Welcome to the Gallery. We have added an extension to Chall Com HQ and decided that one of the spacious rooms should be a gallery to hold the winning images for the RTF competition.
For those of you unfamiliar with this fortnightly challenge, it grew out of the buzz created by the 3rd GADC Birthday Treasure Hunt and the wish of two of the participants to keep the images and banter flowing. Instead of having to find and photograph an eclectic series of objects the Reason To Fly Competition
is primarily about imagination and composition.
Each fortnight a subject, is chosen by GADC members from a shortlist of three, randomly picked from the list of member-supplied suggestion. Then the next 14 days are availble for images illustrating the subject to be submitted and the best voted for by the GADC members, whether participant or viewer.
These are the best of those pictures
You are welcome to like any post but please do not post comments in this thread (they will be removed!)
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Our first competition subject was Bridges. The competition ran from September 20th to October 3rd 2020.
Our first-ever entry was also our winner - well done to @Rezzmo
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The next subject chosen for competition was A Monument. It was won by @SirGunner with a shot of Bodiham Castle:
For blatant disregard of the National Trust’s wish to control all the air above their properties he was awarded this:
We had a great crop of entries, second was @stevesb with a shot in Williamson Park Lancaster
and third place went to @Drumsagard with a shot of Castle Campbell above the town of Dollar in Clackmananshire.
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The members had a choice of subject to vote for - Night, A River or Canal and the winner, with 47% of the vote, Autumn Colours. This resulted in a tie for first place between @SirGunner and @Drumsagard with these images:
Lennox Castle near Glasgow by John Carroll (@Drumsagard )
Autumn Tree Tops, Angley Woods, Cranbrook by @SirGunner
Third place went to @Rezzmo with this shot of Laughton Forest:
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By this time it was November 2020. The first competition that month was to photograph a Lone Tree
@BrenDales winning entry - it scored the same amount of votes as the second place but the location also had been added to the Drone Scene map earning a bonus and proving the worth of always adding good flying locations to Drone Scene!
Second place went to @Chieflongshin:
And Steve Valentine (@McSteamy2010) took third:
Steve is one of the two that are the originators and caretakers of the RTF Competition. (The other is @macspite). Both feel that as the subjects are suggested and selected by GADC members who also vote for the winners of each competition they are free to enter the competition without any taint of unfair advantage. 
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The second half of November saw a tie for choice of subject so m’learned friend Judge @Steviegeek was brought in to decide between Misty Landscapes (plenty around in November!) or Night Shots (November has a fair amount of dark hours too). After several hours closeted in his chambers the verdict went in favour of Night Shots:
Celtic Park football ground, Glasgow won first place for @Drumsagard
@kvetner took second with a view of Central Manchester
And @Rezzmo submitted a ring of fire - a Tiny Planet of Saltend on the North bank of the Humber
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With a Covid pandemic, travel restrictions and short days and winter weather the Reason To Fly Competition series was proving its worth - by providing people with a reason to fly and a chance to show off images and exchange the usual insults, comments, congratulations and banter with like-minded GADC members.
December saw Moving Water as a subject and, in a concession to weather that could potentially supply its own lockdown, for the first time images from land based cameras were allowed. Use of a drone got the pilot a bonus vote when time came for judging. And the winners were determined to be:
@anon18134738 was the winner with an untitled shot without location information, @Drumsagard took second with this shot of the Corra Linn Falls at Falls of Clyde, New Lanark:
and third place was taken by @Rezzmo with a video of Barmston Beach which can be seen here
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December 13th to 26th 2020 included the shortest day of the year. The subject chosen by the members for this competition was Sunrise or Sunset - giving the m a lie-in or an early finish depending on which they went for.
It also produced some great images:
@Rezzmo - Stone Creek, Sunk Island
@SirGunner - Rock-a-Nore Beach Hastings
@anon18134738
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Going from a year to forget to a year of promise (sadly unfulfilled!) saw the choice of a simple subject - Black and White
@McSteamy2010 - Somerset Levels
@MPPjockey
@stevesb - Caton Moor
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And there the first RTF series ended. The situation with restrictions and lockdown meant that, even if it was possible to sneak a drone flight in as part of permitted daily exercise, it would be both insensitive and would attract unwelcome negative publicity.
The decision was taken to postpone the competitions until we were free to enjoy the outdoors and all outside pastimes once more.
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On the 10th of May 2021 McMac Productions were able to make the announcement that the RTF Competition was set to return
And return it did - after choosing between Rock, Straight Lines or Construction as the opening subject of series 2 members were able to find a Reason To Fly from May 23rd.
