Helifest is a great success this year

Despite the typical British summer weather last weekend, the Helifest in the UK was a great success. 80 pilots - among them 15 from overseas - registered at the weekend either to compete or just to fly in the fun-fly sessions. The number of spectators has been also noticeably higher, even higher than the previous year.

The most important question of an event in the UK is always the weather. And the weather didn't let us down again, it showed its typical British face: four seasons in a day on Saturday, followed by a much nicer Sunday, but it was raining unstoppably in the previous days, consequently the whole Weston Park - home of the hosting event of Helifest, the Weston Park Model Air Show - was much more a swamp rather than a regular park. Rubber boots were mandatory again.

It's true, the weather could be worse, the whole programme was only suspended twice for shorter times due to severe weather conditions, but it was uninterrupted on Sunday.

Perhaps the high number of pilots from overseas was a contributing factor to the spectators' interests, and they could not be disappointed, great international pilots have been presented like Nick Maxwell, Luca Pescante, the Lipke brothers, Raquel Bellot, Marius Gehle and so on. And these pilots demonstrated their superior knowledge of RC helicopter flying well.

Surprisingly even Ra Kabun (owner of XLPower) had shown his piloting knowledge, which is still very impressing - although, he had to borrow Nick Maxwell's Nimbus Nitro.

Ra Kabun on the left, Nick Maxwell on the right

A new competition class was also introduced this year: Masters International, and no doubt, it's a great success. Of course, the now traditional competitions, the Sports, Inters and Pro classes remain with us during Helifest. Nick Maxwell was the 1^st in International Masters, Stu Smith won the home competition in Pro class, Benjamin Britton has got the 1^st place in Inters and Gary Fosdike stood up on the top step of the podium in Sport class.