Goole & District RC Aero Club held their Clubman's 3D Competition and Fun-fly on the weekend of the 30th April 2005. Although no one from Cleveland Model Helicopter Club entered the actual competition we went to see what the level of flying was like and to join in the fun fly. The flying site location was easy to find and the field itself was well looked after with nice flat, freshly cut grass. The flight and crowd lines were marked out clearly with red and white barrier tape and tents were erected for the transmitter control and peg board.

Friday afternoon got of to a good start with plenty of 'off the peg' flying by all the pilots who had turned up. The weather was calm, bright and sunny which was better than how the rest of the weekend would turn out! There were some extremely competent pilots flying which made us feel that we were glad not to have entered the competition as the standard seemed extremely high for what was going to be a clubman's event. It did however, turn out that the majority of the pilots we saw flying were not actually entering the event....
 

On the Saturday afternoon the guy's from Skyline Models let pilots have a go at a spot auto competition using their Millenium. They had also brought along their huge Jetcat turbine machine which they demonstrated and even let some lucky pilots have a hover around with it.

Nightflying took place on both the Friday and Saturday nights and there was plenty of action to be seen along with a couple of unfortunate spectacular crashes.

We were woken on Saturday morning to the sound of torrential rain beating down on the caravan roof. Not a good start but it did slowly easy throughout the morning with only a few brave enough to fly in it. Everyone gather under the marquees with their models waiting for it to clear. Eventually come mid morning the sun started to come out and the flying began once more. We were expecting a fun-fly style competition on the Saturday with events like flying around poles, knocking bottles over and picking up cones but this was not to be. The day just turned into just more off the peg flying but as there were quite a few pilots getting an actual slot turned out to be pretty impossible and it appeared that once someone got a peg they then passed it around to their mates leaving other to sit and wonder if they were ever going to get a chance to fly!
 

In the middle of the afternoon the flying was stopped briefly so as to draw the raffle which had some fantastic prizes donated by all of the sponsors. Everything from Model kits, blades, gyros, fuel and vouchers were won.

As it moved into the evening the flying continued including electric Zooms and Hornets and then once the sun went down more night flying took place. Someone had also set up a laptop computer and was running their Reflex XTR simulator via a projector onto the side of one of the marquees.
 

As the day of the Competition dawned we were woken again to the sound of light rain but this soon passed and the weather slowly improved. The fifteen pilots that had entered the event had an hour to warm up and get their models running correctly before the pilot briefing at 10am. The judges for the competition were be John Parker, Paul Lison and Simon Brown and they got themselves set up just behind the flight line.

The first round consisted of the pilots chosen five set manoeuvres and the one 'wildcard' manoeuvre. The quality of the flying was pretty reasonable for clubman level and manoeuvres from fairly basic backwards loops to more complex pirouetting flips were chosen. There was quite a range of models used too from 50 size up to 90 size and Raptors to Fury Extreme's. The flying had to be halted briefly on a couple of occasions to let the showers pass but the flying continued throughout the morning. At the end of the first round the clear winner was Bruce Thompson with Barry Curtis in second and Gareth Davies in third.

After a brief break it was time for the DIY round where pilots had 3 minutes to impress the judges with a 3D routine. Again the standard of flying was very good with some of the pilots putting on some fantastic flying. Unfortunately for some they just got a bit too carried away and low and the inevitable happened. The flying was soon over and the judges scored the flights accordingly. At the end of the DIY round Gareth Davies was in the lead with Barry Curtis in second place and Craig Simmons in third. Despite putting on a fantastic flight with his Raptor 90 Bruce Thompson had dropped down to 4th place after he hit the ground doing extremely low inverted pirouettes.

During the lunch interval the raffle was drawn which again had some fantastic prizes donated by the events sponsors. I even managed to win a gallon of Model Technics Bekra 16 fuel! There were also a few demonstration flights put on by some of the worlds top pilots including Duncan Osbourne, John Parker and Steven Gerrard.
 

Once the lunch break was over it was time for the top five pilots from the earlier rounds to fly again with another 3 minute 3D routine. The judges got settled and the flying began again. All five pilots put on fantastic flights but a couple of them crashed as the adrenaline got the better of them leaving it pretty clear who the winner would be....

After crashing out with his Raptor 90 in the DIY round Bruce Thompson bounced back putting on an awesome display with his Raptor 50 to take first place and the Clubmans 3D trophy along with a years supply of fuel donated by Sykline Models. Gareth Davis put on a great flight to come second winning a CSM gyro, Barry Curtis came in third place winning a £25 voucher and Craig Simmons and Craig Jones came in fourth and fifth respectively.