Winter League 5

Photos and results below. 'Twas a splendid day and great to blow the cobwebs away. I'm still sooo in love with my Ceres...

1	Kevin Newton	8584.9
2	Joel West	8529.0
3	Mark Passingham	8253.4
4	Simon Thornton	8240.2
5	Martin Newnham	7930.6
6	Mike Evans	7773.8
7	Dave Rumble	7728.9
8	Jonathan Sage	7714.9
9	Simon Kronfield	7457.8
10	Steve Clutterbuck	7378.3
11	Andy Freeman	7374.9
12	Andrzej Tabero	7122.4
13	Tony Robertson	7003.3
14	Scott Edwards	6860.7
15	Clive Jones	6851.7
16	Phil Taylor	6540.0
17	Clayton Landells	3265.8

New Ceres with RDS

It's here, it's perfect; I love it.

Just have to scramble to get it ready for La Muela...

At last some flying!

Spent a splendid few hours on Mickey's flying the Ceres and Kyril head to head.  The Kyril is a knife, the Ceres is a sledgehammer.  They are both very effective...!

UK VR Qualifier

What an excellent two days on the Wrecker in 25mph+ north easterlies. There was some variation but only a few seconds, which compares well with to 15+ seconds on smaller hills in less wind.

The outcome gives the UK two excellent three man teams, both of which are capable of mounting serious challenges for top spots.

Both days were really hard work but everyone pitched in to make it very slick. Thanks to Andrzej who took a brilliant gamble on the weather and CD'd the whole two days, Joel who kept the buzzer men ticking over and Steve who extracted cash from all and sundry.

Baudis' models featured heavily in the results. The Cyril (Kyril) was looking very potent in the hands of Pete Gunning, prompting Joel to switch to his largely untried version. I'd only had two outings on mine so I started with the Ceres but as things were going rather well I spent the last three rounds starting to rig the Kyril but never got passed taking the covers off as buzzing, launching and generally being busy kept getting in the way.

The Extreme was also looking rather impressive and young Smork kept knocking on the team door with his but the weather gods kept throwing a few curve balls his way. Team Manager perhaps, with Vic as the ambassador...

All in all a better two days you can't imagine.

1	Kevin Newton	14558.1	Ceres
2	Simon Thornton	14363.2	Ceres
3	Greg Dakin	14217.4	RaceMx
4	Peter Gunning	14100.1	Cyril
5	Joel West	13670.7	Ceres, Cyril
6	Jonathon Sage	13528.7	Ceres Lift
7	Mark Passingham	13362.1	Freestyler
8	Mark Abbotts	13268.6	Extreme
9	Tom MacPherson	13084.7	Skorpion
10	Martin Newham	13027.6	Extreme
11	Frank Hulton	12938.8	Sting
12	Mick Walsh	12431.2	Ceres
13	Martin Lucas	12237.7	Skorpion
14	Stephen Clutterbuck	11965.1	Viking, Evolution
15	Vic Eldridge	11219.3	Viking
16	Ian Mason	5507.2	RaceMx
17	Tony Robertson	3689.5	Aris, Ascot

Kyril

Flight time so far

Around half a dozen flights in-between showers in 30 mph on Mickey's slope at the Bwlch, followed by around an hour's airtime on a mixed day at the VR slope at the Bwlch, which is where the video comes from.

About the airframe

It only needs around 60g of nose weight – amazing. The RDS is fantastic; the complete lack of slop and blowback gives more aileron authority than the Ceres even though the geometry means that the end to end aileron travel looks slow using 3150s. In practice, I was able to take out all mixed flap to aileron and remove the negative expo that I use with the Ceres.

The practicality of the airframe is excellent. Fuz ballast is a boon and the semi-square fuz cross section makes it really easy to hold for launching. The aerial through the tail works perfectly; not a hint of a glitch or any dead spots.

Flying

The Kyril is a very sophisticated and harmonised plane. The reduced span and area made me think it would be much livelier than the Ceres, which it is but not in an in-your-face way. The Kyril has a has a certain refined feel to it which means although responsive, it is never twitchy. It's kind of hard to put into words but I was lucky enough to drive a Ferrari 360 Modena and that felt similar; raring to go and wanting you to abuse it but civilised with it.

It's very tempting to liken it to a Freestyler in terms of general handling with a hint of the Martinet about the way it turns. Aerobatically it is quite a revelation; it needs very little down to sustain inverted flight which makes the whole repertoire very neat and easy.

In short it is a fantastically effective package; immensely practical, fast, well behaved and a real joy to own, which makes you feel warm all over when you slide it out of the wing bags.

Bits, bobs, hints and tips

Like the Ceres, ballast is your friend. She's actually ridiculously slippery without ballast but whack some weight in there and she'll thank you for it.

The down going flap available with RDS was plenty to allow very positive approaches and landings in the lift zone.

The jury is out on reflex but just a little did feel as though it helped at higher speed.

Snapflap was interesting; I think it'll take me a few more outings to nail it down to perfection but I was getting some insanely fast, ricochet turns using quite a lot of snapflap.

More soon (assuming it stops raining one day)...