It was a pleasure to visit the serious business of 2011 National Aerobatics at the beautiful KZN Emoyeni site on 1 May. It may have been serious competition but the atmosphere pleasantly informal and it was magic to chat to the various competitors, including a long chin wag with Mark Wolffe of Two Oceans slope fame. It was also neat to see how well Johan de Lange and Arthur Eggar, both products of Neil Allen's monthly pattern series, fared. Quite apart from the old DMAC evergreen hands like John Dorse, Ian Morris and Neil himself.
Johan achieved an excellent second in advanced, along with another Kzn youngster, Brendan from Hobbytech, who achieved a creditable second in Sportsman, using a bog stock Hyperion Helios. This serves an encouragement for us local yokels starting to enjoy the novice side of aerobatics, thanks to Neil's ongoing hard work.
What astounded me was the sheer size and grunt power of the e-power FAI craft - a far cry from twenty-one years ago! Wolfgang Matt provided some retro but very up to date immaculate flying with his anhedral tail Peridot, at the tender age of 63.
It has been nice to read of the appreciative feedback from boffs like Pierre Marias and Andre Stockwell and Neil and his hardworking Nats team can take well deserved pat on the back!
Much chatting was done with Les Ward, Dave Hooker, Dave's buddy Alfred and longgggg time no see Dave Grosvenor.
The day ended with a professionally wow helicopter aerobatics display from Will Cranmer and his team.
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