Back in May Doug Tebbit mentioned that the Model club in his home town were having an aerobatic event and he thought he may packup his family and head north to sunny Queensland to participate. His family commitments changed resulting in an invitation to me to see if I might be interested in going.

The event grew from a Club event and evolved into the Queensland State Championship.

With a little more importance on the event the number of NS Welshmen making the trip grew to four.

On Thursday 14th August at 4.45am we greeted Gavin at the door and packed his gear into the wagon and spent the next 13 hours driving to Dalby Qld.

Jeremy was to join us at Gunnedah but had to postpone until Friday and drive up by himself.

Dalby is a farming community township roughly three hours west of Brisbane, quite a busy town and the landscape is as flat as a building board for as far as the eye can see. But we didn’t get to see any of that as it had been dark for the last hour and a half before we arrived at Doug’s parents house.

Friday was get out to the field and practice day.

You should have seen the facilities at the Dalby Model Aero Club!

Outstanding was all one could say!

Turf runways and pit area with sub grass trickle irrigation system, concreted work areas, steel support frames with shade cloth covering, excellent safety fencing, toilet block with shower facilities, club house with full kitchen and all done by a membership of around 30 members.

So where were all these pattern fliers? Turns out that there was only an entry of 15, well never mind, we will make the best of the weekend.

The wind was up and it was bloody cold so we spent a lot of that practice day sitting in the clubhouse taking advantage of the sunny spots out of the wind.

QPFA committee members Simon Atkinson and a funny Irishman known as Iceman, setout the flying box which had to be set about 70 degrees off the runway alignment in an effort to avoid the morning sun. Doug had a couple of practice flights just to frighten the Queensland Sportsman and then the great Paynie showed up with his new Tempest electric design.

I was glad to have a few practice flights as it was really hard to get in the groove due to the lack of features in the field of vision, the horizon disappeared into a heat haze even though it was freezing and the funny angle of the flight box in relation to the runway, not to mention that the sky was so blue and cloudless!

Gavin opted to find the warmest seat he could get his hands on! (And he spends all his time snow skiing!)

Saturday, first day of Competition, dawned brisk with a light wind. We had been advised that only one line would be used and that we could expect a reasonable time in the Judges chairs so a 9.00am start was hoped for. The briefing went easily, and Simon got proceedings underway promptly. Expert and Sportsman were up first for a few hours. The wind was strengthening and was coming from the right front quarter. The BOM records show that wind got upto 51klm, so it was a challenge to hold a solid base line and distance, Doug and Jeremy both put in solid scores and everyone else struggled. Interestingly there were two blokes from the Dalby club participating for their first time and it was really encouraging to see them have a go with their sports models, considering the conditions they did very well.

F3A and Advanced were the next group with John Payne (Electric Tempest)and Gavin (Cyclone on nitro)both putting on a good show, Trevor Neilsen flew an Integral in F3A This was quite a nice looking model and I hadn’t seen one before, and looking at the Trophies on Sunday Trevor’s name appeared not so long ago on the Sportsman trophy, so he has certainly tripped through the ranks very quickly, unfortunately the fellows in Advanced had difficulties in the conditions some were flying older ARF 90 / 120 sized models and some were flying borrowed models but it was all good experience.

Typically the Queenslanders used equipment that was predominantly second hand, some of which had not been used before the weekend, some proved unreliable in the engine departments and caused the pilots to have difficulties, but gold stars to everyone because despite the occasional outlanding there were no model fatalities until Sunday.

Encouragingly there were a steady stream of visitors to come and watch the event, I believe they all new Doug from some point in time and I spent most of the day dragging him away from the visitors so he could fly.

Saturday night was a feast cooked up by the men from the local club and the ladies provided the apple pie and icecream for dessert. Very nice!

Saturday saw us all get four rounds under our belts so Sunday was going to be a little shorter. Conditions were almost identical with strong cold winds and endless blue skies. There seemed to be a little less interest amongst the pilots with most opting to sit in the clubhouse out of the wind, but judges and pilots still had to perform, I buggered a few manourvers due to brain and thumbs not communicating but I have to say Jeremy put in a couple of great flights. Doug was unflappable putting in two excellent scores. Gavin wasn’t to be left out either and also flew really well.

There was one model fatality in the Advanced class when the pilot changed direction too quickly and the wings failed, apart from that upset, the weekend was incident free.

It was very rewarding to see the two local pilots advance with each flight, they must have really had there eyes opened to the challenges of pattern flying but did very well indeed.

Have some compassion for Simon Atkinson as he was running this event virtually singlehanded, when he wasn’t flying, calling or judging he was entering scores into the computer, even at the Saturday night dinner he was entering scores trying to keep ahead so that Sunday wouldn’t be too drawn out.

Eventually he called all the pilots together and readout the results, which were very good for the travellers, Gavin came second to John Payne, Jeremy cleaned up Expert and gained his second promotion point, I came second behind him and Doug won Sportsman by an outstanding margin to collect his second promotion point.

So there you have it, Jeremy only needs to fly well at his home event in Gunnedah to gain entry into F3A and Doug just has to keep doing what he has been doing and it wont be long before he progresses to Advanced and Expert.

It would be impolite of us if we didn’t thank all the Queenslanders for their hospitality and company throughout the three days that we were there, Simon put on a great event despite the weather difficulties . The members of the Dalby MAC are to be congratulated for providing such a terrific venue. Last but by no means least, we really thank Doug’s mum and dad for accommodating the five of us over the weekend, coming home to a warm house and a hot shower was very much appreciated.

So after saying our goodbyes and repacking the car and the trailer we set off for Gunnedah and drove in convoy to Jeremy’s house where another warm fire and hot shower greeted us. It had been a really big day but was great to be able to split the drive into two legs (well Doug had to do three legs) so thank you Jeremy.  Up out of bed early on Monday, we were given a personal tour of Jeremy’s private practice field of 2000 acres and his adjoining runway, after which we saddled up our trusty steed and headed for the big smoke eventually arriving around 2.00 pm.

Unfortunately for Doug he had another three hours to drive.

It was a very worthwhile trip, we met new people, got to fly with like minded pilots and have a look at how they do things in their territory. We hope that our attendance helped them to get an inkling of what we do in NSW.

Regards

Tom Collinge