Interglide, the annual UK Eurotour event, was again held at the excellent Hamilton Farm Airstrip near Ashurst over the weekend of 29/30th June. The appalling weather this year has led to the cancellations of many event but this weekend turned out to be one of the best of the year with light winds, only a very brief shower on Sunday and thermals in abundance.

This year the entry numbers at Interglide rose to something close to their pre covid level helped by the event being used as an event by both the Brits and the French in order to select a team to represent their countries at the F5J World Championships in 2025. There were 44 entries in total with eight from France but also pilots from Bulgaria, the Netherlands and Turkey giving the event a real international feel.

The Saturday weather was superb with light winds and sunshine all day. Six rounds were flown with many pilots taking the risk of making low launches in order to maximize their scores. Often it paid off but sometimes it didn’t!

On Saturday evening we were entertained by a display of extremely low level aerobatics by a brave pilot in a Stearman followed up by a fine BBQ and many drinks.

The Sunday started still with light winds but more overcast but no rain other than the very occasional light shower. There was still plenty of thermal activity but harder to find so launches tended to be higher but still most of the slots were being flown out.

After lunch the fly off consisted of 3 rounds of 15 minutes each contested by the top nine from the rounds with pilots from the UK, France and Holland. In order to stand a chance of winning many pilots were prepared to gamble with low launches with sub 50m being common and one as low as 28m. In spite of this all the slots were flown out to their 15 minutes limit which is a testament to the very of level of flying skill on display.

The final results were very close with only 25 points separating the top three pilots. Congratulations to Romain Gallet for his worthy win which follows his F5J Junior World Championship title from 2023 and shows just how much skill and dedication he puts into his flying.

Many thanks again to our sponsors who provided some excellent prizes, Jeti UK, Flightech and Sky High RC.