Eser Kismir wins Interglide with a virtually perfect score! Eser, from North Cyprus, but flying as part of the “German” team led the contest from start to finish dropping only 0.3 points out of his possible 10,000 over the seven preliminary rounds and the two fly-off rounds.

The entry for Interglide was slightly increased on previous years, being helped by a large group of French pilots in addition to the long standing supporters from Holland and Germany. With Eser from Cyprus, and the usual culprits from the UK, we had 39 pilots. Besides the general status of Interglide as the UK leg of the F3J Eurotour, the UK pilots were also competing for a team place in the 2015 F3J European Championships so much was at stake. The venue used was, as usual a field near Edgecot (Bicester) and the availability of this venue is due to the continued efforts of Peter Allen. The high level of support from continental flyers always makes Interglide a memorable event with very demanding levels of flying but it would be ideal if, for the future, we could access another suitable flying site closer to Dover so encouraging yet more Continental participation.

After about three weeks of warm dry weather in the UK, the forecast for Interglide looked (at best) mixed. We should know better than to schedule it for the same week end as the Glastonbury Festival! In the event the weather was, overall, pretty good for flying. Saturday was forecast as definite showers with a front due to move in at mid-day. That caused some concern as the wind direction, post the front, was forecast to be northerly but before that we had a light southerly drift. The flight line was laid out to launch to the north; thus launches in round one were downwind so limiting the height achieved off the line but, regardless, lift was to be found and all slots flew the time out. With a short rain break round one was completed prior to the arrival of the forecast weather front giving, in total, a loss of over 2 hours flying time on the Saturday. Nonetheless three rounds were completed, the final two allowing for launching into a slight headwind so easing life for the hard pressed tow-men. We managed to complete these three rounds in good time, leaving people free in to attend the Saturday evening BBQ which had been arranged in a local pub.

This BBQ worked well with 40 plus people all in the same large room so giving a very convivial evening. A BBQ at Interglide always seems to work well, in contrast to trying to arrange a similar function at Radioglide where it never gets adequate support. The scheduling of a two day competition involving the same people each day gives the extra dimension to make this evening BBQ work, as it does at other Eurotour events.

Flying was, as one would expect at a premier International event, to a very high standard with any flight time of less than 9 minutes 50 coupled with a landing bonus of less than 90, being uncompetitive. The top flyers were posting 9.53 flight times plus 99 bonus points as routine an, as virtually all slots flew out a score in that region was required for the magic 1000 points. Models were universally of the eastern European origin moulded variety but with an eclectic mix of Maxas, Supras, Pike Perfects, Pike Perfections, Xplorers, Shadows, Tragis, Clusters, Starlights and Aspires. No new designs were in evidence but one discernable trend (or is it fashion) was to sport an all black carbon finish as evident on some of the Pike Perfections and Xplorers.

The single exception to the moulded models was the built up one flown by Phillipe Quoy of France – it,however, suffered a snapped wing joiner as it was not really up to the brutality of a typical F3J tow! However Pillipe was essentially present in support of his son, Sylvian who was one of the two Junior flyers competing, the other being Sam de Bliek from Holland. The very high standard of flying demonstrated by these two Juniors, (both convincingly beating their fathers) highlights the paucity of Juniors, never mind really competitive Juniors, from the UK. In the end Sam ended up in 14th place narrowly beating Sylvian, who was 16th but both placing higher than some well- known, and talented, UK F3J team members.

The weather on day two was rather more typical with a 10mph northerly wind and lots of scattered cumulus clouds. As a result models travelled much further downwind with their thermals putting a premium on eyesight and ability to control at long distances. For this field the wind direction was unusual and it brought into play a clump of trees and a barn downwind of the field which offered possible but very weak dynamic soaring help and also appeared to trigger thermal bubbles from these obstructions. A number of flyers used this as a lifeline but it was a strategy not without risk and resulted in a number of “out of field” landings and even one model coming to rest on the roof of the barn. However the stronger wind helped the tow-men and provided much higher (more typical) launches than seen on the previous day.

With a very limited need for any re-flys, four rounds were completed by 3pm with the top six going into a fly-off. These were (in order of scores after the seven preliminary rounds): Eser Kismir (N, Cyprus on 6999.7), Thomas Eichenauer (Germany on 6971.5), Brian Johnston (UK on 6895), Graham Wicks (UK on 6755.1), Chris Glover (UK on 6704.7) and Thomas Roessner (Germany on 6624.6). Gullaume Porcar of France was unlucky to be eased into 7th place, so missing the fly-off cut – he was pushed down one place from his six round 6th place by an outstanding seventh round flight by Thomas Roessner.

Three 15 minute flights were the order of the day for the fly-off. Lift in the first round was very patchy and (unusually) this round was not flown out but did see multiple re-launches. Nonetheless Eser still had a significantly higher flight time than anyone else and he ensured his hold on the trophy by flying out the full time in rounds two and three, the only flyer to fly out both these rounds. Thus with a perfect fly-off score of 3000, Eser became the worthy winner of Interglide 2014 with Graham Wicks hard on his heels in second place, followed by Thomas Eichenauer, Chris Glover, Brian Johnston and Thomas Roessner, in that order.

Report and images by Robin Sleight