LATEST NEWS

JANUARY 2012

Please return all club cups and trophies, cleaned, to either comp. sect. Peter Smedley or club sect. Kingsley Martin in time for re-presentation at the

annual dinner in February. You will find with your news letter in the post a menu booking form for the dinner-please complete and return to Chairman Mike Till. Free parking is the shared car park with the Rashliegh Inn on the left as you enter Charlestown, be careful walking over the cobblestones though! In the council car park on the other side of the road you are expected to pay in the evening we understand.

The club will be holding a raffle at the dinner towards expenses/tip as previously and contribution to prizes will be gratefully recived on the day.

FOR THOSE WHO DID NOT REJOIN AT THE AGM THERE ARE 2012 MEMBERSHIP FORMS AVAILABLE AND RETUNABLE TO ALAN LANDER.

You will note that the senior fee has been retained at £16, Jnrs £1, thos was approved at the AGM. The treasurer reported a healthy balance of accounts.

IF YOU HAVE NOT REJOINED BY FEBRUARY 5TH THE NEW MEMBER JOINING FEE WILL APPLY

We owe our thanks to Dave and Kim Sullivan for the excellent home made mince pies that he bought to the AGM-thankyou.

We are sorry to inforn members of the passing, after a short illness, of long-esteemed member Don Bilkey of St. Austell on Dec 16th. Don was a keen aircraft enthusiast all his life, and in the R.A.F. he was scheduled for pilot training until he was found to be colour blind, he was then enrolled as a radar technician. Back in civilian life he spent many years as a instrument technician with E.C.C. (precursor of our site owner Imerys Minerals). Don was a "mine" of aeronautical information to our club members - your secretary willl miss the many discussions with him on scale aircraft. The club awarded Don Honourary Membership in 2007. At Don's funeral on Dec 29th at Glynn Valley Crematorium ten members attended with Alan,Ted,Dave and Kingsley acting as bearers. Many thanks for them turning out, the weather was atrocious.

Following the AGM in Dec the club resolved to adopt the system as recently added to BMFA "A" & "B" proficiency tests where all pilots should take off whilst standing in the pilots box, unless it is not practicable. Alan Lander is going to contact the new land agent to see if longer hours could be allowed for weekday flying - more later. Proposer, Peter Smedley also suggested we run a Public Open Day to allow locals to see what we do and try "taster" flights.

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

FRI JAN 20TH.. Club meeting 7.15pm Indian Queens Victory Hall. Includes "bring along your obscure or vintage model engine", see if others can

identify it. A talk on "reliability of I.C. engine running". Indoor flying at 8.15pm in the main hall after the youth club.

SAT. FEB. 25TH.. ANNUAL CLUB DINNER at the Pier House. Including Annual Prize Presentation. Arrive 7.30 for 8.00pm

FRI MARCH 23RD.. Club meeting at Indian Queens Victory Hall with "ANNUAL SPORT & SCALE CONCOURS" with "best completed ARTF", "Scale Model" and "Sport Model" classes. We will also welcome club member Pat Jones,engineer, who is proposing to show us his progress on his latest model- an own design of the Napier Lion 12 cyl aero engine of "W" configuration. Please note we cannot use the main hall until 8.15pm to assemble models,so could you leave them in the anti-room or vehicles. After which there will be indoor flying.

COMPETITION RESULTS

Annual Scale Concourse: Winner, Richard H. , Hanriot Dupont WW1 Fighter. A highly detailed worthy award.

Annual ARTF Concourse: 1st, Martin F. ,Electric powered Spitfire inc 100w sound system!!!

2nd, Alan L. , P40E Curtis Kittyhawke

Spot Landing Comp on 16th April 2011

1st. Richard H. 4'10"

2nd. Mike T. 12'7"

3rd. Peter C. 16'11"

Flying Scale Comp Winner: Kingsley Martin, Nakajima Ki 43 2a "Oscar"

2nd. Ted Parkyn, Maule

3rd. Alan Lander, D.H. Tiger Moth Racer

Clubman Aerobatic Comp

Winner: Peter Coates, Osmose, 284 points

2nd. Kingsley Martin, Star Delta, 242 points

3rd. Andy Rowland, Ultrastick, 241 points

Vintage Comp

Joint 1st : Peter Smedley,Junior 60 & Mike Till, Red Zepher, 194 points

3rd. Peter Coates, Black Magic, 153 points

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The BMFA Cornwall area has instigated 3 inter-club competitons this summer and they have gone very well. The first was a scale comp. at our Maggie Pie site in May, where the local club did very well ! We split the comp. into 2 classes- Plan/kit/own design( flier built) and ARTF.

Results as follows,

Plan/kit/O.D.

1st: Kinsley Martin, St. Austell DMC, Nakajima "Oscar". 2nd: Alan Lander, St.Austell DMC, DH Tiger Moth Racer. 3rd: Mike Till, St. Austell DMC, Pitts Super Stinker.

ARTF

1st: Mark Simmonds, Redruth Club, Hawker prototype,built by Chris Golds. 2nd Alan Lander, St. Austell DMC, Pitts Special. 3rd:Mark Milne, Redruth Club, Turcano.

The aerobatic event was run by Truro Club very efficiently at their Trendeal Site and featured 14 entries. Darron Mee from the reformed Davidstow Club came a worthy 1st and we could see why he competes nationally in F2A aerbatics. Steve Tremaine was 2nd from Reduth. Mike Till from St. Austell was 3rd. Roger Kellow from St. Mellion was 4th.

The FUN-FLY was held by Redruth at their Northclifffs field. It featured climb and glide, 3 loops,3 rolls and land. And a spot landing round. Only 1 round could be flown so it was over quickly. Redruth members won all the places.

HINTS AND TIPS

Wit the weather conditions locally being so variable, do you have difficulties judging if it's flyable before travelling to the site? After consulting the local Met. forecasts are you diappointed on arriving at Maggie Pie site?

Well I used to be but use slightly different methods thesedays- our club secretary writes. The mid Cornwall weather is greatly affected by the clayhills forming a rain shadow, that is they force the prevailing wind to rise which cools as it rises. Moisture in the cooler air condenses into rain which falls on top and after the clay hills. Our site is to south west of the clay hills which means it is before the rain shadow and usually dry whilst it is raining in Bugle and Roche.

I prefer looking at the isobars on the forecast map rather than written wind directions. Anti-cyclones ( high pressure ) rotate clockwise and depressions ( low pressure ) rotate anticlockwise ( in the northern hemisphere ), this enables one to see the wind direction at the flying site, whereas the written forecast is for a bigger area.However, with the sea on both sides of Cornwall this affects conditions such that the weather is frequently different from one coast across to the other, with different wind strength and direction.

Before setting out to the site, to check on wind strength I look up at the lower clouds, if they are scudding along briskly expect difficult, turbulent flying, especially if the wind is from the west, the new clay tip to the west of the site causes lots of turbulance with westerlies.

North westerly and south easterly winds can be also fairly turbulent. South, east and norht east winds are generally far less turbulent as there are no hills nearby to generate uplift.

Another large effect on windspeed is time of day. It is generally calmer in early morning and late evening as there is lees heating from the sun. However, expect the wind to be biased by sea breezes from the south coast, that is slightly southerly in the morning ( onshore ) and slightly northerly in the evening ( offshore ).

If large cumulo nimbus clouds ( puffed up columns with dark bases) are moving over the site expect large swings in wind direction and strength over the short term. If it's completely overcast with featureless cloud don't expect the weather to change for a while.