GB r/c Aerobatic Association Championships
Held at Buckminster 15th and 16th May 2021
GBRCAA Championships at BMFA Buckminster, 15th/16th May 2021.
I (Mike Rieder) entered the above in the Masters class. The competition was the first of the season for the GBrcAA and being a two-day competition, held at Buckminster meant we could camp over and I took the opportunity to go up on the Thursday so I could add two practice days prior to the comp. This was very valuable to me, due to trying to getting back into flying as well as having to cope with learning the new schedule as I have moved up from the intermediate class that I competed in last year.
Masters Schedule shown in photos.
The weather forecast was not great, so we were expecting to get only a limited number of lights in as there were 17 entries, however, the weather gods were on our side and we ended up we 3 flights each day, which doesn’t sound much, but its enough when your competing, judging and supporting other flyers. We started at 9 am with Pilots and judges briefings the first flight was 9.30 am and finished the day just after six pm.
My first flight was not great, I got blown out (we have to stay on a constant line approx 150m out) and got some competition nerves which meant I cocked up a couple of manoeuvers! I scored 287.75. Next round I started to settle and got 344.25 and in round 3 I got 354.5, note that we drop the worst score for every 3 flights so over two days we flew 6 rounds and dropped our worst two scores. Day two was a bit lighter wind and now a different direction, the scores were 335.3, 345.8, 344.8 for me. So the final result was that I came in second. Which I am personally very pleased with as there were competitors from all over the country including a number from Scotland.
It was a brilliant competition due to favorable weather, great venue, some amazing flying to watch and a really nice group of flyers to spend time with.
I also had the pleasure over the weekend of judging a couple of the classes which is very rewarding but does tax the brain due to the amount of concentration needed.
One of the judging tasks I had was to be one of the wrong manoeuvre judges for the unknown flights this involved sitting to one side of the main judges and following the flight to make sure the pilot was doing the manoeuvres as per the generated schedule ie snapping the right number of times, rolling at the right point and through the correct number of degrees so he came out the right way up (or in knife-edge) etc.. this I found a real challenge as the schedule is computer generated (then checked) but not announced until the morning of the flight so no competitors can practice apart from with a stick plane! So trying to read the aresti diagram whilst following the flight is not easy, how on earth the guys at the top do this is beyond me, but maybe one day!! The two figure of 8’s manoeuvres (highlighted) were great to watch one being done in knife-edge the other with a combined roll each way, ie one slow roll to be completed while flying each half of the 8.
As always if anyone wants to know a bit more about F3a or fancy learning some of the manouvers I would be more than happy to help out. Also, the comp’s are coming to Knettishall on the 4th of Sept and Stoke Ash on 26th June, if you wanted to spectate please contact Peter Jenkins.
PS; Peter has written a great book on how to improve your flying which you can get via amazon which is well worth a look.
Mike