I’ll make it quite clear from the start. F2C is unfinished business for me. That’s how well it went….
To have the opportunity to step into a Nationals F2C final to an introduction from CD Mike Crossman, to fly a 200 lap final against the top teams at that competition was a total privilege. Thankyou Sion, we had a blast.
The win was big for us, but it was a complete one off. If we are being honest it was an extremely fortunate set of of circumstances that can and does occur from time to time in racing. What we did really well on the day was to take full advantage of the situation that presented itself, in what were pretty tricky conditions. Cue the slight disbelief and the warm and generous congratulations from most quarters..
I wasn’t nervous going into the Nats final, just really excited to realise an long held ambition. I had a sneaking feeling from the moment we were granted a re-run in the morning that things could turn out very well indeed. That, they say, is racing.
Being F2C National Champions in 2017 meant that Sion and I really didn’t have a decision about continuing to race F2C in 2018 and beyond.
That’s racing
The phrase ‘that’s racing’, which I first heard in Landres, France in 2017 at my first proper F2C competition will cover the highest peak, and the most crushing low. In a heat race I watched at Barton, a smaller pilot was having a shocking time getting pushed to the back of the circle in F2CN, being made to run after his model for 100 laps. From the outside it looked like war had been declared. It wasn’t pretty, the judge did nothing, and the pilot can’t have actually seen his model for more that half the race. These were bullying tactics by a very experienced competitor and would have enraged some flyers. But this pilots response? ‘That’s racing’. In that he meant ‘I have to learn not be pushed around’. There was no anger, moaning or blame, just ‘I have to do better’. Total respect is due. A lesson for me.
Another good example is in our now famous Nats final, with the other two teams being in a different league in terms of experience and speed. After the first tank we were a lap or two down, but going well for us. Our stops were going to be they key for us producing our best performance. I was slightly conservative landing at the first stop, Sion did an excellent job and we got away well. We were going for five stops and had just over 33 lap range. The fast boys also had more range as well as airspeed, and as they went through their stops I caught sight of one of the models smashing into the tarmac flat out. Kerrrrunch. Game over. And in this the moment I thought, without any emotion, ‘we have second’. That’s racing.
The beauty and horror of racing is anything can happen, at any time. And the faster and more intense the racing class, the more likely things will go awry for one competitor, directly benefitting the others.
F2C
The essence of F2C is that the class is fast, with technically advanced models that are quite tricky to operate and fly. It is very physically demanding for the pilot and to race three up and extract your best performance is the drug we all love. So I’ll be back for more, it’s a bit addictive.
The harsh reality for team Molyneux / Burns is we were never going to be in a position of having our kit ‘sorted’ to anything like the level we needed. Sadly we were never able to get our equipment out of the car, set up and be on the pace consistently. F2C is a ridiculously hard event to master. I felt that I needed a lot more time, flying three-up, to build confidence. And I’m quite sure that although Sion did a sterling job pitting, that would have benefitted from more time to learn our props, motors and settings.
2018 and 2019 – F2C payback
For all the good fortune we had in 2017, the following seasons of 2018 and 2019 took it all back. Sion selflessly continued to travel over from Menorca. Countless flights and transfers, pick ups from remote locations mean we were pretty stressed and tired before we started. And our kit was generally untested.
We made some good calls and also some poor choices along the way too. I started with a cheap second hand model for Zalp engines. New models were around 500 euros at the time, that wasn’t an option. Trouble is, the airframe was cheap but a right duffer. A damaged wheel box was impossible to assess before flying and meant major surgery, and it flew like a dog too. The Zalp motors were great, and did us proud for a season but had we had absolutely no luck with getting our tired engines refreshed.
Instead of sending them back to the maker, Volodymr Fulitka as we should have done (he’s a top geezer), I decided to turn to another engine specialist whose Zalp motors had performed very well at the World Championships. Sion followed suit. 4 engines on another continent, all our eggs in a very remote basket. The promised 3 week turnaround extended month after month after month meant we had no engines until near the end of the season. Absolutefuckingdisaster!
As I said, a poor choice in retrospect. Thankfully the engineering work was carried out to a very high standard, but we were left with no time at all to prepare. A theme is starting to develop here……
I don’t think given our available time we did a bad job, appalling racing consistency aside, but we didn’t wreck much gear. Having observed other teams taking on the challenge of competing in F2C and leaving a trail of debris from dozens of broken models all over the Barton circle, we can hold our heads reasonably high.
But unfortunately all we really succeeded in doing at each race meeting was to put increasing pressure on ourselves. Huge pressure.
All this culminated in a very stressful Nats of 2019. We came away with the Classic 15 trophy once again, in a quite competitive and enjoyable race. We overcame very fast competition and held on for the win. We also got a good second in F2CN which is a great event. And there was the possibility of a good run at 1/2A but the engine unfortunately wasn’t screwed in.
But it was in F2C that we really cocked up. In full glare of onlookers we stepped out to practice and broke three props before we twigged the wheel was binding on the leg of our preferred model. This proved to be pretty much the final straw. Tempers frayed, words were had. It was all irrelevant really, we just agreed that is was just too much of a stretch attempting the impossible when we lived in different countries and were so far from a decent flying site. Some people think I’m crazy travelling from Southampton the 235 miles to Barton. Menorca is much, much further.
A very sad end to a rewarding adventure. No regrets, we learned a load of stuff and we had a roller coaster ride. Tremendous fun.
What’s next? 2020 is what’s next. How bad could it be? Oh, THAT bad…..
CL racing 
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