NORTHERN IRELAND MODEL SOARING ASSOCIATION
(NIMSA)
NAVIGATION
EVENT REPORTS 2009:
(2008 Results can be found here)
(2007 Results can be found here)
(2006 Results can be found here)
(2005 Results can be found here)
**Latest Results at top of page - Oldest at bottom**
Slope 15th Nov 2009
Only 5 of us out today. Tommy, Jimmy, Frank, John Pearson & Bill. Although there was plenty of wind, finding a slope proved difficult as the wind was SW!
Eventually we settled on the slope at the back with the large stone. It doesn't produce a lot of lift and in general we were relegated to lightweight handlaunch models again. Bill tried the Pelicano, but a hard landing broke the bolt beam free. John P tried both his Phase 6 and little PSS model. The phase looked like it was getting away, but as soon as he turned downwind, all control was lost resulting in a few split fuz seams. Bill maidened an Art Hobby Falco which flew will if a little twitchy. A little more lead in the nose should cure it and make it a nice model.
Slope 7th Nov 2009
This was an unscheduled event, but a good forecast early in the week resulted in an invite being sent to all NIMSA members to come out to the slope. On the day, only four of us made it out, (Bill, Tommy, Frank & Jimmy) Paul having called off that morning as he wasn't well enough to travel.
The good forecast early in the week didn't fully materialise. The wind was light, (forecast said strong), but it was sunny for several hours until showers came in around 2.30.
A rather unusual site greeted us on arrival and somebody had obviously had problems getting in to the car park!
This has been reported to Larne PSNI
We had a couple of hours of light wind flying with hand launch models and Frank was having great fun with his Alula Evo. Honest, it is in the picture below!!!
A good day out at short notice, but we have to make the most of the weather, on the few occasions it co-operates!!
Slope 1st Nov 2009
John Pearson and myself dragged ourselves up to the car park today in the (very) optimistic view that the weather would clear through and we might get some flying in good winds. By 1.30 it was obvious this wasn't to be and we headed home
Slope 4th Oct 2009
First slope event of the Autumn and not a bad turnout. 6 us of us made our way up on to Craigy Hill in winds approaching 16 mph , but variable with the lift occasionally dying to almost nothing.
Sam got away first with his RCM Highlander. Good lift and some nice flying. Bill and Frank were both flying converted Rico-She's (X tail instead of V). Both models were flying well but struggled when the lift reduced. Sam had his converted Mpx Fox and was managing to gain significant height. The model was twitchy even with the very small throws Sam had on it.. Louden arrived with his 12ft span Hatchetman Open Thermal model. This is a big heavy model, but after a first poor flight while Louden trimmed it out, it was flying well and gaining height with ease. Paul Freeman arrived late, having been at work in the morning and flew his Raven model which despite it's light weight coped very well and was soon completing loops and rolls with ease. Jimmy Taylor flew his rudder/elevator Filip when the wind dropped a bit and was doing well with it too. All in a good days flying. The wind direction and subsequent choice of slope had an effect on numbers, as Craigy is a fairly steep walk, not suitable for all.
next slope event is in two weeks time.
Open & Electric 20th Sept 2009
Low turnout for a variety of reasons, 5 in thermal and only 3 in electric. Conditions were very changeable with some quite severe wind gusts and very little thermal activity. Only one flight I can remember getting away in lift. Open was flown over 4 rounds of 8 minute duration with a discard. Electric was 3 rounds of 6 minutes, 15 seconds motor run (all models being used were brushless motored)
Results are:
Open Thermal :
| Pilot | Rd 1 | Rd 2 | Rd 3 | Rd 4 | Total | Placing |
| Frank | 1000 | 1000 | 669 |
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2669 | 1 |
| Paul | 712 | 760 |
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932 | 2404 | 2 |
| Bob |
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480 | 721 | 1000 | 2201 | 3 |
| Sam |
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942 | 490 | 701 | 2035 | 4 |
| Ronnie | 466 |
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1000 | 546 | 2012 | 5 |
Electric:
| Pilot | Rd 1 | Rd 2 | Rd 3 | Total | Placing |
| Paul | 1000 | 908 | 1000 | 2908 | 1 |
| Sam | 796 | 1000 | 513 | 2309 | 2 |
| Frank | 774 | 444 | 311 | 1529 | 3 |
Congratulations to Frank & Paul.
This event concludes the thermal season for 2009
click for a larger image
Open & Electric 6th Sept 2009
Cancelled due to low numbers & bad forecast.
Open & Electric 23rd Aug 2009
CANCELLED due to wind & rain!
Boyce Trophy for 100S, 9th Aug 2009
Another good flying day. Overcast with a light wind and the best turnout of the year so far. Ten pilots started this event, although unfortunately only 9 finished, with Bob damaging his model clipping a tree on landing approach.
