The Triple Crown

What is the Triple Crown?

The Triple Crown is the annual F3a competition between Scotland, England are Ireland, with an "International" team made up from an additional pilot from each country with the host providing 2 pilots. Each team has 4 pilots and the highest place team of course wins the trophy. The location rotated through the 3 countries each year.

It was originally called The Home International and was first held at Hixon in 1980 along with Dennis Martin’s Hobbyword event. In 1981 it was held at Kirknewton airfild just outside of Edinburgh, Scotland, then Cowbridge in Wales in 1982.

When RCM&E began sponsoring the event it was renamed as The Triple Crown

How Do I get into the Team?

Scotland:
The top 4 placed pilots in the league form the Scottish team, 5th placed helps form the International team and 6th place is 1st Reserve.

England:

Ireland:
The Irish team selection involves a 2 leg team trial. Pilots are offered places based on their standing after these trials with the top 4 pilots being offered Triple Crown places and pilot 5 being offered the international place.

2024

The 2024 TC will be held at the East Fortune flying site on the 21st and 22nd September which is where is was last held in 2018. The location is here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/EozWm4HkUhUu4w2G6

2023

The first Triple Crown competition since 2019 was held on the 9th & 10th September in Cardington, Bedfordshire

Team Results.

First:- Scotland 2765.84
Second:- England 2659.43
Third:- Ireland 2481.83
Fourth:- International 2369

Best Pilot:- Malcolm Balfour (Scotland)

UKF3A photo gallery:

2023 Season / TRIPLE CROWN 9 & 10th September | UKF3A Photo Gallery (gbrcaa.org)

and YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g5Pb4DIYNw&t=2s

Hi all,

I thought I'd write a few notes on the Triple Crown. This has been a great event over the years and must be kept alive!

Massive thanks to Ross Donovan and his team for taking on the burden of responsibility for organising and running this year's event at fairly short notice.

The site had been prepared to a high standard and the weather was absolutely fantastic at 30c and little wind. As a result of both the flying was of a high standard throughout.

Mention must be made of the four judges: Wolfgang Sheible, Dave Foley, Al Williams and Nico Bleas who endured the sweltering heat for three and a half rounds and then a soaking halfway through Sunday afternoon! Thanks guys.

I've always found the TC a great learning experience due to the spread of judges.  There are usually useful comments (if not always polite) from the judging panel after a flight!

The event is also a great platform to meet friends from far flung places. Remember the Irish have the longest travel two out of every three years so good on them for making the effort!

Scotland turned out on top this year, I think the team scores have already been posted on the forum. The individual results are shown below.

Scotland's turn to host the event next year so hopefully each country will be able to field a team.
See you next year,

Steve Burgess.

2019
This year it was held at the Carron Model Flying club which is located in Tipperary Town near the Limerick Junction on the 13th, 14th and 15th of September.

An exciting new development for this year was the addition of top European guest pilot Lassi Nurila from Finland who is currently placed 2nd in Europe and placed 6th at the 2017 World Championships, and judge Nico Bleas from France. Nico judged at the event and delivered a judges course for the forthcoming P20/21 sequence after the flying on the Sunday afternoon .

Lassi competed in the individual section only as an additional pilot and flew demo flights each day including the P20/21 schedules after the judge’s course on Sunday.

The Scottish team comprised Malcolm Balfour, Steve Burgess, Malcolm Harris and Wolfgang Schiebel with International Team Member David Balfour and Judge Ross Donovan. Interestingly, Angus was in the Ireland team so this was a rare occasion where all 3 brothers were competing in the same comp at the same time.

England fielded a very strong team with Keith Jackson, Thomas David, Chris Halgreen and Adrian Harrison and Ireland (last year’s winners) had Angus Balfour, Shane Robinson, Gordon James, Paul Houlihan and James Murphy.

The Scottish team, 2019

2018

This year it was hosted by the East Fortune Aeromodellers club in Scotland who graciously gave up their site for 3 days. http://www.ef-aero.org.uk/

Friday was practice day for which we had good weather with everyone getting 3 to 4 flights each in a relaxed atmosphere. Saturday kicked off with the Pilot’s / Safety Briefing at 09:30 followed by Colin Elgey doing the judge’s calibration flight thereafter. As per the plan we put in 2 full rounds on the Saturday. In the 1st round Scotland took the lead but Ireland pulled out the stops in round 2 to move into the lead with James Murphy getting the highest score of the round.

The Sunday was expected to be doom and gloom but the clouds broke and the 25mph wind died down and Malcolm led the way with 1st flight at 10 o’clock. However is was a brief lull and the wind picked up again to a level where we had to call a halt after round 3. Shortly after we stopped with wind meter hit 50mph!!

