Irish Nationals  Saturday 9th July at Ringcommon Sports grounds 

Irish Nationals  Saturday 9th July at Ringcommon Sports grounds 

 

For the second year in a row Ringcommon was the agreed site for the Irish C/L National Championships, a move from the Brinny site in Cork.   The competition had been confirmed weather-wise the previous Thursday.  The forecast was for light winds and cloudy sunshine all day and for once it was dead accurate.  

 

Entries were down this year as Kevin Barry could not make it and Chris Gilbert opted not to fly due to lack of opportunity to practice and to test fly his model.  Maurice Doyle and Peter Bradshaw travelled from Northern Ireland.   Ivan Bolton and Stuart Holland travelled a very much shorter distance!  John Molloy kindly agreed to judge the event.  It was decided to fly the usual 3 rounds in F2B best 2 to count and 2 rounds in Classic with the single best score to count. 

 

Maurice having done the flight for the Judge the competition began in a timely manner at 10.45.   Peter Bradshaw starting the flying with his ST 51 powered Blue Pearl with his ST 51 purring beautifully.  Then followed by Ivan Bolton (Electric Stiletto), Stu Holland  (electric Cardinal profile)  and Maurice Doyle with his venerable ST60 powered Aquilla  with again as usual a beautiful engine run.   

 

The only serious problem encountered was that,  what wind there was kept shifting.  It was very hard to decide where to ask the judge to sit and poor John Molloy would have needed wheels on his seat as he was asked to move repeatedly when each pilot struggled to judge the wind for his flight.  Most of us encountered what breeze there was coming from a less than favourable direction at some point during our flights, despite the aforementioned  careful positioning of the judge at the beginning.  Also the grass on the football pitch was a little long, making take offs a little tricky.  In round 2 Ivan Bolton broke the wooden prop when his Stiletto tipped up on take off.  An attempt was called and he then opted to fly his Shark 45 in the round due to lack of a spare prop for the Stiletto    

 

The last two rounds were flown after lunch by which time the wind had settled to a gentle southerly breeze.  The standard of flying, as usual, improved as the rounds progressed.  Stu Holland at last edged ahead of Maurice Doyle, having been nipping at his heels for years, to win the competition with Maurice a close second, Ivan Bolton was third and Peter Bradshaw fourth. 

 

The two rounds of classic were flown with Maurice flying his venerable Warbuton designed U2 with ST46 for power.  Stu Holland was flying his Fox 35 powered Smoothie and Ivan Bolton flew his Shark 45 powered by a Saito 56. Both Stu and Ivan had over runs:  the record was set by Ivan at 9 minutes, instead of the regulation 7 minutes.   Results of the Classic were in the order above. 

 

So ended a truly great day’s flying.  The Ringcommon site is ideal for control-line and earlier this year impressed our UK visitors when the Home International was held there. Thanks to Chris Gilbert for handling the score-sheets and calculating the results on his dedicated spreadsheet program.  

 

 

Photos below :   1 Maurice Doyle’s Venerable U2 which won the Classic competition  2. the pit area.   3. Ivan Bolton releases Chris Gilbert’s Happy Hour as he attempts a test flight.  4. Classic results and scores 

 

 

 

  1. F2B resultsand scores

 

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