As last week we flew 4 rounds of 8 minutes, (with 1 discard), followed by the top 2 competing against each other in a further 2 rounds of 8 minutes. As well as Bob having a problem, Frank too was struggling a little. Two pop offs in round 1 resulted in a zero score and in the second round, he lost a tail plane half and managed to get the model down safely. Further examination showed that the joiners had pushed in to one half and even it was only held on by about 5mm of joiner!
After 4 rounds:
| Pilot | Rd 1 | Rd 2 | Rd 3 | Rd 4 | Total |
| Sam | 916 | 1000 | 1000 | 813 | 2916 |
| Tommy | 795 | 446 | 1000 | 679 | 2474 |
| Paul | 811 | 346 | 643 | 1000 | 2454 |
| Andrew | 1000 | 398 | 841 | 504 | 2345 |
| Mike | 596 | 714 | 336 | 557 | 1867 |
| Loudon | 706 | 307 | 271 | 545 | 1558 |
| David | 623 | 219 | 265 | 688 | 1530 |
| Robert | 712 | 238 | 294 | 271 | 1277 |
| Frank | 0 | 0 | 519 | 676 | 1195 |
| Bob | 863 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 863 |
As last week, Sam and Tommy contested the fly off, but 2 and 3 were only separated by 20 points.
Results from the fly off:
| Pilot | Rd 1 | Rd 2 | Total |
| Tommy | 983 | 887 | 1870 |
| Sam | 1000 | 1000 | 2000 |
The "Cheshire Cat" grin of a winner!
more pics from the day here
Area Open Thermal Championships 2nd Aug 2009
This event was rescheduled from June. Six flyers turned out for this event. It was run as 4 rounds of 8 minutes, (with 1 discard round) with the top 2 then flying 2 further rounds of 8 minutes to decide the champion.
Round 1 was very close with 3 pilots within 11 seconds of each other. It also resulted in Jimmy having to change model, as he damaged his first model attempting to get down within 60 seconds for a reflight.
Round 2 had 2 pilots close again and Frank pulling out after damaging his model.
Rounds 3 and 4 again had a couple of pilots getting away and scoring higher than everyone else.
| Pilot | Rd 1 | Rd 2 | Rd 3 | Rd 4 | Total |
| Tommy | 227 | 996 | 977 | 1000 | 2973 |
| Sam | 998 | 1000 | 967 | 681 | 2965 |
| Andrew | 1000 | 552 | 1000 | 800 | 2800 |
| Jimmy | 258 | 892 | 883 | 454 | 2229 |
| Frank | 977 | 394 | 0 | 0 | 1371 |
| Mike | 171 | 0 | 337 | 539 | 1047 |
From the results above, you can see it was very close for the fly off, with Andrew only just missing out
| Pilot | Rd 1 | Rd 2 | Total |
| Tommy | 1000 | 868 | 1868 |
| Sam | 760 | 1000 | 1760 |
In the first flight of the fly off, Tommy got away from Sam to record a flight 90 seconds longer than Sam. Flight 2 was a very close affair, with both pilots sitting on each other and Sam coming out on top, but not by enough to reduce his shortfall from Round 1. A well deserved win from Tommy. Congratulations!
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| Tommy's Eliminator 134
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Ronnie's HLG being launched from the winch | General view of the site |
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| Andrew's Sharp Wind
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In Flight | In Flight |
Thermal Open & Electric 28th June 2009
A low turnout due to holiday and work commitments, (4 in Open / 5 in Electric).
Weather was warm, but overcast with occasional blue patches. There was very little lift and it had to be searched for and worked hard. A good competition day!
Results below:
Open Thermal:
| Pilot | Rd 1 | Rd 2 | Rd 3 | Total | Place |
| Tommy | 894 | 957 | 924 | 2775 | 1 |
| Frank | 836 | 865 | 1000 | 2701 | 2 |
| Jimmy | 1000 | 1000 | 370 | 2370 | 3 |
| Mike | 510 | 784 | 703 | 1997 | 4 |
Electric:
| Pilot | Rd 1 | Rd 2 | Rd 3 | Rd 4 | Total | Place |
| Tommy | 1000 | 283 | 572 | 1000 | 2572 | 1 |
| Jimmy | 269 | 425 | 1000 | 951 | 2376 | 2 |
| Ray | 665 | 369 | 714 | 561 | 1940 | 3 |
| Frank | 562 | 214 | 658 | 543 | 1763 | 4 |
| Mike | 485 | 1000 | 241 | 134 | 1726 | 5 |
Tommy had a good day and won both comps!!
Area Open Champs 14/06/09 (To be rescheduled) 2nd Aug 2009
This event was cancelled after only 1 round. Heavy rain and lightning made it impossible to continue and it will now be rescheduled for some time in Aug 2009.
a few pics from the day can be found here
Thermal Open & Electric 31st May 2009
A day with excellent sunny weather and very little wind - Unheard of!!
