7th - 12th August 2023 - Wloclawek, Poland
Teams
| F2A | F2B | F2C | F2D | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peter Halman | Mervyn Jones | Pilot, Chris Barker - Mechanic, Neil Tricker | Gordon Price | |||
| Paul Eisner | Kevin Morgan | Pilot, Charlie Waters, - Mechanic, John Broadhead | Dave Wiseman | |||
| David Brewin | Barry Robinson | Pilot, Simon Molyneux - Mechanic, Nigel Thorpe | Johnathon Crabtree | |||
| Alan Bunker - Team mechanic | ||||||
| Team Manager - Val James | Assistant Team Manager - Jilly Barker | |||||
Today was an early start with processing from 8.15. Spent all morning busy and finally completed at 2pm!
The biggest shock to the organisers was when an F2D (combat) pilot turned up with 20 models, each complete with a motor! They gave up etching his engines after about 8!
Weather nit great with temperatures in the upper teens, very windy abd raining on and off.
Few people braved a fly in these conditions!
First day of competition tomorrow but weather forecast worse than today.
Val James - F2 Control Line Team Manager
A day of high winds and intermittent rain showers stopped any hope of competing today. A horizontal wind sock prompted the decision to cancel F2A, B and C for the whole day and a decision on F2D was finally reached at 2pm after a 5 hour wait.
Those of us who had to remain on site were found in the cafe area keeping warm and dry playing games provided by our hosts.
Hopefully if the forecast is to be believed, we may have some form of competition tomorrow.
Val James - F2 Team Manager
Second day of flying actually saw our team take to the air!
F2A (Speed) first round was run with mixed successes, Paul Eisner did however record a 295.9 kmph.
In F2B (Aerobatics) all our pilots recorded good scores with some over 1000. This leaves them sitting mid table and eager to improve tomorrow. Two rounds were run to make up for yesterday's bad weather.
F2C (Team Racing) again ran two rounds with mixed results. Our best race of the day was Charlie Waters and John Broadhead who put in a respectable 3.33 mins time.
F2D (Combat) ran one round and started the second. Gordon Price has recorded two wins so far and Dave Wiseman one win from only one flight. Johnathan flew the World Champion and performed very well against him.
Although the weather had improved from yesterday it was still cold and torrential rain this afternoon stopped flying for some time.
The team spirit amongst our flyers and mechanics is wonderful and we can look forward to more success in the coming days!
Val James - GBR F2 Team Manager
Day 3 of flying.
Today was a successful day overall for our team!
F2A (speed)
Three good flights! Paul Eisner went over 300kmph with a 300.2 and Peter Halman and David Brewin put in a 297.4 and 293.6 respectively. This puts us in a great position close to the top of the table.
F2B (aerobatics)
All three flyers put in respectable plus 1000 scores which improves their standing in the rankings.
F2C (team race)
Two of our teams finished their flying today and our third team made the semi finals comfortably. It is many years since we had a team in the semi finals! So a huge well done to Charlie Waters and John Broadhead. This is also Charlie's first time as a team member!
F2D (combat)
At the end of today we still have 2 of our 3 flyers in the competition with one life left each ready to start the fourth round in the morning.
The weather today was lovely with sun most of the day and light winds and considerably hotter than previous days.
Val James - GBR F2 Team Manager
The fourth day of flying saw all 4 disciplines still in action.
F2A improved their overall standing as a team lying in second place with it all to fly for tomorrow, our last day of flying.
F2B finished flying after the fourth round. The are lying mid table after some well flown schedules but not quite high enough to make the fly offs.
F2C saw our remaining team of Charlie Waters and John Broadhead complete their first semi final race successfully in a very hard race against very experienced pilots. As this is Charlie's verg first championships we really must congratulate their performance so far! We look forward to seeing them in action tomorrow.
F2D saw two pilots still in the competition in round 5. Sadly we lost one pilot today but Gordon Price is still in action with one of his two lives still intact.
We wish all our remaining competitors good luck for the final day of flying.
Val James GBR F2 Team Manager
Saturday was the final day of the competition with much higher temperatures, blue skies and intermittent winds.
F2A competed in their final round lying in the silver medal position as a team. Peter Halman put in a much improved speed of 300.6km, which added to Paul Eisner's 301.00km and David Brewin's 294.8km made sure that the silver was ours! It had been a hard fought battle for the top places and with these excellent speeds proved that our team are still at the top of their game! A huge well done guys!
In F2B our team finished 8th overall out of 13 teams and placed 22nd (Barry Robinson) with a respectable points score of 2068,46, 27th (Kevin Morgan) with 2026,36 and 29th (Mervyn Jones) with 2010,33. All our team had scored over 2000 points so again need our congratulations.
In F2C we still had one remaining team in the semi finals which is a huge achievement considering the calibre of teams involved! Charlie Waters our youngest team member held his own against the best and along with John Broadhead, his very experienced mechanic, finished 11th overall. This is our highest placing for many years! Our other two teams finished 19th (Chris Barker and Neil Tricker) and 20th (Simon Molyneux and Nigel Thorpe) after some excellent racing.
In F2D we had one remaining pilot going into the final day. Gordon Price had a hard fought battle losing with a narrow margin and gaining 6th place overall. Dave Wiseman was 10th finishing a round before Gordon and Johnathon Crabtree lying in 32nd place after two very hard fought battles against past champions. This placing does not reflect the standard of flying that we saw from Johnathon! Another mention must go to Alan Bunker our F2D nechanic who worked hard all week and did an amazing job of keeping our flyers in the sky and sorting their models and motors.Overall our team in D finished in 6th place.
I cannot praise this team enough for their dedication and hard work throughout the week!
A special mention must also go to my Assistant Team Manager, Jill Barker who worked relentlessly alongside me to ensure we were there to support our team as they flew!
Thank you to you all for a very successful European Championships!
Once again it has been my pleasure and honour to be your Team Manager!
Val James, GBR F2 Team Manager
