Very sad day...

Everyone who knows me will be very aware that for longer than I care to admit I have had a long lasting love affair with my Dremel.
She's followed me all around the world.  She's always great fun at parties.  Many other men have been eternally grateful for her services but she's always stayed faithful to me. She has been my rock.
Tonight, under extreme pressure of work, she lost the will to revolve.  I've posted the following video in loving memory (shortly after I ordered the new Lipo powered 8200 version - shhh!).

RIP you little screamer.

Magnetic switch

This is a great device!
You plug it between the battery and Rx and swipe it with a magnet to turn it on and off.  It's tiny, safe as houses and means you only need to tape your nose cone on once!
To get yours for €20 visit Zepsus.

Fosa repairs

Back in the summer in North Yorkshire I had a bit of a moment and pancaked the Fosa in.  Whilst these latest fuselages are unbelievably light and more than strong enough in the air they don't like loads that they weren't designed for.  So even a relatively low energy arrival can crease them up if the loads were not in the designed for directions.
In this case it broke the boom in two, cracked it behind the wing root and generally mangled it around the forward part of the wing root.  The inner nose and nosecone were creased as well.
I enjoy repairing fuselages and this one was actually pretty simple and so rewarding I even bothered to paint it!
The photos should give you an idea of the steps used. Halfords acrylic paint used throughout - it's fantastic stuff.
And... it gave me a chance to install a brilliant magnetic switch from Zepsus.
See photos on iPad or iPhone

Wow!

Welsh Open results and photos

What an interesting three days!  It was rather weird for me driving 400+ miles to my old home competition. I arrived around four on Thursday and had a lovely hour or so drifting back and forth with the Precision in light air.  She continued to impress, more than enough for me to fly her in the event as my number one plane.

Friday dawned with low cloud on the back of the Wrecker.  There was almost too much lift for sport flying as it catapulted those that tried swiftly into the low cloud.  There were several hurried landings but only one fatality.

Using various different websites, most accessed from Simon's hardy iPad, we gambled that when the rain came in it would bring a shift of direction to SW and put us on Mickey's slope. Right on cue the rain arrived and we boldly took the waiting course down and got all the pilots back in their cars for the three minute drive to Mickey's Slope.  It turned out to be a great decision and within minutes the rain had cleared and the wind was bang on SW.

Bjorn certainly thought is was an inspired decision as he posted a 31.59 to win the round. Mike Evans took second with 33.05 and Gerardo was third with 33.72.  In fact the top 19 pilots all posted times below 40 seconds, which I don't think I've ever seen before.

We got two thirds through round two and then the rain came back.  As previously agreed we took the decision to group score and as the natural split was virtually two thirds to one third and the forecast was dire we decided to go with that rather than go 50/50 and force pilots to re-fly.  Dag won the first group with 34.92 and Martin Newnham won group two back on Mickey's the following morning with 37.56.

Alvaro took round three with 33.90. Jose took second with 34.64 and Carles took third with 34.73.  

Joel took round 4 with 36.19, Dag was second with 36.24 and Adam was third with 36.79.

We'd braved a lot of showers to get that far but part way through round 5 the shower turned into something far more significant and we had to abandon the hill.  Again the natural split was two thirds to one third so we went with that again to ensure consistency.  The winner of group one was Stefan with 39.45.

The next morning we respected the weather forecasts and sat out the rain in the car park by the T junction until getting on for 2 o'clock.  Simon's trusty iPad predicted we might get a brief window that could allow us to finish round 5 and possibly get another round in.  So we marched everyone across to the Ice Cream slope despite the huge showers on the horizon and most people thinking we were bananas.  Sure sure though we only had one small shower and we managed to finish round five and get in a sixth round as well!

The winner of the second group in round 5 was Mike Evans with 41.41.

Round 6 went to Richard Bago with 39.61, second was Bjorn with 40.16 and third was Joel with 40.57.

That final round was to prove crucial for Joel who slipped ahead of Alvaro to win.  I think all agree that Joel was a worthy winner as he used every ounce of air and didn't give away an inch yet made no mistakes. In fact if you look at the top 10 you can see that the spread of points was minuscule and certainly the closest race I can remember. Seventh to fourth covered by only six point is just bizarre!

