London / South East Area’s Fun Fly Competition Day at the Bickley Model Flying Club – 14th June 2026
Report by James Gordon
Following a fairly wet and windy week, this year’s Fun Fly day at the Bickley Club’s field dawned hot and sunny with a light wind, which couldn’t be better!
The event, run by the British Fun Fly Association, was open to any BMFA member, with any model, for a nice informal day of club level Fun Fly competitions, with the emphasis definitely on the FUN! The day certainly didn’t disappoint!
We had around 20 entries from 7 clubs, plus some spectators and of course those there to help run the various competitions throughout the day, to whom I am very grateful. As well as the overall competition results, we also ran a Foamy Class for standard, out of the box Foamy models, such as the Wot 4 or Riot and we had 5 entries in that class too.
The first competition was ‘Carrier Deck Landing’, which tests your precision landing skills and how slowly you can land, but also how quickly you can stop, as the further up the deck you touch down, the more points you get, but only if you stop before running off the end or the sides of the deck!! Running off got you the Gong, which is now a favourite part of the Bickley Fun Fly!
Next was ‘Blackjack’, where, using boxes on the runway, numbered 10, 5, 2 and 1, the pilots had to score 21 by performing Touch & Gos in the boxes, with a circuit or loop in between each one. The pilot who got 21 in the quickest time was the winner!
The third event has been fairly unique to Bickley and was Touch & Gos, Limbo and balloon bursting for two minutes, all in one event! Bursting the balloon on a stick was worth 10 points, while every touch & go or limbo was worth 1 point. As I said before, this event is all for the fun, so there was no tape across the limbo, but someone sighting along the top of the poles and if anyone flew a bit high through the limbo gate, a big gong was heard!!
Round four was ‘Triple Thrash’, which was 3 touch & Gos in a square, followed by 3 rolls, 3 loops and a final touch & go in the quickest time. As with any Fun Fly competition, there was a big variation in times, as we always promote pilots of all abilities and experience taking part and enjoying themselves, then hopefully improving on their personal times the more times they take part. Times varied from around three minutes to a staggering 15 seconds from one of our BFFA top class pilots!
Our last round was an all up, last one down ‘Climb & Glide’, where all models took off and gathered at roughly the same height, then when the call was given, power was cut and pilots then had to glide for as long as possible. There really was quite a bit of lift around, with most models gliding for several minutes before landing and calling out their name for the scorer. That really was a great end to the day!
After all the scores had been added up, we had a little presentation and another tradition of this event is that everyone gets a modelling related prize from Perkins, which were obtained for us by Gavin Barden of Evolution Models, from a donation kindly given to us by the London Area BMFA. All the prizes were wrapped up so no one knew what was in them, with first place getting first pick, all the way down to last place getting last pick. It’s always fun watching people opening the prizes and showing that the bigger boxes are not always the best prizes!!
BFFA medals were also presented to the top three in each class as well as to our top junior, Erwin, who has only recently started flying and showed a lot of skill and promise – well done Erwin, great flying!
Another very generous donation was from Andy Mollett of Flying Moleman RC models, who kindly donated two Molewing kits, one glider and one electric, which we gave to the overall winner for the day and the top Foamy model. Thanks very much Andy, that was very much appreciated!
So, the top three overall for the day were:
3rd = Alex McMeekin & John Phillipps
2nd = David Colley & Chris Morris
1st John Ruck
With top Foamy going to Charlie Johnson, who very kindly donated his kit to Erwin. Thank you Charlie, it’s always great to encourage the next generation!
Finally, thanks to the Bickley Club for hosting at their fantastic field. Thanks also to all our sponsors and to everyone that helped with scoring, time keeping etc. and thanks to everyone for taking part and joining in the fun! Hopefully see you next time.
If anyone wants to know about other Fun Fly events coming up, do please look at the British Fun Fly Association website, where you will also find more information on getting involved in Fun Fly competitions. Everyone is welcome!
James Gordon (BFFA Chairman)
Thanks to Alex McMeekin for the amazing photos