ramsay - Secretary, Silent Flight Section -
TRF
(Email: AandJRamsay@aol.com – tel: 01892
534532)