Free Flight event at the 2026 Scale World Championship

[Pete Fardell]

Just to add, that if you click on someone's flight score you'll get the judges' breakdown for each manoeuvre too.

The discounting of the top and bottom scores is interesting. It means a judge knows if he scores too highly then he's likely to be the discarded one. Leading to a disinclination to give 9s and 10s perhaps? I do see the logic of the system though. It happens in some Olympic sports too.

[Pete Fardell]

A slight delay in the FF results due to an error in the scores. Luckily, CD Paul Hoey let me take photos of the individual score sheets so I could write up the event for Aeromodeller. At the time, both Chris and I were very surprised that we'd finished ahead of Bill, particularly as his flights with the Bucker had  been pretty good. Certainly better than mine. This mystery led me to later compare his score sheet with mine, and it very soon transpired that he'd accidentally been done out of a few hundred points on his total. To be fair to the judges, they were working for us at the of a long hot day of intense RC World Championship judging so I'm not surprised the error crept in. I'm amazed they could even stand up.

Anyway, here are the corrected results. It's very pleasing that Bill and Bryan had identical scores, so came JOINT second, and so Chris is still there in 3rd. I'd also like to point out that although Richard Falconer didn't quite qualify, hats off to him for trying to trim his model DURING the contest itself, in conditions that were not exactly conducive! And it did fly, but not quite for long enough.

RESULTS

1st Mike Smith- Tiger Moth (ic) 1590

Joint 2nd Bill Dennis- Bucker Jungmann (rubber) & Bryan Lea- Velie Monocoupe (rubber) both 1500

3rd Chris Brainwood- Cessna 170 (ic) 1480

4th Martin Pike- Pilatus Porter (rubber) 1330

5th Pete Fardell- Stinson Sentinel (rubber) 1300

6th George Kandylakis- PZL24 (CO2) 1130

Richard Falconer- Comper Swift (rubber) DNQ

[Pete Fardell]

I know there was also a scale FF contest the last time the World Championships were held here in the UK (Woodvale 1978).
Does anyone know who was there and with which models, or if the FF action was written up in Aeromodeller?
Bill?

[Jmk89]

Yes, Pete, the FF Scake comp was reported in AM October 1978. W.Dennis is recorded as coming second to Eric Coates!

[ramses]

I know there was also a scale FF contest the last time the World Championships were held here in the UK (Woodvale 1978).
Does anyone know who was there and with which models, or if the FF action was written up in Aeromodeller?
Bill?

AeromodellerOctober 1978

From page 36:

https://rcbookcase.com/data/media/6/10AeroModeller_October_1978.pdf



Cheers, Ramses

ps. I see Jmk89 was faster

[Pete Fardell]

Perfect! Thanks both!
There are so many interesting comparisons and coincidences there, as well as two people who are present at both events, that my AM report is practically going to write itself!
Eg. Bill second to Eric Coates in 1978, and Bill second with an Eric Coates design in 2026.
It also explains why Richard Falconer was there on Saturday and had his Lockheed Lightning on the display table too.

I'm also slightly blown away by the fact that both Bill Hannan and Walt Mooney were there in '78.

And now that Ramses has given me the link I realise I do have that edition of AM. The cover is quite a good clue.
 

[Pete Fardell]

Ah, have read it now- some proxy flown models in '78, so Hannan and Mooney not actually there in person. Still a great line-up though!

[billdennis747]

Pete
That report takes me back. As you say, many models were proxy flown. I'm pretty certain that Bernie Sinclair flew F1C in those days, his models had distinctive candle flame decoration on the fuselages. Tom Stark's Loening was flown by Bob Underwood who was in the US RC scale team with his Sorrell Hyperbipe. He looks suitably puzzled by a ff model!
I can still see Terry's Blackburn; I have his sketches for producing his beautiful spoked wheels, and the metal panelling was excellent. He produced the panels in aluminium and then dangled them in the vats of chemicals to etch them to paper thickness. These were giant VATs at Blackburns used to etch fuselage components for the Buccaneer.
The flying left something to be desired and as Alan Callaghan said, it was a shame more UK flyers didn't support it. The prizes were generous, if inappropriate. Eric won  a 40 RC glow engine and I staggered off with some big radio kit which yielded some useful balsa. Finally I was amused by Alan's dig at Eric's poor colour documentation!