Bendigo Radio Control Aircraft Club
2010 News Archive
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Alan's Landing
27th-28th March 2010 - Grand Southern Cross Model Aero Rally
Held at the Luskintyre Airfield, in the Hunter Valley.
Probably best described as the good, the bad and the ugly. Why? Well the rally on the whole was good, lots of very nice scale aircraft, the numbers were just over the 100 aircraft. Some very impressive scale flights were put in, during the two days,that was good.
The Large Scale racing was at least, rather poor, small number of entries as some had crashed in practice before hand, on a rather awkward race course, with trees, runway markers and a six metre fall in the land scape.
Eight entries did make it to the start line, and after 4 rounds there were only 4 entries left.
Three Steve's and a Les, Steve Green, Steve Davis and Steve White, and I made up the fourth entry, using our spare/backup aircraft. That was bad.
The ugly part was my aircraft, Texan number 42, had radio failure, and flew some 400 metres on the knife edge before crashing near a crowd of people.
The results of the racing were:
| First | Steve Davis |
| Second | Les Davis |
| Third | Steve White |
The prizes were cash amounts. As we had won two(2) of the cash prizes, we donated one prize, to the Rotary International , who were involved with running the Rally to raise money to support two children from Fiji, who had disfigured legs from birth. The money raised will help to bring the children to Australia for the much needed surgery. At this time one child is booked in Westmead hospital, in Sydney for surgery.
Report by Les Davis
VALE, Gordon Burford, died on the 12/3/2010.
Gordon was the only successful model engine manufacture in Australia. He made engines from the late 1940s through until the early 1970s.
Most modellers would have come in contact with some of Gordon's products, whether it was his range of engines, such as, GB, Sabre, Glo Chief, and the very popular range of Taipan engines, and there were many others.
Even today the, Taipan props and Glo plugs are still being used, products that Gordon had produced to complement his range of engines.
14th March 2010 - Glider Competition
The comp formerly known as The RAMJET started around 1pm with a change of CD to Alan Uren at the last moment. The rules for the day were established on the 4 in 20 style events without the addition of bonus points. Maximum points would be 1200.
The paperwork from Roy and advice from Roy and Les helped get things moving without too much delay as well as Graeme had arrived early and set up the Bungee - thanks to all for the shared timekeeping and bungee retrieval.
The weather was pleasant for a change and 9 flyers lined up for the event which was great to see.
Round 1 saw time scores between 1 minute up to 4:53 so everyone knew that there was not much lift around and the challenge was on from the start to try and achieve the 20 minute total.
Round 2 still had a low of 1:14 but 2 flyers had a little lift with a 6:38 and a 8:30 time.
Round 3 finally had a bit of lift with 3 flyers up at the same time and 5 scores from 6:40 to 9:49.
After Round 3, all the times achieved were totalled so that a target flight time for Round 4 was available for all flyers. At this point there were still 7 flyers who could achieve the 20 minute total.
Away into Round 4 and it was immediately obvious that the lift had gone with the longest flight recorded at 4:18 when 10 minutes was needed by some.
Back to the calculations to sort out the placings which were:
| 1st | Bill Mathews | 1198 points (2 seconds over) |
| 2nd | Mal Fields | 1193 " (7 seconds under) |
| 3rd | Mike Fields | 1137 " (sharing Mals Glider) |
| 4th | Roy Butterfield | 959 " |
| 5th | Alan Uren | 917 " |
| 6th | Graeme Beagley | 863 " |
| 7th | Ian Heather | 809 " |
| 8th | Les Davis | 790 " |
| 9th | Brian Deason | 673 " |
CD, Report ,Photos Alan U.
28th February 2010 - Duration Competition
The Duration competition with 7 initial entrants got away to a slow start with numerous early test flights, repairs and re-tuning necessary for the conditions, with a top temp of 21C with winds averaging over 30kmh and gusts to 54kmh recorded at the airport. The comp was split into two rounds of two flights between the eventual 6 starters, the best score of the two rounds only to be counted.
Andy and Alan R. came to assist with the event so we tasked Andy with presenting the Duration trophy to Shaun (for winning it last year) as well as his Runner Up Clubman trophy for 2009. Thank-you both.
Round 1 unfortunately saw one model blown downwind and the parts recovered over 1 Km away. The remainder of the day was spent fighting the elements and readjusting for the conditions more so than the competion.
Brian had his enlarged Wombat out for its initial Comp and was more than happy with a 2nd.
It was great to see all the competitors pitch in to help the ones suffering some problems with assistance, parts or advice. We missed the models photo but still managed the group picture around Les who was still flying after the event working on his mixture settings.
Les also summed up the day with these words:
"The experience the members get from partaking in these simple club events was borne out today by the way that the flyers handled the very strong wind conditions, with most using 3 channel aircraft, rudder elevator and engine controls, its a credit to skill of our members."
Results at days end were:
| Rob | DNF |
| Bill | 5th |
| Les | 4th |
| Ian | 3rd |
| Brian | 2nd |
| Alan | 1st |
Report & CD - A. Uren (photo)
Announcement - Duration Competition - Sunday Feb 28th at Marong Field
This will be the last of the Thunder Tiger Duration Trophy presentations due to only one space remaining on the Trophy for a name to be added.
This comp is to get members to brush the dust off their old 40 2 strokes (or larger) basic trainer type aircraft and see how long they can keep it up on 150cc of fuel. You even get two attempts in case you have a problem or want to retune. Only the best flight time of the two flights will count. COME AND GIVE IT A GO.
Start time is set for 10am based on the forecast at this time and the number of people who have been practising.
CD is Alan Uren - if you want more details
14 February - Electric Fun Day
Not a competition but there was some goodies for members for different skills on the day.
There was a good turnout of members on the day with a great variety of models - a little windy, which just adds to the fun part.
Models ranged from the indoor micro heli, scale models, sports models, pylon racer, a Piper Cub modified to tow gliders, gliders - Hi performance to foamies ( note the Hi performance one is the one to fly when a foamie gets in its flight path ) quite a display of foam parts descending.
The last two members flying landed when an Eagle became quite interested in them and by the time the models were retrieved we were wondering why everyone was still looking skyward - it was the show of the day - losing count twice at 18+ eagles in a few thermals close to ground.
The camera didn't come out till late so a few were missed.
The goodies were presented by Andy
Report & Pics Alan Uren
31st January - Loops and Duration
Seven members turned up for the first event of the year. Unfortunately before the first round was completed it was decided to abandon the competition.
This was because of the increasing wind speed.
Report thanks to CD - Roy Butterfield
25th January - First meeting for the year
It was a beautiful evening for a meeting, and we had it outdoors at the field. There was a little flying, and not too many items of business!
Of interest were these photos of an 'Unorthodox Models' event held at Keilor some years ago. If anyone can tell us when it would be good to know!
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