01 August 2008

DMAC nostalgia from Warren Butler



A friend of Warren Butler's came up with this bit of history from an old DMAC soaring article...."Look at the names...Sheldon, Dorse, Mike Ward, Les Wilks, etc, etc", writes Warren.
This is of personal interest to me as my first contest visit to DMAC was to view the '73 Natal thermal soaring champs, won by Chris Goble, a friend of my Dad. I got to see Ernie Morrison's creation in action at the time, along with a certain Bob Howse (now Rob), who managed to max a Phase 4 slope soaring at 9:00am in the morning. Mike Sparks was another leading contender in those days. Unfortunately, by the time I got contest active in '76, most of these folk had moved on to other branches of the hobby and Noel Drew was busy rebuilding the soaring side again.
A previous visit to the Valley club and Mike Ward had also sparked the aero modelling interest and it was many years later that I had the pleasure of serving on the committee with Les Wilks.
Sheldon is another lifer who joined Russell at the recent Volksrust scale event for a most enjoyable outing. John Dorse is still the most active of us all.......!
Cheers
Dave Greer