On Friday morning I work at 4.00am, and began my journey to the British Nationals for the first time. Stanley, Chris and I travelled over in the box van with the models, because Chris and I were going to be flying our jets on the showline. Chris had his FeiBao Hawk with him and I had my Elan. Kenny, John, Alan, Richard and Reggie travelled over in Johns motor home, and assisted Chris and I in the pits and acted as callers while we flew. This made for a real road trip feeling as we travelled in a very small convoy to RAF Barkston Heath, some 300 miles from Stranraer.

On our arrival the first thing to strike me was the large number of caravans, tents and motor homes already on site. Remember this was only Friday night, and the show doesn't open until Saturday morning. It would not be an exageration to say there were thousands of people already on site. As the others set up tents Chris and I went and had our transmitters tested by the BMFA and had the neccessary stickers attached.

Saturday morning we arrived at the pilots briefing at 9.00am, and then prepaired our models for inspection. Once a sticker was put on the plane it was allowed to fly and not until then. I was down to fly at 10.40 but due to a kero plug failure I missed my slot, so Chris was the first of us to fly around 11.30. Chris soon got a feel for the strip and began fast low passes with his Red Arrows Hawk, complete with smoke system. Thanks to Ali from Als Hobbies I was back in the show and flew at 3.30, along with two other Elans and a BVM Bobcat.

Ali flew his C17 monster twice on both days, a real show stopper. On one landing the undercarriage which rotates 90 degrees as it retracts, came down still at 90 degrees. Ali performed a beautiful landing that was so gental the U/C straightened itself and the landing was uneventful. He got a serious round of applause for that, and well deserved it was to.

Each night there was indoor flying in the hanger and chris and I took advantage of this for some more stick time. A large shockie appeared, some 4 times size, and everyone stopped to watch, it was swatting the other fomies out of the air like bugs.

Due to the poor weather forcast and poor start to the Sunday, a large number of the showline jets did not turn up for the second day. This threw the time table out of the window so basically if your jet was ready to fly and you told Ali, you were out in the next group. Unfortunatly there were two jet models lost over the weekend, one nice 104 Starfighter due to a mid air (the little Swift landed safely), and a totally scatch built Hawk, that hit the runway inverted at around 120 mph. There was nothing left of either plane.

All in all we had a great time and Chris and I were invited back for next year, so we must have done something right. Will I go again, too right.

By Peter Carson