March 2007 South Island JR Series Pattern Comp - Round 2 Christchurch
By Patrick (Moped) Murray
The weather forecast for last weekend looked promising and when Sunday morning finally rolled round it turned out to be a magnificent day. In the last three years I have been in Christchurch I have never experienced such perfect flying conditions.
I got out to the field at about 9:00am to find Rob Fenwick and Terry Parker setting up and getting in some early practise flights. By the time I got the wings on my Matrix a few more people had turned up and it was looking like it was going to be a great day.
As we were still waiting on a few more people to turn up I went up for a demo flight with my Funtana 1.40 and took advantage of the still air to do what I do best – show off! A few blenders, harriers and torque rolls and it was about time to start the competition.
As we were missing a few of our regular guys, Rob Fenwick decided to sit in the judging chair along with myself while we got underway with Sportsman. First up was Terry Parker making his first ever appearance in an aerobatics competition, flying a 60 size pattern model called “The Fish”. It was very obvious he had been practising as his first flight was one of the best Sportsman sequences I had seen flown for a long time.
Next was sportsman veteran Mike Maurice flying his trusty Goldberg Extra. Mike was also flying well as always and his Extra was performing great. Mike is a very consistent flier and we can always count on him to be there to put the pressure on the other competitors.
New comer Louis Walker-Cuttance was up next with his Hanger 9 Funtana 40 powered by an OS .46AX. (Louis has recently moved to Christchurch from the north Island and is thinking about joining the Christchurch Model Aero Club) It was clear that Louis had flow his fair share of aerobatics before, even though this was his first time competing. He flew very well and proved that it doesn’t take a large model to be competitive in aerobatics.
We tried to convince fellow CMAC member Peter Bass to fly the sequence with his “Down Pipe Special” model but he decided to watch instead, he has however told me that he is keen to enter in the next round of aerobatics we have in Christchurch.
A total of four rounds were flown in Sportsman with close scores in some rounds. In the end new comer Terry Parker took first place with 1000 points, followed by Mike Maurice on 907 points and Louis in third place with 816 points.
Only one round of F3A was flown as I was the only one flying the FAI Schedule. Rob Fenwick did his best to call the sequence and was very generous to give me a total score of 1000 points. Thanks Rob!
Thanks to all the people who turned up on the day, I counted about a dozen cars there at one stage and a good number of club members turned up to show their support.
Cheers, Moped