Following a break for lunch we had the prize-giving with SAA Chairman Jim McGlynn.

Ireland took 1st place with Scotland in 2nd and Scotland's Steve Burgess taking highest individual place closely followed by Ireland's James Murphy, 50 points out of 2000 behind Steve. Close or what?

We are now looking forward to next year when Ireland host the competition.

The final event of the season was to be at the Dumbarton club site, but again, the weather Gods decreed otherwise, and the comp was cancelled.

More pictures here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/138883192@N02/albums/72157697965913232

2017
The beginning of September saw the Scottish team head down to Deeside for the annual Triple Crown competition between us, England, Ireland and an International team made up from pilots of the 3 countries.

More details and pictures on the GBRCAA web site
http://www.gbrcaa.org/gallery/index.php?/category/20

The Triple Crown weekend was hosted by Ireland and was great fun and CD'd brilliantly by Brian Carolan and his support team.
Good food and warm hospitality were the feature of our few days in Ireland
The flying site in Enniscorthy (Wexford) is superb and was about 90 min easy drive south from Dublin.
Five England pilots attended four comprising the England Team (Keith J, Gerhard F Brian H and myself) and Chris Halgreen in the International Team.

We all had different thoughts about the best ways to get to Enniscorthy Chris flew B,ham/Shannon, Keith flew Liverpool/Dublin and I flew B,ham/Dublin both Gerhard and Brian took the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin but the great mystery of taking batteries on International flights continues.

Both Keith and I visited Liverpool and Birmingham airport security the day before leaving and without any positive outcome passed our batteries onto to Brian to transport.

Chris checked in and waltzed through security with a power station stuffed in his carry-on!!
Keith and I booked a hire van Transit size but got a furniture van big enough for everyone.
On arrival in Enniscorthy a really pretty small town we were greeted by 40mph winds and driving rain, now Keith would not have a problem making a few trimming flights in these conditions but as I had the keys to the van we had a few drinks in the Hotel bar and common sense prevailed.
In the true Brian Carolan tradition the meet and greet for the Teams was re scheduled to 9.30pm on the Friday evening in the Treacy Hotel back bar, to me this made sense but it was at least half an hour after Keith and Gerhards bedtimes.
At around 10pm with drumming of fingers echoing round the bar the Scots turned up apologising for their lateness but they had had problems settling a restaurant bill...nothing new there then.
So the plan (loosely speaking!) was to fly 3 rounds Saturday which promised good weather and 1 round Sunday morning before the nasty weather returned.
The plan worked and Saturday was fine and flying conditions were good.
Clearly the Irish first team had been drafted in (see earlier in this topic) and were all flying well, Brian Carolan was obviously confident of the outcome as he had deferred engraving the trophy with their winning result from 2015 because the engraver had offered him 2 for the price of 1 if they won this year (he's not daft you know)
Each team could drop 1 pilot score in each round then the best 3 Teams scores from the 4 rounds would decide the outcome.

A pattern emerged which really didn't change during the 3 rounds on Saturday - Ireland were leading followed by England then the Internationals and Scotland.
I have attached a scan of the team results
Sunday morning broke fine and clear with a freshening breeze which quickly turned into a howling gale by the completion of the round.

Hats off to all who flew later in the round as wind speeds increased to 30+mph (Chris reported that at Shannon Airport the high winds had threatened the cancellation of full size flights)
However all landed safely but it was clear that all teams would not count the Sunday round so the Team positions on Saturday evening would remain unchanged.

Following more food from the BBQ at lunchtime prizes were presented thanks given to all who helped to make the occasion memorable and return journeys commenced.
A big thank you to all concerned and let’s see some of you pilots at the GBRCAA World Cup in Ashford next season, you will receive a warm welcome.
Adrian Harrison

Triple Crown 2015 by Gerhard Fehringer, previously published on the GBRCAA web site.

This is the annual F3a competition between Scotland, England, Ireland and an international team made up from pilots from each of the 3 countries. 2015 was Scotland’s turn to host it, with the location being the Dumfries Model Flying Club, with competition support from the SAA.

