PSS Fest 2008 Eastern Thermal Busters

As a follow on to Daves posting, here is my photographic contribution of the event




Richards successful flight on Sunday with the Windrider A388 airliner















Let the judging begin....














The winners - Piet and Rockwell Aero Commander, Mike with Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt (Warthog) and Herman with Hunting Percival Jet Provost











A formation of SAAF Impalas and Sabres














Herman and the Jet Provost just after completion on the slope!!













Norberts Northrop F-5A Freedom Fighter

Izaks beautiful McDonnell Douglas FA-18 Hornet, in Blue Angels colour scheme.

The Cessna A-37 Dragonfly Super Tweet belonging to event organiser Paul

ETB PSS fest pics from Dennis Bird

After being a late starter, Mike May knocked this up in very quick time for his son for the event.
Mike May's Warthog meanie.

The Springfield legend himself, Pete Milne with the Martin Baker 5, that confused more than a few people....

The Berg Blog well document speedy build beaut from Pieter Rheeders.

There must have been at least half a dozen of these Impala beauties, all built magnificently.

Paul Carnell's yellow beastie.

Chris Adrian and Johan with one of the quite a few versions of this low, swept wing versions.

The up country slope mecca, known as Tamatjieberg.

There are already some nice pics on the Berg blog and pretty sure that ETB will soon folllow up with a report and the large group pics.....

http://berg-gliders.blogspot.com/2008/10/etb-october-pss-fest.html

http://www.easternthermalbusters.blogspot.com/

http://berg-gliders.blogspot.com/

PSS fest 11th hour

Dennis Bird nearing completion on the wow ME109 initiated by Michel Moratanus a longggg time ago. Stunning.

Roll on Volksies!

ETB PSS Fest 2008

With less than a week to go, Jacques and I have finally finished our projects for this event. The Sabre has flown, been dinged and repaired, the Impala will be maidened at Volksrust on the day. The ugly mongrel Harvard was recently crashed while practicing for this event, and has been hastily repaired. She is not a pretty sight. Weights are Impala 1.6kg, Sabre 1.4 kg and Harvard 800g. Lets hope the wind blows on the day...

Out and about 3 - a magic day of control line at Corobrik with the lads from up north

Keith Renecke with the stunning electric powered control line - MVVS hedging their bets with a grunty brushless motor an controller to complement their well known IC motors. The large lipo and controller located in the fuselage.

No flies on glider guider Kobus who bought a second hand model and benefited in an accelerated learning curve from host Dirk Meyer.

Another of Dirk's second hand specials sold to Russ, the Tucker Special, which oozed character and flew flawlessly for a very chuffed Russel.

Henry and Percy Attfield (Mr SAMAA) trying different prop combinations for the thicker coastal air. Henry displayed talent and body English that the slope and slot car lads for would die for!

Hein (I might have his name wrong) simply could not keep his hands off Dirk's dinky little RC Eflight Ultra Mini Stick, which was a show stealer, even in the tricky breezy conditions..... Hein helped the glider folk tirelessly with their control line planes, as well.

Dirk and his up country control line experts, along with the wives made the Springfield soaring folk so welcome, even throwing in lunch to make the day so special for Dennis, Russ, Kobus, Pete Milne and myself.

Our thoughts also lie with local control line stalwart Doug Irvine who missed out by ending up in Westville hospital ICU after a serious accident down at the harbour wharf.

Thoughts also turn to the potential of a small control line under brushless power (nothing like the grunt in Keith's Plane) and I recall way back a little RC electric plane that used to have an auto cut off after five minutes to save a battery (and radio in that case). Maybe some of the electric folk will know where to track such a gizmo....?

The guys flew an amazing advanced pattern and kindly gave us copy of the Novice pattern, shown below:

CONTROL LINE NOVICE PATTERN
START & TAKE-OFF (within 1 minute)
TAKE-OFF and 2 LEVEL LAPS
REVERSE WING OVER
INSIDE LOOPS
INVERTED FLIGHT
OUTSIDE LOOPS
INSIDE SQUARE LOOPS
HORIZONTAL EIGHTS
VERTICAL EIGHTS
OVERHEAD EIGHTS
LANDING (within 6 minutes)

Key Ridge slope

Late afternoon flying the Weasel

Directly in front of the slope ie . the general flying area

Sunset over the hill

Hometime - its easier coming down than going up

South side of the slope towards Summerveld


We share our slope, no problem

Bradley being buzzed by his mates glider



View of the N3 highway going south over Key Ridge

The slope face, from the bottom


General flying area in a NE wind

Sunset over the hill, taken from the top of Key Ridge on the N3, heading south.






Dont land here, land further back where there are fewer rocks

Car park, next to the trig beacon. Only just accessable in a 1400cc front wheel drive sedan.

Access road vey rocky and rutted.

Bradley having fun of another kind. He also flys r/c and is the owner of the EPP Windrider Fox I mentioned in my July blog post about Key Ridge.

Springfield Chickens out and about

Nix wind from the coast to Howick and a howling gale at Karkloof Country Club saw a scramble back to an empty Summerveld, yesterday. The mid day to afternoon breeze provided some useful slope lift for the high launching electrics. Sheldon's two metre thermaller almost got away on Russ's hand toss! The highlight was two ROG winch launches with Russ's Ash, a craft more used to the slope but coped immaculately with the winch launches. Maybe a hint that there could be a flat field Sungazer as well.....? ;-)

It was first time out for Sheldon's Cumulus XXL, after losing it in the bush for a couple months at a Noodsberg event. After some head scratching on the programing, the issue was merely a lose flap, sorted by Seano. Dave and Sheldon enjoyed some flight time on the sweet flying model.

A rare shot of Andre Leusch flying his 2.5 metre thermal electric at Summerveld.

Sheldon with his foamie, grounded by the pleasant breeze.

Below that, Dave holding Russ's Ash pre the rise off ground winch launch. The Ash behaved impeccably.

Neil and Sean Oellermann were armed with three electrics, including this smart Pelican Pike. Their little EHawk 1500 stole the show, though. Strangely, Neil turned down the offer of a swap for Dave's E Mouton..... ;-)

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