Being in London and not having a car I decide to use a more traditional mode of transportation to get to Poitou 2007. Having listened to the stories about how I rode for xx miles on my bicycle with my model box slung over my shoulder, to say nothing of the snow or how I used to catch the train at Waterloo to go to Sunningdale, and then walk 3 miles to Chobham Common with my Brown Junior etc and finally Al Hotard with his mules..  I could not be out done by these Luddites.  But I would not wear a tie.

So after some complicated internet rail booking gymnastics to do with what you can book with a credit card with a US address against what you can do with one with a UK address I made the appropriate reservations.  A few days later  I took a taxi from my London flat to Waterloo, less that 5 minutes at before 5 AM to catch the 5:30 Eurostar.  My model box and rolling duffel were a little bigger than on the list but none one seemed to care. Then under the Chunnel and ended up at Gare du Nord in Paris.   There’s maybe a better way but I did not fancy taking my luggage on the Metro so rushed to the taxi line and get a cab for Gare d’Austerlitiz. I had about and hour and half to get there and in spite of it being mid weekday morning traffic tangles I got there in plenty of time.  The train wasn’t ready yet so there was time to sit in a café and have a coffee etc. The next stage was to the railway station at Tours, about a 2 and half hour train ride. Missing all the traffic and toll roads out of Paris. Then at Tours just a 5 minute wait while the guy at the Avis office inside the station came back from lunch and I picked up my Toyota Yaris and off the favorite hotel at Thouars.

The weather at Poitou was perfect, in fact too perfect for some.  I think that when there is little wind Poitou has thermal characteristics the same as Lost Hills in October. That is to say numbers of small thermals that you can easily fly out of and a number of big boomers.  This year it was made worse by spotted cloud cover during the early rounds that caused the temperature to rise as the sun came out from behind the clouds and it was not clear if that let loose a thermal or not. I used both my Hot Magic device and Dick-o-Meter to help me find the air. At one point the temperature variation over the period of about a minute was full vertical deflection on the Dick-o-Meter.  The wind changed direction and the drift was in pretty much every direction at one time or another of the day.  On 3 flights I d/t’d just short of the sun flowers. Another new hazard is some new crop that is harvested to make bio diesel. This leaves substantial stalks when harvested, Bob Piserchio knocked out 5 ribs on his F1B when d/t’d into one of these fields at the Beauvoir contest. I was flying on a pole with the locals from Montcontour, which was great as it gave me a chance to work on French and they were well organized and did not waste time. Thanks to Benjamin Marquois for taking the lead and being “team manager” and organizing the flying order. He moved me up the rotation when others dropped and made the best use of the time when I had problems in round 6 and was late in 7. 

My contest went with out problems until round 6 when my time keeper, Andy Crisp said he was certain that I have lost a blade as did one of the other flyers.  I did not think it had as the model still glided well with no stall. So I went and fetched the model only to find that indeed one blade had broken near the root. So I had to get back and re-fly. I had an identical spare hub and blade set so used that. They let me go in front of the 5^th man on our pole, but I was very conscious that we were running out of time. I broke strands in the first motor and just as I was putting on the last turns on the second motor I saw one strand break. Because of the lack of time I decide to do for it. This is one advantage in winding outside the model, I could see the broken strand but also that it was only one. I did not crank on the hand turns though.  At the pole the temperature reading was great (falling from an all time high!)  and wind looked good so I flew. My launch was off and the pitch on the prop not quite right as it did not climb properly and stalled under power, however if the air is right all that does not matter so made the max. Subsequently I looked at the other blade on the offending hub and found a score line on the underside of the blade at the same point about 30 cm from the hub as the blade that broke. I’m not sure how this happened; I need to make sure that the blade does not touch the rim of the hub when being transported. I had never had the problem before and had flown the model a reasonable amount.  On the last round I flew a different model and it went fine too into a great booming thermal. There were 7 out of 40 in the fly off and 5 in the F1C..   I flew the same model in the fly off which was probably not the best choice as got pipped by Pim Ruyter by 2 seconds and ended up in 5th place.  Siltz, Zeri and Van Hoorn made it to the 7 minute round.  The final result had Bernard coming out on top by making the 7 minutes, Anselmo just under and Henk in third spot. So Pim, seeing Anselmo does not fly at Lost Hills and the A380 is not in service yet so Bernard can’t bring all his stuff how about another go at the Sierra Cup ? With any luck we will have the same thermal conditions.

In F1C Peter Watson came out on top ,not quite making the 9 minutes at 9 PM on a perfect summer’s evening.

The next day started off well and in fact was too calm for some in the early morning f1A round.  By the time left just before noon it was still very nice but looked if the wind had come up a little, this would probably make the flying a little easier.

Apologies for no full contest results but we need Blake and Tiffney go so you can have a real journalist focus on getting the news right!

I retraced my path back to Tours, Gare d”Austerlitz, small concern because the taxi took ages to come then Gare du Nord, Chunnel and Waterloo. .. Then next morning off to Heathrow to fly back to LAX for a Monday meeting.  I did notice at Tours that there is a train that goes from there to Thouars! But I think that it’s too small to have a rental car agency.  Tours is quite a big station with lots of choice of trains and I could have taken a TGV but would have needed to change which is tough with the model box and rolling duffel with all my stuff.