The weather conditions were described as cold & windy - a front had moved in across South Africa the previous day, scratching away the warm conditions we had enjoyed for a few weeks. A small group of people met at the BERG field, shivering against the icy breeze as they contemplated the day ahead.
As per Evan: "Despite the inclement weather the day was actually very good for F3B. There was a nice wind all day straight down the winch lines, so launches were very good and lots of height available for fast speed runs. Some really scintillating speed times were set up with the fastest being a 15.62 second run by Craig. Not to be outdone, Michell clocked a 15.97 second run shortly afterwards. All in all there were 18 sub 20 runs on the day! 5 rounds were completed. The day started off quite late because we had to reset the speed sights into wind. This delayed the start by 1.5 hours so we only managed to finish off at around 10 past 6. The most surprising thing was that just about everyone managed to fly out the full 10 minutes and the last flight were completed way after the sun had set in fast fading light."
Pos, Name, Ave
1, Michelle Goodrum, 2858.89
2, Craig Goodrum, 2848.97
3, Paul Carnall, 2531.89
4, Dion Liebenberg, 2505.09
5, Herman Weber, 2340.31
6, Stephane du Ponsel, 2275.48
7, Alan Smith, 2183.53
8, Derek Marusich, 2036.00 (4 rounds flown)
9, Wolfgang Steffny, 1967.68
10, Rodney Goodrum, 1720.45 (2 rounds flown)
Well done Michelle! Look-out for Paul, he may be an expert thermal duration pilot but he is becoming an accomplished multi-disciplinary pilot too. Dion also recorded a 16.75 speed-run, who together with Craig & Michelle, are all posting sub-17 second runs! This places ETB & MMS as the clubs fielding the top F3B pilots at the moment.
I predict that the team qualifiers are going to be very, very close.
Fly Safely
