SUNDAY the 2nd March 2008
This was the date for my brain child , F3P for all to participate in . Adrian my brother was my main man as to putting this together , also a few of Dungannon flying club mates like Eric and John and not to mention the help and support of Banbridge modellers !
First thing to sort was venue , I chatted with Dungannon district council and found them to be very helpfull , sorted ! The leisure center was ours for the Day ! Yipee !
Next was sponsors , First thing in my mind was this comp was not about money . I wanted to encourage people into indoor flying and my aim was for newbees . So i got on my PC and got the numbers of the major suppliers of RC produts in the UK . First up was FLIGHTPOWER . They were first onboard and all i asked for was products relating to indoor flying , batterys and speed controllers and FLIGHTPOWER hates , T-shirts etc. were soon to arrive on my doorstep . HORIZON HOBBYS were next onboard , they were again very, very generous , FREESTYLE RC sent models , as did WWW.EXPRESSFLY.CO.UK , CPS Hobbies , LEEDS model center , Robotbirds , FLying Doctor , and gift tokens from Mid-Ulster models .
Next was the judging panel . This is very important to me to get right and i did study alot of options , i went for Ireland premier judge Ray Jennings to be the anchor man , next was my club judge Ian Cardwell , Banbridge was well repersented by Dennis McNeill , Andrew Wallace repersented Ballymoney club and Liam Nolan was another anchor man . We had scribes in place from compeditors in other sections to help our judges .
Catering was again covered by our clubs members .
Soon the word was out and the buzz got started . We received interest from all parts of Ireland and the UK . We were taken aback !
Adrian and myself aimed at around 20 pilots after the first day of registering 21 pilots were onboard . This set alarm bells ringing , so we were forced to cap the entry numbers to 30 so we could fit all into one day .
We had 3 schedules open to pilots , novice , F3P-C and F3P -B , and the aeromusical was open to all .
The novice schedule was again well supported and the ages ranged from 9 year old Adam Robb to my father aged 76 ! Mr. Reggie as christened by Donatas .
The C schedules was very compeditive with lots of great pilots
B section is the most demanding and it was a first time for alot of pilots who are top of their field out doors but new to indoor .
The registration should 6 pilots from England , 1 from Scotland and 3 from the South of Ireland . This was a massive achievement in its own right . The Top UK pilots were all up to travel to Ireland .
Practising now began in earnest .
First thing i did was to get a high rate competition model , and first choice was a CLIK , www.expressfly.co.uk had them instock so my plane was soon ready to fly . I will soon be building another one so the build thread on the CLIK will be my next project .
The CLIK really flys so true and has no real vices . My good friend Matthew Poots was also a CLIK flyer and soon we realised that the clik would help us get good results . Expressfly asked us to present their company in the indoor competition , which we were more than happy to do .
Sunday the 2nd of March soon arrived . All the preperations were in place and i was very nervous . Not only had i to think about flying but i had the responsability of all the compeditors and making sure all was ok for our visiting pilots . Adrian again was truely amazing on the day and proved he is one in a million . Kees was the man on the scores and this is a difficult job , Trevor Poots was the flight line supervisor and he kept the pilots rolling , our John was the man on the mic and he kept us well entertained , Eric was the caterer and the transmitter pound superviser . Everyone was in there place , LET THE FLYING BEGIN !
Flying started at 11 am on the dot , and what a standard of flying in every section , i was amazed ! Everyone had practised and it showed how in their flying .
F3P can be sometimes boring to watch but the gallery was buzzing and visitors enjoyed the sight of small foamy planes being flown to such a high standard of control .
Aeromusical are very spectator friendly and this is were there is a chance of a crash and there were a few incidences but no real damage was done to aircraft . The leisure center was rocking to the sound of music , this is the part i love .
I was going to put up the winners but i think that everyone that flew were winners in every section . This was one in a life time event for Northern Ireland . Will i run one again ?
Richard
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