6 Pilots flew in Open Thermal and 8 in the electric event. Bill was there, but not flying as he's still recovering from a car crash.
In thermal, flight time was 8 mins, with minus points for over and under this time. It was a scrappy day with flights either getting away or being back on the ground again in short order. Consistency was the order of the day and after 4 rounds with one discard, Frank Jackson came out on top, closely followed by Sam & Paul. Results below:
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Electric was 20 sec motor run for brushless (60 for brushed), followed by a timed glide of 6 minutes, again minus points for over or under time. Again, some flights got away and others didn't. Paul won this flying the electric version of his 2m model.
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A good days flying with most people going home happy (and sunburnt!)
(pics here)
Thermal Open & Electric 17th May 2009
CANCELLED - Due to severe weather conditions and anticipated low turnout
Thermal Open & Electric 3rd May 2009
CANCELLED - Due to severe weather conditions
100S Cup 19th April 2009:
A good turn out, 8 flyers including a visitor (Dave Varallo from East Anglia). Paul Freeman was unfortunately working and Andrew Wallace was at an event at Letterkenny
A good day, with sunshine and light winds. There was lift but it had to be searched for and then worked well to reach the 8 minute time set by the CD. 5 Rounds were flown, which allowed one discard. Dave Varallo was flying a fully moulded Tracker, which needed strong launches and as a result he had quite a few line breaks. Ray Jennings was flying a new model, an Art Hobby Thermic. Unfortunately on his second launch he had a wing fold on launch. Damage was minimal, the wing folded on the centre line and the fuz had a few cracks. It will live to fight again!
The competition was very tight, with the discard keeping things interesting until the final round.
The scores were: (discard in blue)
| Pilot | Rd1 | Rd2 | Rd3 | Rd4 | Rd5 | Total | Placing |
| Jimmy Taylor | 360 | 1000 | 301 | 953 | 1000 | 3313 | 1 |
| Sam Phenix | 1000 | 326 | 1000 | 536 | 711 | 3247 | 2 |
| Dave Varallo | 998 | 220 | 418 | 1000 | 758 | 3174 | 3 |
| Frank Jackson | 787 | 452 | 1000 | 614 | 431 | 2853 | 4 |
| Tommy Magee | 685 | 420 | 340 | 531 | 704 | 2340 | 5 |
| Ray Jennings | 312 | 416 | 236 | 948 | 0 | 1912 | 6 |
| Mike Leonard | 348 | 313 | 292 | 677 | 311 | 1649 | 7 |
| Bill Scott | 66 | 67 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 133 | 8 |
As you can see from the scores, a close run thing with only 139 points separating the top 3!
Congratulations to Jimmy Taylor for winning the first trophy of the year.
(A few more pics can be found here)
Open Thermal/Electric 5th April
It was fairly windy when we arrived at the field, so we spent some time getting new lines on the winches. After this, Paul Freeman launched his Soprano, for what was to be an eventful flight. On final approach to landing a gust caught the model and forced it in to a large tree. About 45 minutes later and much sweating the model was retrieved with some damage to a couple of the carbon capped ribs and the carbon trailing edge. This put a bit of a damper on proceedings and it was agreed to do a bit of sport flying instead of the comp to allow people to blow away the cobwebs and get models sorted out.
Andrew Wallace flew his Sharp Wind, for the first time at NIMSA. This model has been ready to fly for almost 2 years, but the weather has prevented it's appearance at Mallusk.........Until now!
Slope 22nd March
CANCELLED - Wind gusting in excess of 25mph at foot of hill!
Slope 8th March
CANCELLED - Heavy snow
Slope 22nd Feb:
An excellent day. Flew on Craigy Hill after much debate as to which hill to use.
Andrew Wallace came down from Coleraine and flew a very nice Multiplex Flamingo. John Pearson had travelled across from Dungannon, bringing a CMPro DG800 and an (unflown) PSS B52 from the R M Green plans.
Also there from NIMSA were Paul Freeman, Bill Scott, Frank Jackson. Jimmy Taylor and Howard (Stevie) Stephenson. Frank unluckily lost orientation on his model shortly after launch and had a long walk to recover it. Bill had problems with a small Limit and also lost the tail on his Rico-She with a less than perfect landing. Jimmy had a couple of good flights before spinning in after an aileron servo appeared to give up. No damage to the model. Paul, (as usual) had no problems with his small aileron/elevator model which always flies well, no matter the wind strength!
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| John with his B52. 78", 6lbs AUW. Mainly Balsa & foam. From a plan by RM Green | B52 in Flight | and again |
click pic for a larger image
Slope 8th Feb :
Cancelled due to the extreme forecast. Heavy snow, forecast for whole of NI!!