Bob's Beery Banter 2014

Bob’s Beery Banter 2014 F3B League Dateline 16/04/2014.

What can I say? It hasn’t started yet & we’re almost into Easter. Most of the whole winter has been filled with unflyable Sundays, followed by glorious Mondays when I’m at work. Any Sundays which have been flyable have been taken up with family excursions usually involving dogs—we have four & a half of the little buggers.

Hence the Fosa has not been flown since October 2013. Now some may say that this is a good thing because it’s still in one piece. Perhaps so—every launch is one nearer its destruction! Strangely enough, these days I have more wing bags then models.

It wasn’t a bad winter in that we visited Australia and got to know some of Marlene’s long lost relatives, I would have liked to get to the odd flying comp while there, but time didn’t allow (or Marlene). However, I did come home with a video equipped Quad copter which I have had some fun with – I am constantly amazed at the quality of video which can be recorded from such a small camera to be played back later on the laptop. I also bought a Hobson Spyhawk. Search & rescue from the WETLANDS Bermuda triangle was it’s intended use, but I struggle to master fpv with this model. This is the hardest thing I have ever flown; it can only be described as semi – FPV. Interestingly enough, it also has a gyro function and I can now appreciate more the gyro argument. Certainly, in such a small flying platform it makes a huge difference. I feel that gyros will probably find their place in competition because it will probably be impossible to detect their use at times. I am sure that this may undermine the skills of some natural pilots (eg Daryl Perkins) who can fly with a more reward CG than most of us, but I feel that these pilots of natural ability would still come out on top.

I understand that this year’s UK Nationals are to be held with F3B clashing with the first day of the F3J Nationals.

What ?

I feel we are opening too many disciplines for too few people. Ok, I do think that we will eventually all fly electric, but why fly 2 pure glider events on the same day? I am the original competition junkie, and will fly all events whenever possible. For some reason, the majority of F3J pilots in the country regard F3B either as a black art or as boring as watching paint dry.

In most other countries there is more of a crossover. Top pilots who fly F3J also fly F3B, F5J, F3K, F3F and sometimes more. Certainly most of our top F3J pilots (I only say most, not all) appear to think that nothing can be learned from flying other disciplines

I would really like to her the views of foreign competitors.

F3B comps are falling in numbers in the country, as are all flying competitions. Possibly with the exception of F3F. These are mad bastards anyway. That is code for “I’m crap at it”

I don’t believe that there is a great hope for our F3J or F3B British teams to do well if they do not, or will not attempt to fly anything other than their chosen disciplines.

However, enough of this rant, I can’t programme my MPX 4000. I blame this on the late 60’s, early 70’s – My introduction to computers was in the form of basic fortran language. This consisted of sheets of Binary code which I couldn’t get my head round. Ok, the flow charts were plausible, but the execution of it was too boring. Who would believe that computers would catch on anyway? So I ditched it. At that time it didn’t matter. It was after the pill had been invented, and before AIDs had been invented. I had for too good a time to consider the fact that computers could rule the world and mobile phones with your actual personal phone number that you could use anywhere could only exist in the realms of science fiction.

Imagine a world where nobody could contact you 24/7. Trust me it was great!

There are times now when I think “I’m too old for this shit!” I’m 64 almost. These thoughts usually come when I can’t get into a particular Sports car easily, or see a model as far away as I used to. I may drive quick, but never 10/10 now I’m still good at circling non- existant lift, but that has always happened too often.

Hey Ho - 2014 – Rock on!