Springfield comes to the rescue

There were some very frustrated slopers on the BBM group through the misty and rainy Saturday - the grand plan being to visit Switchblade for the forecast NE on Sunday. Travis reported back mid Sunday morning that Switchblade was still shrouded in the inland mist and fearless leader Russ made the call to switch to Springfield, which turned out an inspired decision as more and more folk keep cruising in all afternoon! 

The Springfield shuffle has evolved to a bunch of foamies combating on the front, ala the TOSS and Hermanus mobs, whilst us crunchie flyers played further out and snuck through for the odd "right to left!" from time to time. It was enjoyable to thermal the flying fish Sharkie right back down wind and generally explore the slope.

Gareth was the first to leave his mark on the Springfield pole with his newly refurbished ex Andrew Leusch crunchie - someone please write Gareth's name on the pole with a marker!

Production car race driver Reghard Roets is now one of the hard core BBM slopers and it was a pleasant surprise to have fellow racer, now rally driver, Guy Botterill pop in for a quick decko. Guy has banged his Toko at the mo but will be back.

Foamy fliers Grant and Travis were now studying the various mouldies as the next step up and Mike Smith had a ball with his weasel but decided to keep the Graphite for another day.

Not to forget the successful maiden flight of Rudi's "PE special" Corex Mig.

Russ unfortunately lost his Ash right down the bottom of the slope and there are many offers of assistance to locate to today, such is the comradeship and pulling power of the BBM group calls for magic afternoons like this.

Travis said it best with this BBM post afterwards: "Awesome day guys. Thanks for introducing me to another WICKED spot. Had a lot of fun today thank you."

Mike, Travis and Grant sporting the latest designer T shirts.

The original car park of vehicles with "the pole" - kept filling up all afternoon.

Russ, Grant, Travis, Michel, Mike and Dean just enjoying flying.

Young Thomas in foreground (Russ's nephew) learnt on a simulator and said to Russ  in his own words "I haven't had  so much fun in ages!"

Some of the sky occupied by foamies and birds. 

Andre, Brendon, Gareth, Grant, Michel, Travis, Reghard and Dean

The evergreen Dennis Bird flying his "twinkle roll" Kipper.

There was even a "rent a crowd" bunch of locals spectating.

The gorgeous Fox, Michel flew it a treat.

Brendon's colourful e-wing.

Travis and Brendon ballasting up the single tiplet wing.

Michell's Swift still awesome on slope power alone!

Almost looks like a pylon 1 race turn ;-)

Some of Russ's pics from the Karkloof aerotow day

Quadcopter FPV at La Mercy lagoon

Another FPV flight with my quadcopter, this one was flown at La Mercy Lagoon north of Durban.

Russ "Russel's up" aero tow interest at Karkloof

Some pictures taken at the Karkloof Country Club on 13 November.  The main focus was on aerotowing large scale model gliders. The weather was less than ideal with 10/10 low cloud.  Fortunately there was no rain. The event was well attended and everyone had fun.

Cheers for now.

Dennis

more e practice for Toss 2012 slope aerobatics

Reminder - next pattern day is Dec 11th. Venue to be confirmed.

KZN Pattern Day 

6 Nov 2011

Howick MFC

Judges

Des Cooper, Bruce Clark, Mike Cox

RESULTS

(Percentages)

NOVICE

                                                                       Rd        Rd2     Best 

1          Angus McInnes                                   55,0     62,0     62,0

SPORTSMAN

1          Lynton Milner                                    58,6     61,7     61,7

2          Stan Hausmann                                   61,6     60,4     61,6

3          Dave Greer                                         57,7     60,5     60,5

4          Steven v Niekerk                                52,8     58,1     58,1

5          Colin Addis                                        54,8     55,4     55,4

6          Leon Coetzee                                     43,0     54,0     54,0

MASTERS

1          Mark Savage                                      63,1     66,1     66,1

2          Arthur Eggar                                       54,8     57,4     57,4

3          Clive McInnes                                    57,0     56,1     57,0

4          Alex v d Spuy                                         -      55,0     55,0

F3A

1          Jason Barker                               69,0 (P)           69,0 (F)           69,0

2          Neil Allen                                    65,2 (P)           56,8 (P)           65,2                                        

COMMENTS

Windguru was emphatic that there would be no flying all weekend because of drizzle, but fortunately for us it was wrong, and we had cold but flyable weather even with some blue skies, until 2 pm. Thirteen entrants, many from Durban, were so keen on entering that they braved the grotty day they saw from their homes! Our entries are now growing bigger, and I think we will start future rounds at 8 instead of 9 to accommodate this.

The new A12 pattern for Masters was a big hit. Everyone liked the gracefulness of this, and its level of difficulty. The F3A pilots also approved of the new P13, and Jason liked the chance to fly the choice of P or F for round 2. There were no entrants in Advanced. Time will tell if people want to move up to this from Sportsman, or perhaps they may prefer to jump up two steps to the Masters class, which is well supported.

In Novice we were pleased to have Angus McInnes do a good job, and get 62%.

Sportsman was led by Lynton Milner, who is not yet quite used to flying the glo powered "Venus" he acquired from Ian Morris, but still came top. Second place was a welcome new face to the pattern scene, Stan Hausmann from the Umhlanga club, flying his large scale "Beast", after only a few practice flights of our pattern. Dave Greer surprised us with his neat flying of his small electric "Diamante".

In Advanced Mark Savage flew a new "Wind S" 2m into an excellent 66%. The others are still getting up to speed on the new pattern. Alex borrowed my plane for the last round, and flew it without a test flight.

In F3A Jason astonished us by not only getting in a good P pattern, but had managed to learn the very difficult F pretty thoroughly as well in only four weeks! This bodes well for his serious push to try for team selection for the 2013 World Champs. Jason and Arthur have both got new 2m "Wind S" planes, which are not yet trimmed out to compete, making this design the plane of choice it seems.

Thank you very sincerely judges for your long travel to get to the event, and thank you Howick MFC for giving us a bowling green smooth grass runway, and a very welcome braai.

Neil Allen

Just out and about

Stan with the smaller end of the spectrum SBach

Stan then with his bigger end of the spectrum, the "Beast" at Umhlanga Flyers

Michel at Umhlanag Flyers inverted prop hanging the Flightpro Yak 55

Springfield slope's imposing new addition......

The BBM slopies group Grant enjoying his first Springfield after work fly

Winston slope - Arthur's natty Canterbury wing

Arthur with blast from past Tim Kinsey and his new Multiplex Exeno wing