Welsh winter league for Feb 2019

17th Feb 2019 Welsh Winter League.

We arrived to flyable conditions on the back of the Wrecker and quickly set up the course with the hope of getting at least one round completed before the clouds dropped enough to make landing unsafe. We made it to the pilots briefing.....

The forecasts and met office radar suggested that we were looking to be clear just after lunch and that the wind direction would change to have us on Mickey's. So we decamped and went and waited out the rain and clag in our cars.

I actually enjoy these times a little, I'd obviously rather be flying, but it gives a great opportunity to catch up with your mates as when the competition is on we are flying or launching or on a base. Especially when there are only a small number of pilots.

We caught up with each other til around 1pm when the sky lifted and stopped dumping on us, set up the course in no time and were underway with Joel West leading from the front. I struggled to find my line, especially in the first couple of rounds, leading to messy and slow runs. 

Rachel's wise words were ringing in my ears all afternoon.... "you don't practice anywhere near enough..." as they rung true.

Joel had a spectacular day with his very neat and smooth reversals yielding 6 sub 36 second runs with a 30.61 run his fastest. He won the day while winning 4 of the 6 rounds we flew. Congrats Joel!

I actually got that run on video! My phone has been having a bit of a meltdown lately.... It started in focus..... Wind noise warning!!!




Graeme Mahoney had a solid day too! He managed to top the group of 6 pilots within a poofteenth of taking second place. His best time for the day was a blistering 32.52 which gave him the win in the 4th round after also winning the 3rd.

Mike Evans had a relatively consistent day with his Jazz and Shinto to take the third place. His slower runs coincided with Graeme's fastest once, costing him second place.

I was off to a very slow start as I eluded to earlier but managed to get faster during the day with 35's and 36's. This clawed me up to 4th place just beating Mike Shellim, Dave Rumble and Tony Livingston. 
I had a play with reversals and they seemed to work best on the day although my EM line did bear some fruit when it was low and away. I think in one run I managed to do all the available turn styles plus a new one that rolled towards the slope....
I was gutted to find in the spreadsheet that my fastest time of the day (35.32) was my discard as it was against Joels 30.61. Them's the breaks!
I finally tested out my Xmas present and the Big Blue Brolly worked a treat, thanks Rachel!

Chris Studley had a stand out day! He managed to go sub40 twice with his Needle124 and set his PB first to 38.69 and then to a staggering 36.51 with some very beautifully flown reversals. Well done Chris!

Tony (33.88) and Mike S (32.57) also set new personal best times. We had 15m\sec wind pretty much all afternoon with some of it warmer than others effecting the times a little, but not a great deal.

Massive thanks to everyone for mucking in to get the competition flown! 


Roll on March!