1st - 6th August 2023 - Drachten, Holland
I have been flying since the age of six starting with Free Flight and moving through Control Line to Radio Control.
- 1978: I began RC Pylon Racing and from 1982 I was a regular competitor in UK Pylon Racing, flying in both the international F3D and domestic Club 20 classes.
- 1984: I won the first of my 13 British National Championships (seven as a pilot and six as a caller/mechanic).
- 1985: I flew at the inaugural F3D World Championship at Chicopee Air Force base, Massachusetts, USA.
- 1980s: I first served on the CIAM F3 Pylon sub-committee.,
- 2000s: I was involved in adopting the AMA Q500 and Q40 Pylon Racing rules into the F3R and F3T classes which developed from these two “Q” classes.
- 2013: I first served as the CIAM F3T Approval Committee Chairman.
- 2021: I was elected Chairman of the CIAM F3 Pylon Racing Subcommittee.
- 2023: First time that I have been selected as a UK team manager.
Barrie after winning his first National Championship in RC Pylon Racing in 1984
Barry (kneeling) with an all-composite home designed & manufactured F3D Pylon Race aircraft.
I started RC flying aged 9 with fixed wing, I was first introduced to pylon racing by Maurice Barker aged 13 and won my first nationals aged 14 in sport 40. I moved on to 3D helicopter flying being involved in competitions and the development of new helicopters for RJX. I returned to Pylon racing in 2017 after a nearly 10 year break in model flying. John Barker have been competing in F3D since with our aim being to compete at the highest level, qualifying for the world championships is another step towards our goal.
- 2004 – 1st Sport 40 pylon racing BMFA Nationals
- 2007 – Team pilot for RJX Helicopters
- 2008 - 3rd Clubman 3DX
- 2008 – Align Helicopters sponsored pilot
- 2021 – 1st F3D pylon racing BMFA Nationals
- 2022 – Selection for F3D WC team
In my professional life I am an engineer through and through; starting out as an Electronics Engineer specialising in communications and mechatronics. My current role is Group Technical Director for a robotics company involved in pipeline inspection where I lead R&D across 5 countries. I utilise my skills developed in my professional life in my hobbies always looking for improvements.
I look forward to competing alongside my fellow teammates at the highest level representing GB.
This will be my first time representing the U.K. at a pylon racing world championship.
I have been very passionate about pylon racing for over 10 years now and in that time a lot of hard work and learning has taken place. With help from other life long pylon racers I have acquired a skill set that has led me to design and manufacture all my own models and equipment.
Working closely with my race partner Barrie lever we will now proudly take our designs to the world stage to see how they perform.
Age - 31
Years in modelling/F3D - 25/16
Occupation - Head of Engineering, UAV Research Notable results:
- 6th Place 2016 Tulasne Trophy
- 17th Place 2017 F3D World Championships
- Multiple F3D British National Championships Other hobbies or interests - Rugby
From spending every weekend at the club field when I was growing up, flying at model shows and fly-ins as part of the Overlander display team, obtaining a degree in aeronautical engineering and now working at one of the UK’s leading unmanned aircraft research companies, model aircraft have always been a large part of my life.
I was introduced to pylon racing in 2007 and originally competed in the electric class F3E (then known as F5D). This culminated in attending the 2010 World Championships in Muncie, Indiana USA. Soon after this, I was introduced to F3D and teamed up with Dave Cline. Running all of Dave's equipment and with him as a caller we achieved much within the sport within the UK and internationally. Dave unfortunately passed away in 2020 leaving me some of his aircraft and engines. Together with good friend Geb Jones, we are looking to continue the work Dave started to progress within the sport.
I am enjoying using F3D as a platform to exploit and further my knowledge of aircraft design and manufacture. My current project is a ground up development of a new wing including custom aerofoil development, computational analysis, and solid core composite manufacture.
The UK F3D pylon race team of Nathan Attridge, Ollie Witt and Shane Egan are all participating at the 2023 CIAM F3 Pylon race World Championships which is being held at Drachten in Holland.
All three UK pilots have had a good first day, the preparation of the three pilots is at a high level. The pilots have had no model breakages although Nathan has had one of his stainless steel pipes fracture. Ollie has had some onboard glow driver problems but seems to have overcome these, Shane's equipment has run reliably.
Many of the other competitors have admired some of the innovative and creative workmanship that the UK team are presenting in their models, the T tail design by Nathan Attridge in particular has gained admiration.
There are a further two days of unofficial practise before the the day of official and then three days of the World Championship competition.
UK F3D pylon race team Drachten Holland.
Day two at the the 2023 F3 pylon race World Championship has been characterised by poor weather, the wind has blown at around 20 mph constantly, whilst this is a bit high it is not unflyable however we have also had torrential rain storms, this has basically reduced the flying time by about 50%.
The UK team has worked hard and over come problems as they have arisen. Ollie and Geb have handled a fuel system problem and managed to resolve it. Nathan had a hard landing which wiped off the carbon spatted under carriage, no big problem as there were plenty of spares in the stock.
Because the weather is stormy the air pressure is quite low and this has required setup changes on the highly strung MB 40 engines that all of the UK team are using. Shane had small problems with the cylinders on some new backup engines but he has plenty of first line engines so no problem.
Tomorrow will be the last day of the unofficial practise before the official practise starts and the competition starts for real.
Look for report No3.
Barrie Lever, GBR F3D Manager
Day three at the 2023 pylon race World Championships has once again been effected by heavy rain showers, this has seriously impacted everyone's flying on the last day of the unofficial practise.
