Voltij fun

No matter how hard I try, I just can't kill it!

Kevin Newton and the Voltij from Kevin Newton on Vimeo.

Welsh Open 2009 - update

Even more sponsorship

James Hammond and Ian Mason (SlopeRacer) are putting up a Vector.

And that is in addition to the F3X model complete with servos already put forward jointly by SmartModel & SlopeRacer

Please go and spend your money with these guys, they deserve it.

Food glorious food

Vic is at this very moment cruising the streets of Bridgend trying to organize a banquet. If you're interested in spending up to about £30 for some good grub, banter and beer (that'll cost extra!) on the Saturday night of the Welsh Open please contact Vic immediately as he needs to know numbers.

Vikos - part 2

Words soon...

Vikos - part 1

A quick look at the airframe before we go out to play.

If it looks right, feels right and smells right, then it normally is right.

Amazing amount of room. Great to have fuselage ballast. It'll take around 700g, so if it's really blowing you'll need to use the wing tubes.

Really impressive fit and finish. I was surprised how good it was, and I had fairly high expectations!

Nice, neat and easy.

Again, nice, neat and easy.

Look down that hinge line - not a cavity or big useless splodge of epoxy and microballoons in sight. Top notch.

This tail cone arrangement is the best I've seen. Normally they are horribly fiddly to tape up but this is perfect.

And it fits without needing to trim it for the real world of things waggling inside.

Pre-bevelled joiner is a really nice touch.

Very nice quality.

Fit and finish around the tail area is notoriously hard to get right, but Radek has done an excellent job

Again, getting the canopy to fit perfectly is something other manufacturers struggle with but the Vikos is spot on.

New Baudis model...

Jiri Baudis wants to know what you think...

Should this fantastic plane, with RDS, fuselage ballast and a new, faster, section really be called the Cyril?

For UK customers he may be prepared to cut us some slack...

Vote now or forever hold your Cyril...

MPX Blizzard for sale

Tuning power kit and 3 cell 2100 MAh Lipo for vertical performance.
Well built and good as new - 10 flights only.
£165 ono with MPX synth Rx - ready to fly.
£130 ono without RX.
E-mail me

Vikos rumours...

Yes, you will be getting a review soon...

In the meantime more information is on the T9 site.

Skorpion repairs

Feeling a bit ghoulish... watch this, full screen of course...

My first Skorpion was a fantastic plane. One thing was apparent though, it was much happier when the transmitter batteries had charge in them. It was this revelation that lead to my MPX 4000 getting Lipo power.

The Skorpion had gone from being happy as a sand boy, tearing around the Spanish skies full of ballast, to a crumpled heap that had bounced it's way down the westerly face at La Muela.

Given the nature of the incident the damage could have been worse but as it was the bits were headed for the Hotel Infante trash can to save a bit of weight on the flight home. That's before Alvaro suggested that I let Miguel Medina (of Vector fame) have a look to see if he could do anything. With nothing to lose I left the bits with Al, exchanged a few emails with Miguel and his son, Jorge, and a month or so later a big box appeared outside my door in Wales...

Initially, I was absolutely convinced that they were a new set of wings. The finish was perfect and any weight difference was imperceptible - really, perhaps 10 grammes per panel. Looking inside the servo well showed a bit of overspray, so it was true; Miguel is a magician! And his magic potion was some low expansion, high density squirty foam from R and G.

Of course the old girl flew absolutely perfectly with no hint of the previous trauma. What worried my though was how stable the expanded foam repair would be.

Well, after several months of hot and cold, wet and dry nothing had shifted, sagged or bulged even a fraction of a millimeter. I ended up selling the Skorp - one careful owner, never raced or rallied etc - to a good chum and saw it regularly for years, and still she remains perfect. So perfect in fact that there was never any point taking photos of the finished repairs because you couldn't see them!

Below is the repaired airframe back over La Muela the following year, zoom in and you still won't see a mark.

Thank you Miguel!

Welsh Open 2009

18, 19 & 20 September

We are getting closer...! The entry list is below. If your name is on there but you will not be able to take part please e-mail me immediately as we have a big reserve list who'll be really grumpy if you just don't turn up on the day. If you've already sent me an e-mail and I haven't responded, apologies a few things may have slipped through the net when I moved across to a Mac.

More Welsh Open information is below the entry list. And... just to get the juices flowing, there's a slides show below of some Welsh Open images from across the years.

Sponsors
Kin from Smartmodel and Ian Mason of Sloperacer.co.uk are putting together a package of moulded model with all the servos!
Please e-mail if you want your products to be part of the fastest F3F event on the planet.

