October 2006 South Island JR Series Pattern Comp - Round 5 DMAC
By Patrick (Moped) Murray
After loading my car with planes and then removing half of them to make room for the brand new South Island set of Pattern Poles I had spent the last two weeks building, I managed to hit the road for the big drive from Christchurch down to Dunedin on Friday afternoon. I arrived at 1Can’s place just before 6pm which (thanks to daylight savings) gave us enough time to head out to the field and go for a fly before setting up the new flag poles for the first time.
It was dark by the time we got the flags up, but they looked pretty good so it was back to 1Can’s for a beer or two. I was able to have a good look over his new Comp ARF Extra 260 which turned up the day before. The custom colour scheme looks awesome, and not a drop of teal paint on it anywhere!
Saturday morning rolled around and we headed out to the field at about 8:45am, making a brief stop at the supermarket to buy the bangers for the barby. To my surprise there was already a large line up of cars at the field and most people were ready to fly by 9:00am - except myself and 1Can of course!
The weather was perfect, it was dead calm and not too cold at all. There were a few clouds moving in from the south but they didn’t come to anything. A couple of the flag poles had fallen over, but this was partly due to my knots not being tight enough… We were worried the cows had eaten one of the flags but they were good as gold and when they were stood back up again they really looked the part.
We had a total of 13 entries on the day, 6 in Sportsman, 5 in Advanced and 2 in F3A. I think it was the biggest line up I have ever seen at a South Island pattern comp ever! There were even 4 Matrix’s in the line up which looked rather impressive. Most of the entries came from the Dunedin club but Alec Taylor managed an early morning start and drove up from Riversdale and Marcus Sargent from Timaru also managed to drive down for his first ever Aerobatic Competition.
Flying kicked off at about 10:00am following the pilots briefing and a few test flights. First up for the day was Chris Kennedy in Sportsman. I saw a couple of close encounters with the ground in his first flight but his second round proved to be higher scoring. Marcus Sargent made his first appearance having only deciding to drive down the night before at about 11:00pm. He was not intending to fly as the only model he had with him was a small electric foamy, however me being a bossy bastard pushed him in the deep end and made him fly sportsman. It was a good thing I did because he ended up winning the competition! There was some good flying by all competitors, possibly helped out by the near perfect flying conditions.
Advanced was up next and again there was a good standard of flying. Peter Anderson flying his PGB Extra 260 cleaned up as usual with some very precise flying and good positioning. Jeff Smart was flying his Matrix well but needs to slow it down a bit and take more time between manoeuvres. Colin Chalmers was flying his new Matrix for the first time in competition and looked to have it under control. This was the first competition where the flags have been used so many of the pilots were not used to flying inside the box. Alec Taylor was flying his scratch built 50% Edge 540 and looked to be having a lot of fun. He was flying the largest model of the day, but somehow managed to fly the smallest manoeuvres! In the end he was able to beat Jeff Smart by a very close 3 points.
After two rounds of Sportsman and Advanced it was time to fire up the BBQ and cook up the sausages. A few of us took the opportunity to have a bit of a fun fly during the lunch time break, but that did not last long as the wind had started to pick up and was getting stronger by the minute.
After half an hour or so we decided to fly F3A. By this time the pressure had dropped and the wind was near gale force. The fancy new flag poles were no match for the wind and disappeared into the long grass. 1Can went up first to check out the conditions, it was flyable but only just. Landing was very difficult as the wind was straight across the strip and was very turbulent as it came through the trees. I went up for a test flight next and it was probably the most wind I have flown a pattern model in before, however we decided to risk it and we both managed to get in one flight before we called off the competition.
Even though the afternoon was blown out, we managed to have a successful competition and everyone had a great time. I’d like to thank Keith for looking ofter the barbeque, Kevin for adding up scores and everyone else who helped out with judging and setting up the flags etc.
Look forward to the next round.
Cheers, Moped
