RESULTS FLYING REPORT
(Note: This is draft data subject to alteration!)
For several seasons now, the ModelAir organization has been doing great things for traditional aeromodelling at Old Warden, the home of the UK’s Shuttleworth vintage aircraft collection. This year their Mayfly event, held over the May Bank Holiday weekend, was blessed with excellent weather and a superb range of Free Flight, Control-line and R/C events spread all over Old Warden airfield at Biggleswade in Bedfordshire. Pending Andy Housden’s full report, here’s your webmaster’s personal view of the carrier event with some pictures resulting from the visit he finessed on the Sunday while on the way back from a visit to friends in Suffolk. It’s a super venue for non-modellers too, with a range of fully restored aircraft and land vehicles to keep everyone interested (layout revised to make sure the guys don’t look 9 feet tall on a small scrreen!).
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First impressions were great – the carrier deck was positioned right next to the gate, the loos and the cafe, with the Shuttleworth hangars alongside too for post-flight relaxation. There had been some carrier action on the Saturday and even more before I arrived at 11:00, actually during a break to allow some scale models to fly. There was plenty of pitting space, and Andy had a very effective flight management system running with contestants feeding into the “ready” area for line testing then onto the deck for their three flights. HMS Incredible boasted her full superstructure and bunting, which came under assault from my Hellcat in due course with the plane demolishing it: Hellcat 1 – 0 Carrier! The deck seemed rather slippery, and several flights overshot or pulled the sandbags off the deck.
The only minor niggle on the day was the need to pack up at 16:00 sharp to allow some fullsized aircraft movements – fair enough, of course, but a necessity that was not understood by some of the attendees in events other than carrier. That didn’t spoil the day for the carrier enthusiasts, who owe Andy and his team of helpers, ModelAir and the Old Warden organizers a very big “thank you” for organizing another excellent event. Here’s some of my pictures – captions and results will follow shortly.
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