	Pilot	Country	Team	F1	F1
1	Alvaro Silgado	Spain	-	Synth	Synth
2	Andrzej Tabero	Wales	-	-	-
3	Andy Burgoyne	England	Unflapables	69	74
4	Andy West	Wales	-	62	70
5	Angel Lopez Cabrera	Spain	-	78	64
6	C M Cheng	Hong Kong	-	60	-
7	Cedric Grandseigne	France	-	Synth	Synth
8	Dag Skoglund	Norway	-	75	76
9	Dave Watson	Scotland	Tayside Tossers	77	66
10	David Cederwall	-	-	82	77
11	Espen Torp	Norway	-	65	72
12	Frank Hulton	England	GBR	80	59
13	Gary Harrison	England	Southern_Numpties	80	74
14	Gerardo Plaza	Spain	-	Synth	Synth
15	Graham Reed	England	Team Muppet	Glitch	Glitch
16	Greg Dakin	England	Swillers	77	80
17	Iain Rose	England	-	61	78
18	Ian Mason	England	GBR	82
19	Ian Stewart	Scotland	Tayside Tossers	62	76
20	Iñaki Elizondo	Spain	-	Synth	Synth
21	Jack Björnberg	Norway	-	63	78
22	Jean-Luc Foucher	France	-	72	77
23	Jesus Herrera Borrego	Spain	-	68	80
24	Joel West	England	SMOG	64	74
25	John Phillips	England	Swillers	62	70
26	Jon Edison	England	-	75	63
27	Jonathon Sage	England	SMOG	90	82
28	Jose Carrion	Spain	-	68	78
29	José Luis Alvarez Fernandez	Spain	-	69	80
30	Julian Perrott	England	Southern_Numpties	77	78
31	Keith Wood	England	-	82	57
32	Kevin Newton	England	-	77	68
33	Lage Salomonsen	-	-	Glitch	Glitch
34	Mark Abbotts	England	GBR	84	68
35	Mark Passingham	England	Swillers	69	70
36	Mark Redsell	England	Tean RAG	81	85
37	Mark Southall	England	-	71	84
38	Mick Walsh	England	-	Synth	Synth
39	Mike Evans	England	Team RAG	80	87
40	Mike Shellim	England	-	72	64
41	Mike Young	Wales	-	85	58
42	Paul Garnett	England	Team RAG	Synth	Synth
43	Paul Middleton	England	-	58	69
44	Peter Gunning	Scotland	Tayside Tossers	85	80
45	Pierre Rondel	France	-	77	67
46	Warrick Smith	------	-	60	Synth
47	Ron Russell	Scotland	-	72	76
48	Simon Thornton	England	SMOG	Glitch	Glitch
49	Stefan Bertschi	Switzerland	-	Glitch	Glitch
50	Steve Clutterbuck	England	Unflapables	58	56
51	Tom Macpherson	England	Team Muppet	84	68
52	Tony Robertson	England	-	Glitch	--
53	Vic Eldridge	England	Team Muppet	70	76
54	Dave Rumble	England	Unflapables	88	70
55	Bjorn Tore Hagen	Norway	-	Glitch	-

Teams
As well as the top three individual trophies there will be a trophy for each member of the winning three man team. You do not have to fly as a team, but if you want to, either include your team details when you enter or get them to me by 1 September.

Entry fee
We need to cover the expenses of land usage, trophies, Eurotour fees and so on. The entry will be £25. You won't need to pay before the event.

The event
Each day you must be at the Bwlch T junction of the A4107 and A4061 (map here http://www.knewt.com/bwlch/thebwlch.htm ) by 9.00 in time for a 9:45 start. Each day the last round in progress will be that running at 17:30. If the conditions are light and a round started before 17:30 is unlikely to be completely finished that day the Competition Director will consider using group scoring so that we don't lose several hours of competition time. Group scoring will be a last resort, and will not be used if at all possible.

Banquet
This is a lot of hassle for a very small club to organise but we have friends... Vic has done a whole bunch of work and arranged this.

Additional information
Bases will be set back as far as possible, this will allow the safety line to go back a little also. The turn points will be marked in the normal forward position by an additional marker.

Three models per competitor are allowable.

We are currently considering rotation of the flying order - more information soon.

There will be 30 seconds ready time.

Turn judges will be very strongly instructed to acknowledge any errors and the pilot will refly immediately. We all know that some apparently late buzzes are just great flying, others are turn judge error and it is this that we want to acknowledge and eradicate in a supportive way for the turn judge. This worked very well last year and we are keen to build on that success.
You will be called upon to help with buzzing as our experience has been that pilots make the best turn judges.