I had a good excuse for not attending last year (honeymoon) but even still… I missed one of the best events in the UK tiny whoop calendar.
Hosted by HTWC, Hanworth Tiny Whoop Club, this event has become THE summer party of whoop racing in the UK. It used to be at Wings and Wheels but sadly, no more. So with the help of the Hanworth crew this has become a worthy successor.
Growing every year, Popham Model Air Show, has a fantastic lineup of planes, jets and helicopters being flown in some great demonstrations. And some of them are massive! I'm sure if you put a joystick in some of these planes a toddler could fly them. But it's not just aircraft that have been invited to take part. All sorts of RC toys and organizations have been invited, creating a huge summer festival that takes over the Popham airfield.
There is a boating pond with lots of scale model RC boats beautifully crafted and detailed. Parked next to them is a full-size tank. I should have asked, but didn't, whether that was RC or not. There were a couple of chaps taking their RC tanks and RC army trucks for walks around the crowds, so maybe it's on their radios model list? There was even a Jeep scaled such that a teddy bear was driving, animated to wave at passers by. But in the big top tent alongside the RC drift car track and artists displaying their paintings we Whoopers found our place.
I had travelled down late on Friday night and arrived in pitch darkness to find the big top tent lit up with LEDs and whoops zipping around. The track had been set but there was no way to work out what it was without a walkthrough by its creator, Dirty McStinky. We spent the evening freestyle whooping with a few beers before turning in, eager to get flying the next day.
Waking onsite and just rolling out of bed at a casual time, made the long drive the previous night worth it. I love this little van and how comfortable it is. With some breakfast and a cup of tea I went and made myself comfortable in the pits area ready for the days racing. With the track walk done and a video to help me memorize it (thank the whoop gods) we started on qualifications.
Qualifications had been split into three sessions in the morning, afternoon and nighttime. This meant there was plenty of time in between to get food and wander around the rest of the air show. It was also arranged so we had three back-to-back batteries each time you sat down. It worked really nicely and meant that we got through the rounds very quickly and everyone had lots of flying.
That is, all except Norfolk’n’Good who was having a hard time. She had lots of interference with her video and nothing could solve the problem. It sounded like a problem i had once where the video signal loses sync lock and you get a rolling screen - completely unflyable. But switching out of mix mode solved it for me, but not for Norfolk. Swapping goggles, whoops, recievers, nothing solved it. Other people were managing to fly but did complain of bad video so it was determined that someone in the airfield was using a video system on that channel. Shes such a good sport and was happy enough to wait till later and try again. Especially after some retail therapy.
Luckily for me, once I had learnt the track I started to focus on getting the right lines and after a while, I managed one 29 second lap. This meant a qualifying time of under 60 seconds (2 consecutive laps) was definitely possible and became my goal for the day. It also became clear that Mike FPV and I were very closely matched in speed and ability. This is interesting because we both fly angle mode in a sea of pilots that all fly acro. There were a couple of very close qualifying sessions where we were really closely chasing each other, foreshadowing a very exciting finals.
I had started to push by the evening for better qualifying times and then finally managed a 27 followed by 29 second lap. With this under my belt I felt confident that I could push hard and even if I did crash I knew I had managed a good time. I think my fastest lap lap was a 24 second something… but I don't think that made it into my two fastest consecutive laps as no doubt I crashed on the next one. My 2 consecutive fastest lap time was 52.06 seconds which I was very happy with! This put me in 5th qualifying position and B Mains finals!
Being capable of fast laps is one thing but doing it under pressure and in a race scenario is another. I realized that in finals I just needed to be consistent and not crash, and I would be quick. I focused on this and did quite well. Apart from the first of my triple finals where I have to admit to being a grown man that is unable to count to three. I was having so much fun flying that I started my fourth lap until someone shouted at me to get in the crash gate. That was a self-inflicted own goal and cost me the first position I would have come in. But try as I might, I could not avoid the race nerves. On one of my finals races I had accidentally left a switch in the wrong position which meant when I took off I was in acro mode and immediately ploughed into the ground. Cursing myself for such a simple oversight, I self-righted and popped back up before chasing down MikeFPV and Fly_EZ for the rest of that race.
But the best race was saved to last where Mike and I were really pushing hard. I did my best to fly smoothly, and this was working well. I was leading for 2 laps, but I could see him catching up in every tight corner. About halfway around the final lap I saw him hot on my tail and I couldn't do anything about it, except fly as fast as possible. I turned up the juice and tried to go for it but Mike is really quick and has tighter corkscrews than I do. This is where he zipped past me into the second to last corner. There was nothing for it, I punched the throttle hard through the tunnel and just overcooked the split-s crashing, ironically, into my own banner in the corner. I careened into the netting giving Mike space to take the win, but I still walked away with a huge grin from that fantastic race!
The A Main final was of course a show stopper. Dirty McStinky VS InfinityFPV VS MrE. All of them top pilots and incredibly fast, it was amazing to watch them shoot off the line riding invisible rails one behind another line a flying train. They took the course so quickly and smoothly that you would think they had choreographed this display just for us. But it wasn't a display, it was a competitive battle so it wasn't long before scraps came out under pressure. I did my best to commentate the races but sometimes I just got left behind because they were changing positions so fast it was hard to keep up. In the end there was a clear victory by Mr e who's smooth and consistent approach one him the day whilst the others made mistakes costing them time and ultimately the top position.
The excitement and buzz from that final race carried us all thru the rest of the event, and just spurs me on to fly more, share the FPV hobby with more people and have more events.
Dirty McStinky had the pleasure of delivering the awards ceremony and dishing out the wonderful trophies for each of the finalist positions. I was thrilled to take 2nd place in B Main Finals and 5th over all - my best result to date in Tiny Whoop racing!
Popham 2025 Whoop Race Results
MrE
DirtyMcStinky
Infinityfpv
MikeFPV
MiniR๑llsRule
Fly_Ez
Archie FPV
Jaggers
Martian Mcfly
Lex_FPV
Jippyhesus
Norfolk"N"good
Kiz
Bubbles
HarryFPV
With the racing over rather early in the day, a lot of people started heading off, but as is the helpfulness of this Tiny Whoop community, lots of others stayed around to help pack up. Many hands made light work and the track was packed up swiftly. A little too early in my opinion as there were still patrons to the model air show that were coming to see what was going on. Maybe next year we can run some sort of freestyle event once the racing is finished or run give it a go sessions in the afternoon for visitors?
With everything packed up it was a pleasure to run into Andrew and Jack in person. I've been interviewed by them a couple of times for their fantastic podcast called Lets Drone Out. They kindly introduced me to Greg from Menace RC who has always been a strong supporter of FOV in the UK with his products and attending model shows. Together we spent the afternoon hanging out and chasing the Clipping Point RC drift cars with whoops which was wicked fun.
This was such a fun event and I'm grateful that the HTWC crew put in the effort to make it a reality. After the death of the Wings and Wheels model show it looked uncertain whether we would have a summer Tiny Whoop event. Popham Model Air Show has been a very worthy replacement and I hope it continues for a long time because it is an exceptionally good and growing event.
I know I will be back next year!
Maybe I'll see you there too?
