Norfolk TWUK League Race at the Aviation Museum

The Norfolk whoop club girls seem to be the queen's of themed races with their second in as many months. In October we enjoyed zipping around a Tank Museum. 

This time they found support from the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum who kindly allowed us all to fly whoops around their magnificent aircraft. 

With so many rare aircraft and elements of aviation history and technology, this is a really special place to fly. A suitable location then, for the Norfolk Whoop Clubs TWUK League race kicking off the 2026 season.

With the help of FPV Racing Solutions running the race timing and live stream, the Norfolk team arranged a great event. With plenty of parking, tables and chairs, tea and coffee, and a fantastic track waiting, everyone who made the (long) journey was itching to get flying.

The track made use of the whole aircraft hangar, jumping up and down in-between the planes multiple times. With wide open sections of flying where you could really send it and technical sequences to test your close quarters control, it was a very balanced track. 

My favourite part was the huge sweeping arc up through the triangular hang glider bars, over a couple of planes and down to the floor thru the rear tail plane of the Vampire aircraft. This was incredibly satisfying to do quickly, but on one occasion I did fly full speed into that hang glider bar and completely decapitate the camera from my whoop. Having ripped the thread out of the frame, I then spent a frantic few minutes swapping everything over into a new one. 

I had actually prepared a tool kit and spares box, but then mistakenly left it at home. When this crash threatened to end my flying day (all my other whoops I'd brought had developed other issues - mainly as a result of my merciless flying/crashing style) the wonderful whoop community stepped up. A new frame was kindly donated by Norfolk's right hand man, Jippyhesus, who continued the helpful whoop community spirit to keep everyone flying as much as possible.

Jippyhesus was also the mastermind behind the dreaded vertical moving gate out on track. This triple hex feature moved slowly about a meter up and down on its own rails. It was never in the same place when you arrived on your next lap and so you really had to concentrate when approaching it to know whether to go high or low. Some pilots hate moving gates, but personally I love them as it's something unique and quirky to whoop races unseen anywhere else. 

Of course as much fun as everyone was having, there was one guy having a nightmare. Dan Carpy, TWUK 2025 champion has decided to make some adjustments to his controller set up the night before the race. Unfortunately, this broke the ELRS lua script on his controller, locking him to R2. For some reason this also meant the connection was not as reliable and so the whoop was not responding as he expected. Normally I'd say this was a racing driver excuse but after watching him win the 2025 TWUK League Finals and then dominate lightpool <link both> I believe him when he says something wasn't right. 

While this may have been a disaster for him, it was a challenge to everyone else who saw their opportunity to hit the top spot while the Champ was down. Probably thanks to the rapid weight reduction turning my whoop into a convertible, several pilots along with myself managed to qualify faster than Dan. This was so surprising as it pushed him down into the B Main finals. Not somewhere anyone expected to find him.

Our BTW pilots put in some great laps and all qualified very well. They were evenly spread up the Triple Finals mains because it was such close flying! In C Main there was less than 1 second separating the 4 pilots!

BTW pilots:

B Main - Minirollsrule 

C Main - James TX

D Main - Scooby Air

E Main - Blueprint

I think only Blueprint was a little disappointed landing in E Main. He said he was really having a hard time keeping consistent. On a long track like this, that consistency is absolutely key to getting good times. He had multiple crashes in each qualifying round as he felt the pressure, and didn't manage to link 2 clean laps together.

The Finals

Going into finals, with the track learnt and laptimes dropping, we set about scoring points! 

The flying started to get scrappy now as people chased position over lap times. I certainly felt the racing step up a notch. As each race ended I had very shaky hands from the adrenaline, but itching to get flying again! 

Lots of other pilots were finding the same until the inevitable happened. No One Expects managed to bounce off a wing and crash land in the cockpit of a fighter jet. After tumbling like a pinball through the canopy and across the controls, he somehow landed the right way up. With a huge cheer from the pits we all watched as he managed to fly his way out and finish his race.

By the end of the day, with all the racing done we had our results and the first of the sought after position points in the TWUK League.

Next TWUK event

The next chance to score points is in the calendar! Your very own BTW Club is hosting their TWUK event in December on Sunday 7th. You've got a month to get your whoops in order, get your sticks under control and prep those packs for the next chance at scoring points in the 2026 League