Nathan was in the first practise session after the rain stopped, he was flying his steady reliable setup which still clocked 335 kph, his fast but diva like model can clock around 355kph !!
Shane got in good practise flights, his models are performing nicely and hopefully they will be a good introduction for Shane's first time representing GB.
Ollie's models performed well after more engine setting adjustments to take account of the weather, these changes will usually be a combination of compression ratio changes and prop (load) changes.
All three UK pilots had some problems to deal with, Ollies were getting prop and engine settings, Shane had fine trim changes on a back up model due to a Tx change, the worst problem was for Nathan who had a wing servo fail in the diva model, the wing servo's were an unusual type and the backup option required the manufacture of a new carbon fibre servo tray that was made by the UK team on site this afternoon, this involved carbon fibre trimming (Nathan), turning threaded bushes and soldering the new servo onto the wings installed wiring (Shane). Great team work by the UK racers.
Tomorrow is the official practise session and technical scrutineering.
Barrie Lever, GBR F3D Team Manager
Day 4 at the 2023 CIAM F3 Pylon race World Championships was set aside for official practise and model technical processing, the practise slot allocated to the UK was the second of the day after the Japanese, just as the UK team were getting prepared on the flight line then the heavens opened with biblical proportions, luckily the team were well prepared with protective covers for the transmitters and models.
Once the practise got underway with complete course marshalling the UK team done pretty well with all three pilots recording good times, the Nathan Attridge Diva was the fastest UK team model with a time of 59 seconds with Ollie and Shane close behind. All the UK team were pleased with the practise session.
Fairly soon after the practise session finished the UK team were called to official technical processing. The team were well prepared for the processing with all the required paperwork in good order, no problems were picked up in the processing.
After the processing there was time to lift the cylinders on the highly strung MB 40 engines, all inspected engines were in good order and ready to go for the first day of official competition.
Barrie Lever, GBR F3D Team Manager
Sorry for the delayed reports, it has been chaos here with weather, course infrastructure and normal team technical issues.
Competition flying finally got underway on the 2nd August with just one round flown, Nathan was in the first round of the competition and this always has pressures associated with it, The score on the board was a very credible 60.61 seconds which at the end of the day put Nathan in third place, Ollie had a prop come loose on the start line and got no time and Shane got a mid 64 second time which again was very credible.
The third round of the competition started on the morning of the 3rd August, Shane was in one of the first heats but when he received his score he could tell there was something wrong with the first lap time as it was about 2 seconds slower than what is should have been, careful checking of head cam video showed that there was a problem. The UK team manager approached the contest director and suggested that there maybe a problem, but was told that everything was OK. We could tell this was not the case and after a few representations to the CD then some manual timing took place over the auto timing and this showed the errors.
It turns out that the timing system was starting all models on the first flag rather than staggering the times by one second for each subsequent take off which is what is required. The result of this was that times recorded in lanes 2 and 3 up until the end of play on the 3rd August would be adjusted down by 1 and 2 seconds respectively, so this would make Nathan's first day time 59.61 seconds.
The competition proceeded with the knowledge that there would be adjustments to the scoring.
In round 3 the UK team scored well but the sign of problems was on the horizon, as Nathans model crossed the start finish line at the end of the race the engine stopped abruptly, investigation showed that the crank pin had snapped in the engine, this was very likely a batch production problem as Nathan had exactly the same thing happened three weeks ago in pre event practise in England, a decision was made to revert to older spec engines but this had a knock on setup problem and during the day Nathan got two no scores as the setups were worked out.
From round 2 Ollie was scoring well and had no issues with crankshafts as he was using the older material specification, by the end of day 2 Ollie had climbed to a fantastic 3 rd place on the leader board.
Shane started day 2 steadily but then a number of niggling motor mixture setting issues which gave him three no scores, this is a difficult position to be in but with very consistent flying is recoverable.
Barrie Lever, GBR F3D team manager
As the event entered the seventh day the UK team has a story of two different positions. Ollie scored well and worked his way up into the lead of the competition by running fast and reliably, Nathan and Shane were carrying problem scores and were basically on their last chance with regard to being able to drop poor performances, this means that they would have to run consistently for the rest of the meeting.
Ollie's grip on the top of the leader board held good and at the end of the seventh day he was still in first place, whilst Nathan and Shane were languishing in the lower half of the table and praying for no further problems.
As the 8th and final day of the competition started anticipation was high in the UK team for Ollie to hold onto the top spot and for Nathan and Shane to have trouble free runs. There were just two flights to be run on the final day these being the 11th and 12th heats. Nathan flew first and recorded a safe time and like wise Shane. However Ollie's first flight was spectacular but for all the wrong reasons, Ollie over cooked the base turn and hit the ground and would get a no time, only his second of the meeting, needless to say the model was damaged and for the final round Ollie would use his backup model.
For the 12th and final round both Nathan and Shane recorded safe but unspectacular times, Ollies 12th race was declared void by the organisers but this was actually a let off as during the race Ollie had double cut , so effectively he would get another go to record the final time at the organisers expense. However in the rerun Ollie's engine cut to give him another no time.
So final UK positions were Ollie Witt 5th, Nathan Attridge 20th and Shane Egan 24th with the UK finishing over all 4th place, this is the highest UK team placing ever.
F3D Individual rankings (wchf3de2023.nl)
The UK F3D team would like to take this opportunity to thank family, friends and everyone that has helped us back in the UK and to the BMFA for their support of our activities.
Barrie Lever, GBR F3D Team Manager
