Sunday the 8th June saw the first round of the re-vamped NIAA Aerobatics Championships. The decision was made by the NIAA Committee to hold this event over 2 rounds, one at the Ballymoney Club and the other at the North West Model Aircraft Club. The competition was jointly organised by Banbridge and North West. In the interests of keeping the workload down, we decided to keep it simple; it has worked in the past, so why change it. We had plenty of fun at the well organised Indoor events, but the work load for the organisers was crazy (trust me!) so a KISS method appealed all round.

Clubman Class 

The Clubman proved the most popular class with some 10 pilots competing. The models ranged in their types, from very vintage aerobatics models of old, to modern electric powered marvels. In fact in the Clubman class we saw 5 all electric setups. These models actually showed greater performance than any others in the class and took the top 4 positions, interesting!!

Two full rounds of Clubman were flown and the standard was very good, all three judges, Ray Jennings, Dennis McNeill and Myself agreed and commented on the quality of flying, a credit once again to the talent within our area. You can see the scores further on from the 2 rounds and some details, I must personally credit Richard McMaster, I thought both his flights were very good and his freestyle flight after the competition was very technical and precise, one to watch for the future, great flying. Another interesting point to note, 2.4Ghz systems and in particular Spektrum were very dominate, the future is here.

Intermediate Class

The intermediate class had 7 pilots and as you would expect the flying standard was great. The aircraft used in this class ranged from piped 90 2 strokes models, right up to 3m TOC models. Again we flew 2 rounds and had 3 judges, Ray Jennings, Paul Harrison and Iain Johnston. Everyone flew very well, even if some only trimmed their models during the 1st round and it was good to see the schedule being flown well. Stu Holland travelled up from Co. Dublin to fly with us and flew a 2m Focus with an OS 140RX engine, this model was very graceful and Stu deserved his 2nd place, thanks for supporting the event Stu.

No matter how much planning/preparation you put in, any competition is only as good as the weather and site conditions on the day. Well what can I say about the weather, wall to wall sunshine from 10am to 7pm, the wind was light all day making it a perfect day for flying. The site conditions were top notch, the Ballymoney Club as always did a fantastic job and, their facility is the best in the country and the strip and pits area was perfectly prepared. The club also surpassed itself with the pilot facilities, a marquee was erected in case it rained (thankfully all it was used for was some shade from sun), the Caravan was a busy place, with regular cups of tea being served and use of the toilet. The committee of BMFC also insisted that they provide lunch, well I’m glad they did. Two very large Gammon Joints were prepared on a fantastic BBQ, there was also an array of sauces, salads, coleslaw and burgers to boot, this was above and beyond the call of duty and I really thank the host club for this excellent guesture, I don’t think any of the 100 or so people there went hungry and some even got seconds! Archie the chef did an amazing job, all had a great feast. A few of the wives must also be thanked for their tea, coffee and toast service later on in the evening, if you were lucky enough to stay that long!

For me the event was more than a success, it was more than an aerobatic competition, it showed a great spirit within the Area, 17 pilots from 9 clubs represented in the competition, but I counted many more there to watch. We had so many pilots we were unable to run a 3rd round a very nice situation to be in. This is what it’s all about for me and I for one won’t forget the day in a hurry, once again a big thank you to everyone at BMFC (I’ll not name you all as it would fill two pages!) and to every single person who supported the event.

Remember the next round to be held at Newbuidlings (NWMAC) on

look out for details a ^{www.aerobaticsni.com or www.banbridgeaeromodellingclub.org.uk}