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Construction was the winner of the subject vote. Having weathered a pandemic lockdown we now had to weather the weather. Rule 23 was invoked to make the competitors’ lives a little easier:
Rule 23:
If the overall weather condition for the duration of the competition is deemed by the judges to be
“ ‘kin ‘orrible “ you may also use your handheld devices (phone, mirrorless, DSLR. OSMO etc) BUT… 1 extra vote will be awarded for the use of your drone. A valid dronescene addition also gets a bonus vote.
But even rule 23 couldn’t help. The eagerly awaited competition attracted only a trickle of entries due to the climate. The winner., @kvetner seemed still stuck in black and white mode 
Tower block, Salford
And there was a tie for second place. @Acedrone managed to get yellows and browns into his picture:
Volvo articulated dump trucks, Segro Logisitcs park, Northampton
whereas @kvetner (again!) managed some colour in his picture of The Factory - Water Street Manchester:
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Lights, Weight or Still Water? With almost 50% of the vote Still Water was the winner and the competition produced these winning entries:
In first place was @Rusty21
Borrowdale, Cumbria looking across to Catbells,
Second place this time for @kvetner
Castlefield, Manchester
And third was @Beesty13
The head of Loch Tay
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Running from June 20th to July 3rd the subject selected was Straight Down.
@Drumsagard added to his winners trophies with a straight down shot of one of his immense stable of Scottish Castles:
Old Lennox Castle, Lennoxtown near Glasgow.
@Acedrone found Hanson Sand and Gravel on the banks of the River Nene south of Earl’s Barton, Northamptonshire to take second place.
@SkyJumper came third ahead of a strong field with his vertical shot of Cheddar Gorge:
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A choice of Abandoned, Crops or Rooftops was offered for the first July competition. The members chose Crops.
This produced a good, err, flood of entries, And the cream of the, err, oh sod it, CROP was this from @Acedrone showing baby Weetabix ripening in the sun
Experimental crops neatly lined up different shades of green. Near Draughton Northamptonshire.
@JoeC disguised his shot as a model with tilt/shift
In third place we had TWO winners; Sharing the honours were @kvetner with an almost symmetrical shot:
and @Acedrone (again!) with a late-entry video
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Taking us up to the end of July 2020 the next subject for our increasing band of RTM devotees to illustrate was chosen - by them. Churches.
Jason (@Acedrone) took advantage of the weather and bonus votes for adding to Drone Scene with his first-place-winning church plus rainbow:
St Mary and All Saints Church, Fotheringhay near Peterborough
John Carroll (@Drumsagard ) took advantage of the weather too for a shot of one of Scotland’s oldest churches - the 14th C. Bothwell Parish Church - an addition to a previous Norman structure:
That image earnt him a tied second place with Paul Sunderland (@TallTakes ) who chose to photograph this chapel at Ingleton cemetery, situated just below Ingleborough, one of the Yorkshire Three Peaks.
The competition had resumed its momentum after the self-enforced lockdown break and McMac Productions had refined their process to make the RTF competition enjoyable even for them, the organisers. But, in the background, their activities had attracted the attention of some unsavoury and uncompromising characters …
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The Macspite and McSteamy era had come to an abrupt end. Suddenly the competition was in new hands and, for the first time it wasn’t competitors who were tied but subjects.
Due to both Nature and Symmetry receiving the same number of votes to be the subject of this fortnight’s RTF competition the Challenges Committee have decided to accept pictures on either theme.
No longer the cottage industry of McMac Productions, the competition and its assets had been grabbed by the faceless apparatchiks of the Challenges Committee. Their first stab at running the RTF was from August the first to the fourteenth, 2021.
The GADC members responded with a cracking set of images. However, one image had to be selected as the winner and that honour went to @kvetner. His picture of an office building, the Stockport Pyramid, was judged the best of all the submissions by a voting panel of his peers:
@rustybarnet gave us both nature and symmetry with his shot of the anti-erosion defences at Sea Palling, Norfolk
Third place went to @Acedrone for his picture of wheat growing near Burton Latimer. Another image to suit both the subjects.
Then the new owners abruptly pulled the plug on the Reason To Fly Competition
McSteamy and Macspite, who had started the institution and had been kept on as consultants by the new management were abruptly dismissed. The disheartened GADC members were offered a pallid imitation of a competition where artistic flair and skill was a distant second to searching out ever more ridiculous scenarios for points and potential prizes. The GADC 4th Birthday Photo and Treasure Hunt was underway.
The second series of RTF had ended.
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