Huge thanks to T9 who arranged great sponsorship with MKS that gave the the winners hats, T shirts and 6 top spec servos.

More on models and stuff tonight.

See photos on iPad/iPhone

place	pilot	Team	Country	total
1	Joel West	Mickey's Massive	England	4682.89
2	Alvaro Silgado	Watering Cans	Spain	4669.25
3	Dag Skoglund	Bubble	Norway	4655.71
4	Bjorn Tore Hagen	Bubble	Norway	4606.49
5	Simon Thornton	Team GBU	England	4602.19
6	Gerardo Plaza	Watering Cans	Spain	4602.18
7	Kevin Newton	Team GBU	England	4600.01
8	Mark Redsell	Dragon Slayer	England	4561.87
9	Greg Dakin	Tea Swillers	England	4543.82
10	Mike Evans	Dragon Slayer	England	4525.66
11	Espen Torp	Bubble	Norway	4521.02
12	Richard Bago	Team Web	England	4520.33
13	John Phillips	Tea Swillers	England	4519.49
14	Adam Richardson	Dragon Slayer	England	4477.78
15	Stephan Bertschi	Mickey's Massive	Switzerland	4470.60
16	Martin Newnham	Team GBU	England	4437.91
17	Angel Lopez	Forever Aldayso	Spain	4427.26
18	Jose Luis Alvarez	Birds	Spain	4405.61
19	Iñigo Herrera Millan	Mic	Spain	4382.71
20	William Jul Ringkjob	Norway 2	Norway	4368.21
21	Jorgen Wake Stensen	Norway 2	Norway	4343.79
22	Carles Aymat	Mic	Spain	4342.82
23	Peter Gunning	Mickey's Massive	Scotland	4339.06
24	Kjell Sture Johansen	Norway 2	Norway	4321.17
25	Iñaki Elizondo	Watering Cans	Spain	4298.46
26	Fernando Moro	Forever Aldayso	Spain	4264.05
27	Keith Wood	Team Web	England	4258.32
28	Mark Abbotts	Exiles	England	4220.01
29	C M Cheng		Hong Kong	4215.28
30	John Bennett	Foggy Bottoms	England	4208.04
31	Frank Hulton	Exiles	England	4171.48
32	Jesus Herrera	Forever Aldayso	Spain	4150.47
33	Jon Edison	Team Web	England	4146.14
34	Mike McCracken	Team Sofa Can Fast	Scotland	4101.63
35	Scott Ravenscroft	Barbarians	England	4033.59
36	Miguel Gutierrez Lecue	Birds	Spain	4017.45
37	Marcelino Punal	Mic	Spain	4008.80
38	Iain Medley-Rose	Foggy Bottoms	England	3999.12
39	George Young	Team Sofa Can Fast	Scotland	3985.60
40	Ian Mason	Exiles	England	3949.18
41	Dave Rumble	Team Wreckers	England	3931.96
42	Alfredo Arjona Garcia	Birds	Spain	3893.60
43	Mike Shellim	Foggy Bottoms	England	3852.82
44	Jason Bioletti	Team Wreckers	England	3843.91
45	Mick Walsh	Team Sofa Can Fast	Wales	3822.16
46	Andrzej Tabero	Tea Swillers	Wales	3722.81
47	Wing Wong		Hong Kong	3711.57
48	John Trebble	Dream Team	England	3696.54
49	Vic Eldridge	Dream Team	England	3431.30
50	Tony Robertson	Dream Team	England	2830.72

place	team	sum
1	Bubble	13783.22
2	Team GBU	13640.11
3	Watering Cans	13569.89
4	Dragon Slayer	13565.31
5	Mickey's Massive	13492.55
6	Norway 2	13033.18
7	Team Web	12924.79
8	Forever Aldayso	12841.78
9	Tea Swillers	12786.11
10	Mic	12734.32
11	Exiles	12340.67
12	Birds	12316.66
13	Foggy Bottoms	12059.98
14	Team Sofa Can Fast	11909.39
15	Dream Team	9958.56
16	Team Wreckers	7775.87
17	Barbarians	4033.59