THE CLAPA CHAMPIONSHIPS 2008    

 

 

     All the participants at the UK's premier Control line event of the year. The CLAPA Championships at the National water sports centre.       

 

Rob Kitley (right) Winner of the CLAPA 2008 F2B CLAPA

Championships

 Mick Taylor receiving the Ron Moulton Trophy (for winning the

the Classic at the 2007 Nats) from Peter Jackson

 

Another fantastic CLAPA Championships with ideal weather for the whole weekend. Stunt heaven for sure! Thanks are extended to Mike Parry

for providing  photos for the magazine and website. Look out for more images in the CLAPA Championships report in Aeromodeller magazine.

Thanks also to our Judges who handled a record entry in F2B and Classic and to the "behind the scenes" members who made it all happen -

scorers and runners- without there help it would have been a non-event.

 

   Championship Overview & F2B Report from John Benzing   

 

For the third year running we were favoured with good weather – warm and overcast, but most importantly, calm. A record entry meant there was a waiting

list for F2B and Classic, but as several dropped out everybody was eventually accommodated. Despite rain prior to the Champs the Parks Department did

us proud and produced a very well cut grass flying field.  The free practice on Friday was more popular then ever and queuing was the order of the day.

The AGM was attended by 35 members – the minutes will appear in a future issue of Claptrap. The annual Dinner was again held at Ashmores Restaurant and

was   attended by 40 members. Concours was won by Paul Winter’s Bearcat and anybody who has seen this model will understand why.

It was nice to welcome members from Ireland and also a contingent from Scotland, which included F2B judge Bill Grieve. Thanks to you all for your

participation. With such good flying conditions the UK’s top F2B flyers (and team members) were dominant and it was a pleasure to watch their superb and

accurate flying. Thanks must be extended to all those that made the Champs happen – Scorers, Judges and Runners – without your help it would all have been

 a non-event. Altogether a great weekend of Aerobatic C/L flying and here’s looking forward to next year, which has already been booked at the same venue

for the long weekend of  5th – 7th June 2009.

 

   Classic - Judged and Reported by Peter Jackson    

 

There were 13 advertised competitors in this event. The general flying at the top of the event was very good with Paul Winter putting in three good flights.He was

followed closely by Mike Taylor and Glen Alison. I think it is noticeable that the top five competitors were very close to each other, and generally the standard had

improved on last year. This time there was only one overrun, which was a stark contrast to last years’ event and made my newly acquired whistle (for signalling an

overrun) unnecessary. Finally my hat goes off to Terry Baker who keeps coming back for more well done.

 

  Class 2 -  Judged and Reported by Bill Smith & Mick Castell   

 

As last year, the standard was a little disappointing, with similar mistakes being repeated.  This tends to suggest that fliers are practicing alone and reinforcing

their mistakes.  If possible, get someone to observe your practice flights and offer constructive comments.

Some lessons had been learnt however, as level flight was better and at least one pilot aborted a manoeuver rather than crash the model.

Again, loops and horizontal eights tended to be too narrow and too high (vertical ovals).   Only John Milner and Peter Jenkins managed decent square loops

otherwise they were poor, most competitors trying to make them too small so losing speed and stalling the model and losing the shape. This is a 12K factor

manoeuvre so worth improving.

Well done to Pete Jenkins on his victory.

 

  Vintage - Judged and reported by Mick Taylor   

 

A good entry of nine in Vintage this year. Mostly familiar models (and pilots!) with the exception of Bob Pickering’s Inverting Stunter by Jim Saftig a slightly

earlier version of the better known Super Zilch, also the Hal DeBolt Stuntwagon by Bill Brown down from Scotland. Unfortunately Bill had had little flight

time on the model and was unfamiliar with the schedule so only flew one round.  Flying wise, comments are much the same as last year and concerning varying

manoeuvre heights, shapes, superimposition etc. plus some flyers are still not sure how many laps of inverted are required – it’s in the rule book!   Glen Alison

 lacked his usual reliability, which left Mike Nelson and Eric Hawthorne to battle it out again for the top positions as last year, but Eric is narrowing the gap!

 

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