Black Ditch Pond 28-29th June 2003

After the nightmare weekend at Gang Warily I was looking forward to the relaxed and friendly Black Ditch meeting. The social side was great. Frustratingly, technical issues with the craft took the edge off the racing. In truth, we didn't do enough preparation for this season during the winter months, for which, we are now paying the penalty.

The Black Ditch course was the same as last year. As can be seen from the course map Black Ditch is effectively an oval. The features are interesting transitions, both on and off the water, and a land section with significant ridges that have the craft bumping and bucking all over the shop. The course is quite narrow in places with little room to dodge on the transitions and water turns if things go awry. The course is short and overtaking difficult. The eight lap races seemed to be over in no time.

Replacing the Rotax 253 lift motor with an Italian Simonnini 250cc single cylinder Para-gliding engine has so far proved to be a step forward. With the Rotax in direct drive mode we were running the engine well below optimum speed to keep within fan tip speed regulations. In this configuration the amount of lift air was not enough. Whilst we fine tuned the skirt design to improve matters, in reality, we simply weren't putting enough air under the craft. We tried, briefly, running the Rotax in geared mode. This was an improvement of sorts but really an inelegant engineering solution that proved to be unreliable in every sense.

Installing the Simonnini has enabled us to run the engine in simple direct drive but with power output probably half as much again as the Rotax is similar configuration. Certainly for this meeting I had no issues with lift at all and the craft appears much more stable in the corners. The engine even now is not running at maximum throttle opening. It is a measure of the improvements made that we are not breaking our necks to revise the throttle control to increase the range of slide plate opening.

Our weekend started as it meant to go on. Having reverted to the thrust pulley gearing setup of last year we were keen to do maximum rev checks before practice on Saturday. In the process of fine tuning the thrust engine blade angles an ominous clanking noise became apparent when the blades were turned over by hand. The noise was tracked down to a suspected failing bearing in the fan top bearing assembly. Slipping the fan assembly out of the craft with the engine still in place is just possible and enabled us to renew the offending bearing before the start of racing. Since we had missed practice altogether Race Director Gayle Spedding kindly allowed me a few laps in the novice practice to relearn the course. The number and varied speed of the novices meant that any high speed laps were impractical.

Going into the first race I wasn't happy with the craft. Resetting the thrust gearing back to last years setup had improved matters but it felt rough at the top end. The exhaust mods were also not entirely successful, getting the engine to rev beyond 8200 rpm was difficult despite slight blade angle changes.

Following the poor showing at Gang Warily I was down the grid order and therefore chasing the pack for most of the race until number three piston failed. At the time we decided that a ring had broken and caused the damage. Since then I am not so sure and will ask Ken if he would set the exhausts back to the final design of last year. Living 200 miles away from the craft is an issue when jobs like this are required.

Ken was able to rebuild the engine with three new pistons and a barrel and we were just able to get the craft onto the grid in time for the next race. Again Gayle came to the rescue as the marshals allowed us to push the craft out of the camping area on the lift engine and line up on the grid without having to go back to the paddock.

We didn't have time to make a sticker "running in - please pass" so I spent the entire race trundling around trying to keep out of everyone's way. Still, points is points. I had a stiff neck after the race with all the looking behind me!

The first race of Sunday morning turned out to be the only real event of the weekend. Again being at the back of the grid meant that it was chase the pack time. Apart from Conrad who was away and gone the rest of the formula one field is fairly evenly matched for power and on this course makes overtaking difficult. It was possible to pass on the water bend to land transition section provided there wasn't a craft too close in front providing air to make the transition more of a launch pad than it already was. Chasing John Spedding in number 3 I could corner tighter on the lake (Withy Bend) and get a run at him but would be going into the land transition probably side by side with lots of thrust air about from the crafts in front of John. Not really on.

As it was I had the craft nigh on vertical at one point. The rudder has now a three inch split in the rear facing edge filled with soil where it dragged along the ground and stopped an end over end flip. Brian White (who was following) had a grandstand view of proceedings and afterwards the expression on his face was a study. As he said "It was a good job you didn't fall out as I had absolutely nowhere to go". Excellent race !!

The final race of the weekend had us all speechless with frustration. After the ten minute board was shown we fired up both engines I put the racing gloves on, connected the lanyard to them, then revved the thrust engine to drive to the grid............. and the bolt for the bottom pulley to crankshaft fell off. The location of the bolt is inside a cut out of the bell mouth of the duct, mega awkward to get at. We finished refitting the bolt at exactly the same time as Conrad received the chequered flag. Aaaarrggh. However being a positive type of person I think that if we have a problem with the exhausts maybe this event will be a blessing in disguise....

Next weekend I am driving one of Ken's corporate craft for an MGM film being shot somewhere near London. I guess I won't be putting the craft on its head but hopefully it will be an interesting time.

EExpand these pictures for more detail

Tail happy !!! The arrowed damage to the rudder happened when I got the craft vertical enough to have the rudder scraping along the ground.

Ken changed three pistons and a barrel between races and still had time for lunch.

Being a plumber, Brian White had no trouble setting up a shower in the camping area All he had to do was fall off the moped used to get back from paddock and strip off........

Wasn't quite so hot on the privacy arrangements though ...........

Don't know how I got into the picture.. I was just minding my own business whilst the rest of Team Eagle were sharing the laugh with Brian

Rumour has it that Brians father connected the plumbing direct to the cider barrel later on that evening.