Contest 4 of the
Y2K JR
/ Airsail F3B Series,
hosted
by MPMAC at Matamata,
on September 9-10, 2000.
CD: Angus Macdonald
Summary,
Round
1,
Round
2,
Round
3,
Round
4
First off, a big
thank-you to the CD, Angus Macdonald, from all the competitors. Despite not
being able to fly (due to waiting on a radio repair), Angus came down from
Auckland for the weekend just to run the contest, and did a great job.
Once again the forecast
for the weekend was not good, however despite a couple of breaks for rain on
Saturday we managed to get in 4 rounds of competition over the two days. Due to
the limitations of the flying field we started with the winches and course at
about 60 degrees to the wind, which was a good 15+ knots. Those fliers that
elected to weave on the line so they could zoom into wind were rewarded with
some huge launches, which was just as well as lift was hard to come by! No
one made the 10 minute target time in the two duration rounds flown on Saturday,
and the tricky conditions contributed to quite a few missed landings. There was
lift to had at times during distance and speed, with Dave Larsen nailing the
launch, then flying a smooth course in nice air to set a new NZ speed record of
16.15 seconds. He then proceeded to further lower the record to 16.13 seconds in
the second round! Congratulations DL!
The wind swung around
overnight, enabling us to setup pretty much straight into about 10kts of breeze
on the Sunday. This time there was lift around for some of the duration slots,
although other slots were still won with flight times under 7 minutes! Dave
Larsen had some nice air for his last distance flight and racked off 23 laps,
however that was the highlight of what was otherwise a bad day for him. He left
the door slightly ajar and some consistant 17 second speed runs from Chris
Kaiser enabled him to get a look in - after the dust had settled CK had taken
the win by 8 points out of a possible 12000! Dave
Morgan took a strong third place and is starting to feel more comfortable with
his Ellipse 2V - he flew all his speed times under 20 seconds, including a
personal best of 18.06 seconds. Craig Dawson showed that a spell in France
hasn't affected his competitiveness and flew very well to take fourth place with
yet another Ellipse 2V. He also test flew a brand new Scar - that's one
combination to keep an eye on for the future...
Another noteable first
was the test flights and contest debut of the Pulse. This is a hollow moulded
F3B ship, designed and constructed by the Palmerston North crew of Wayne Bilham,
David James and Daff Niles. Considering the test flights were conducted
immediately prior to the contest they did very well, and certainly proved the
potential of the design. Well done guys - a bit more airtime with those models
and you've run out of excuses :-)
Finally, mention must
be made of the most spectacular incident of the weekend. Most of us have seen
pictures of the aftermath of carbon winged models contacting high-voltage power
lines, however to see it actually happen was absolutely amazing! Huge bang,
massive fireball, and the remains of the Cobra were still hot and smoking when
we got there... even the steel wing bolts had been melted!