Organisers: Malcolm Harris and Steve Burgess.
Hosts: Scottish Aeromodellers Association and Dumfries Model Flying Club.
Judges: Dave Foley (Ireland). Eugene Anker (England). Bill Allison (Scotland) Ross Donovan (Scotland).
Score recorder: Angela Harris
Social and Hospitality organisation by: Gillian and Steve Burgess
Pilots Scotland: Steve Burgess, Gary Eunson, Malcolm Harris, Bill White
Pilots Ireland: Niall O’ Sullivan, Mikey Blake, Brian Carolan, James Murphy
Pilots England: Garry Peacock, Gerhard Fehringer, Arthur Silsby, Brian Hoare
Pilots International: Paul Houlihan, Colin Elgey, Wolfgang Schiebel, Colin Lee
The Saturday start was put back to 12.00 noon due to heavy rain forecast for the morning. Flying commenced at around 1.00pm with a strong near to 90 degrees crosswind blowing out. Over the course of the afternoon however, the wind eased off somewhat, with one and a half rounds being flown on the Saturday.
Malcolm and Steve had organised a get-together for Saturday evening at the Amisfield Village Hall, with welcome drinks, hog roast and desserts. Ceilidh dancing with live music and entertainment were thoroughly enjoyed by everyone.
Sunday brought lighter winds still blowing out close to 90 degrees, and the weather generally improved throughout the day so that three rounds could be completed in total.

Results: 1st Place Team Ireland, 2nd Place Team Scotland, 3rd Place Team England, 4th Place Team International.

More hi-res pictures on the Editor’s Flickr page here

https://www.flickr.com/photos/138883192@N02/albums/72157665769440941

This year I would like to thank Elliot Balfour (Scotland) for inviting teams to Castle Kennedy Airfield near Stranraer, to compete on the 30th June and 1st July. Four rounds of P13 will be flown.
 
Pilots traveling to Castle Kennedy for the Triple Crown 2012 are: England, Matt Hoyland, Kevin Caton, Steve Underwood and Peter Scoles, Adrian Harrison will be the England member of the International Team.
 
Peter Brett has agreed to be the English judge.  We were asked to provide another judge but as this has not been possible the competition will run with three judges.

Ashley

Great job to team Scotland for putting on the Triple Crown, a job well done by Malcom Balfour and family and support from Steve Burgess & Malcom Harris

This event is a true gathering of flyers and the latest tech in the pattern world, lots to think about and a good variety of models to look over..
Steve

More information and pictures here:
http://www.gbrcaa.org/gallery/index.php?/category/259

2011

Thanks to Andy, all at LMAC and Brian for their organisation and hospitality over the weekend, helped by fantastic weather on all 3 days it was a great competition with a really good standard of flying from all.  Results are attached. Full story and pictures here:

GBRCAA Photo Gallery: http://www.gbrcaa.org/gallery/index.php?/category/112

Comments by Richard Christopher:
I'd like to thank the English pilots Ken, Matt and Peter for putting in some excellent flights in what were, at times, challenging conditions. The standard of flying at this Triple Crown was the highest I have seen. Matt in particular flew very well indeed and his third round score would have been even higher if his battery hadn't faded in the Figure 8.

Ashley acquitted himself well after his last minute recruitment to the International team (despite having to overcome engine problems during the weekend).

The contest was well run and the Irish hospitality was first class (as always). The judges were tasked with judging 3 rounds (48 flights) on Saturday as the forecast for Sunday morning was for rain and high winds. Thanks to their commitment we completed the 4 rounds as planned.

Brian worked tirelessly all weekend (with help from his band of helpers of course) and he was a big part of making this contest such an enjoyable weekend. THANK YOU BRIAN!!!

Richard C.

Team Results

1 - Scotland
2 - Ireland
3 - England
4 - International

Individual Postions

01 - A. Balfour
02 - S. Robinson
03 - S. Burgess
04 - J. Martin
05 - M. Hoyland
06 - N. O'Sullivan
07 - R. Christopher
08 - M. Balfour
09 - R. Keane
10 - B. Carolan
11 - P. Houlihan
12 - P. Scoles
13 - M . Harris
14 - S. Currie
15 - K. Moss
16 - A. Hoyland

2009

The English Team (Richard Christopher (TM), Keith Jackson, Ken Moss, Matt Hoyland, Bob Wasson (Flying for the international team) & Peter Brett (Judge)) all arrived on the Friday for the practise day, unfortunately rain curtailed the flying until the middle of the afternoon.  Team England all managed at least one flight and everything was working well.

Saturday's story was dense patchy low cloud (ask Bob Wasson and Paul Houlihan who both took 3 or 4 attempts to complete schedule).  Consequently only one round was completed on the Saturday in a strong 90° cross wind blowing out.

Sunday was a better day but still with the strong 90° cross wind blowing out so we completed two rounds.  Scotland took the trophy back off England who were second with Ireland third and the International team 4th.

Excellent hospitality and organisation from the Scots and the baton has been passed to Ireland for 2010.

Regards

Matt