Nationals F3J...

is over, and: I got a place in the final! After flying Crossfire all weekend... The plan was to fly my Pike Plus, but a little "misshap..." ended that plan early saturday morning. We flew 8 rounds prelim. A lot of wind all saturday, the thermals was hard to find and fly. We finished 5 rounds saturday, and I had 3 OK rounds and 2 not so good.
Sunday was the oposite to saturday. Verry little wind, and a lot of small thermals. Not always easy to fly. But I got 3x1000 with my Crossfire, and was top 5 in the preliminary rounds. (5 in the finals).
When we started the finals on the afternoon, all wind and thermals where gone. No activity at all in the air, and I realised that my chances was gone... The Crossfire is a good model, but against Perfects and others like, I got no chance at all. And finished 5th. But I am really happy with that... Flying my F3B machine all weekend.
The winner was Jo Grini (his 6th title...), second was Tor Midtlund and third Arnfinn Lie. No. 4 was Alf Erik Ross.
A realy nice weekend it was, lot of good flying and quite some "sosializing..." in the evenings...
A BIG thanx to Jo Grini, he was organising both flying and the sosial happenings, including all meals all weekend.

Yesterday

was again "thursday practice day" at our field. 5-6pilots, and the focus no is F3J, almost all the pilots yesterday is going to attend the nationals. Therefor also just 150 meters to the turnaround pulley, to get a little feeling with the more brutal tension in the starts.
I flew the Plus all evening, and actually starts to like it... Even if the starts are a little lower that I am used to. Because of the wing, of course. But the model handles well in every thing. Also tried "JoJo" setup on the brakes (both flaps and aileron down), and it seamed more effective on this model. Have to get used to "tail up" approaches, but the model was quite easy to handle this way.
Hopefully more flying in the weekend...

I hate...

to crash planes. I hate, hate, hate it... And still does it! Unbelivable...
Last weekend we had our local club championship, not F3B, but LSF-ruels. And I picked up my Brio for this event. After flying Crossfire all summer. And the Brio is a lot quicker on the elevator. And what happens? Crosswind start, a lot of tension on the line, and smack.... There is the line, nicely twisted around the elevatorand rudder. Beautifuly tied together... Straight into mother earth, with locked elevator and rudder. Shit...
I was really angry at my self. And offered the Brio at spot price to the other guys at the field, and whopps: Exit Brio.
OK, the contest of course went shi.... for me, but I promoted my self to contest manager, and we had a nice day anyhow at the field. Erik Morgan became the club champion this year, after nice flying.
Next up for me i the nationals F3J. Yes, I also enjoy flying F3J a lot! And I actually has bought a plane for the nationals... An old Pike Plus SL! Tried it saturday... A lot of flexing in the wing during start, but what a thermal sniffer! Nice and very pleasent to fly. So the Pike Plus and my Crossfire would be my planes for the nationals.
Btw.: The nationals is the weekend of 23rd and 24th of September.
And my club "MFK Vingen" would be represented with 8 pilots for the nationals.

Congratulations to Espen Torp...

Espen won the nationals in Norway this weekend, before Erik C. Morgan (second) and Widar Holmedahl (third). 4 rounds was flown, no flying on sunday because of rain. My self? I ended at 7th place, after terrible flying alomst all saturday... At least it felt so. Actualy not so horrible, but I know I can do better. On the upside: New personal best in task C at friday: 18.32 Happy with that one... Saturdays speed was not good at all. But an average of 19 something is my best so far.
My other teammates Jørgen ended 12th and Øivind 13th.
Results can be found at Cirrus RC club's website.
Speedmaster was Erik C. Morgan with an average of 16,86. Fastes speed was Espen Torp with 16,0 seconds.