Hole of Horcum F3F

Finally I got to go to the famous Hole of Horcum. I have read about this place for decades and I always wanted to go there. The good reason was to enter the North of England Open which is part of the F3F Eurotour. I needed to try and improve my standings and even I did not fly well or had the needed luck I still managed to get better points for the Tour :-)

It seems like this year there is a very good fight among pilots all over Europe to do well in the Eurotour. This is very good as F3F now is growing and almost wherever you attend one of these contests there are top pilots. It means there is no longer a walk over in some contests like it has been a little bit in the past.
With 11 out of 13 races there is probably around 10 or more pilots which still have a chance to win the overall Eurotour. This is a little bit unique compared to the other classes in the Contest system. Also there is now 227 registered pilots. Very good! http://www.contest-modellsport.de/2009/fr_f3f_ergebnis.html

Well back to Horcum. I teamed up with Greg Dakin and he picked me up at Birmingham Airport. Mark Passingham joined us early in the morning and we drove up to the Yorkshire Moors. Greg and Mark invited me to the new team of the "Tea Swillers" and I was proud to be part of this legendary team.
The local club, North York Moors Ridge Soaring Club with Jon Edison as CD had a tough week with very bad weather reports. But we where lucky, the weather both days was quite good but a bit unstable with lots of variations. But most important very little rain compared to the ugly weather forecasts earlier in the week.
They managed 4 rounds each day and I think with a little bit more luck a few more rounds could have been flown. The wind direction did not cooperate all the time and it was difficult to make the right decisions.
Greg flew well both days and did his part so the Tea Swillers could defeat the SAF team. But both me and Mark did not fly as we hoped for so the SAF team with Perlick, Kowalski and Liebeck beat us.
But more important was Greg Dakin's first Eurotour victory. Well deserved! Did I mention he flew his RaceM made by ET-Air :-)

Thanks to the NYMRSC for a good event and we will meet again next year I hope.

Espen