Barton report by Dick Hart
The weather was great over the weekend, and we elected to fly both days to make the most of the opportunity, in line with our discussions at the last Nationals. A good job really because Joe Gough could only stay for the Saturday as he was on work stand by and the weather was most peculiar on the Sunday. Both days were sunny with a little more haze on the Sunday. It was a lot cooler on the Sunday too with higher pressure and higher humidity. The ADR was 98.2 on Saturday but on Sunday was just over 100!
New SJ model by Dick Hart
Barrie working on Sport Jet winning model
Five competitors entered and we flew almost exclusively sport jet. It was noticeably much more difficult to get the jets to start on the Sunday, to the extent I was questioning the fuel since we had burned through a gallon on Saturday and were on to a new gallon for the Sunday .
CMBL 12 model with Irvine 12 using Super Silencer
With the help of the assembled multitude we did fly the CMBL 12 trainer that I built from one of the kits Paul got from CMBL. I am pleased to say that the dolly worked well, I guess we made around eight flight attempts with four full flights. The initial problem was that I did not have enough needle by a long way but once I had opened it about three full turns, we started to get full flights in. Barrie volunteered to do the flying and he said that the model flies fine. The dolly works well although it is a bit bouncy. I used APC props, 5.8×5.5, 5.5×5.5 and 5.8×5.0. We chipped the first two and were just left with the 5.8×5.0. The engine started right up every time, I was using a turbo plug head, and we did not blow a plug for the whole session. I think we were messing around with it for at least an hour.
CMBL 12 model , with coffin style tank and fuel shut off.
The engine is one of the half dozen or so that Peter modified and sent to Barrie to distribute. It did not really chirp up even when whipped. There seems to be a lot of fuel coming from the front bearing when it is running. I did not change the super silencer to see whether that might be the problem. In addition, the shut off was a bit sensitive and we had to wind it out of the way, so I need to find a more positive shut off to replace it. I also need to recheck the head clearance which is currently 17 thou but may well be too much for a turbo head.
Buckminster report by Peter Halman
Paul Eisner should and have scored 302.2 but the TT failed on lap 9 and 10 making it impossible to calculate the final speed. This was academic as he won anyway!
I struggled with my fitness and this effected my ability to fly. The weather was near perfect. Paul proxy flew my quick 12 but the shutoff tripped early each time, hopefully better luck with this at the next meeting.
Control Line Open Speed 1st Centralised 2026 results