Contest 4 of the

2001 JR / Airsail F3B Series,

hosted by MPMAC at Matamata,

on September 9-10, 2001.

CD: Warwick Gatland

Summary, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4

The forecast for this weekend was looking good, however when the rain set in on Friday and hadn't let up into the wee hours of Saturday morning we were starting to wonder if we'd actually get any flying in. Shouldn't have worried though as it turned out beautifully fine both days and although the field had a few soggy patches it was pretty well drained overall - once again Warwick had managed to come up with a great flying site. As has become de-rigueur this year what little wind there was seemed to be predominately at 90 degrees or more to the winch lines and course - the trick was judging whether or not there was enough breeze to benefit from a weave launch.

Conditions were quite thermally for most of the two days, although you generally had to work pretty hard to find the lift and utilise it. Sink was much easier to find, and if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time you could loose big in any of the three tasks. Some of the duration slots were flown late in the afternoon and these were particularly challenging as the lift was not only localised but also very light. For a couple of slots of round 4 distance there was huge lift as a nor-easterly coverged overhead with the prevailing southerly drift. The following slots then had to contend with some very tricky conditions resulting from the sudden change of airmass and wind direction.

Speed was also hard work with plenty of relaunches in evidence. At times there was big air on the course, while other times the launches just got lower and lower, and the models flew the course like they had brakes on! Made for some interesting results, particularly in round 3 where 11 year old junior Lewis Williams flew a very smooth 28.55 second run that put him right amongst some of the senior A-league fliers! Also of note was Aneil Patel's 4th round speed effort - after 3 launches he completed the run with 1 second of working time to spare, managing to drag his wingtip through the grass as he crossed the line. Luckily the model was heading upward and despite an impressive yawing manueovre had enough height to recover and land normally!

Fastest speed time of the contest was 18.00 seconds by Dave Larsen in round 1, while most distance laps went to Peter Nola with 22 in round 4.