With the forecast being all over the place in the week leading up to this event, Paul made the late decision that we could probably squeeze it in before the weather changed. He asked that everyone arrived for a prompt start which all did apart from Chairman Bill Scott, who forgot it takes him 20 mins more to get to Doagh than Mallusk!! (Doh!).
The wind was coming from the west creating some slope lift if you were willing to push a fair distance out to find it. Paul set up for 5 rds, 1 discard, followed by a 2 rd 2 man fly off. Landing bonus was in action. Conditions at low level in the field were turbulent with many finding in Rd 1 that their final turn back in to wind stopped them dead and they couldn’t push forward again to the landing tape. Nigel had a bad landing in rd 1, cracking his fuselage and creasing a wing tip slightly and decided not to stress the model further and pulled out. Launching in Rd2 Bill’s model didn’t respond to elevator and he landed it in the next field. All looked innocuous, but the fus was split and the inner tip panel damaged, also ruling him out of continuing. The competition continued with Andrew willing to push further out than most and gaining the benefit of the little slope lift there was. David was also steadily racking up points being there or there abouts, despite the slight handicap of flying a model of just 2m span. At the end of the 5 rds, the scores were:
This put Andrew and Sam in to the fly off with David a very creditable, (and close) third!
The fly off was exceptionally close with both flyers flying out the slot and getting the bonus, giving a first ever for NIMSA of a dead Heat!
With the weather deteriorating further and after a brief discussion it was decided the winner would be worked out on ‘count back’ This meant Andrew taking the 2022 Open E-soaring Champs with a better score than Sam in Rd 5. Congratulations to them both and to Paul for a very good and challenging event.
