The first weekend of March saw a fleet of scale helicopters take over the NSMAC field in Auckland .
Originally conceived by the late Brett Cudby , the event was in limbo following his sudden passing . In a discussion between some of the senior scale guys following the farewell to Brett- it was decided that the best way to remember our good friend was to carry on .
With the generous assistance of the NSMAC Committee and the club members , the field was given over to the Heli guys for the duration of the event . While this event was not advertised to the public , we still had a good crowd of family , friends and club members who came along on the weekend to see the machines and meet the flyers .
The event saw scale machines of all sizes and shapes- from a wee Nine Eagle Blackhawk to the large scale machines . Present were 5 of the largest scale machines around- including the brand new Hughes 500E , flown first by Matthias Strupth , owner and chief designer at Heli Classics , over here for the test and check flights , and then it was flown with flair by the very proud owner Carl Hansen .
Friday was the first day of the event , with the first of several flights of the super scale Vario Skycrane . Owned by Colin Peard and flown by Simon Lambert , this was an impressive machine in the sky and up close . One of the guests from Oz who at the field on Saturday has actually judged scale helis at the IRCHA event in the US- and told Colin that while he has judged several other Skycrane machines in that competition- the detail and execution by Colin on his Skycrane exceeds all of those machines ! This is a high complement- and a fair recognition of Colins ’ skills . The day was completed with a session of Dusk Flying- with
Above : " Close view of the detail in the Vaario Skycrane rotor head "
Left : " Colins Skycrane flown by Simon- well done !"
Below : Some of the machines present for the event including Carl ’ s MI V24
Bottom : " Carl ' s MI V24 looking very menacing - a crowd favourite ”
Simon and his very sweet Airwolf leading the way . We should do that more often !
Saturday revealed that the herd of cows from the paddock next door wanted to join the fun- and came into the paddock during the night . It turns out that Tony and Jay both k n e w h o w t o ‘ persuade ’ the cows to go back where they came from- and the rest of the event was cow-free .
The day was warm , sunny and saw a large amount of flying . 2 of the machines that always drew a crowd were the new Hughes 500- and the MI V24- both owned and flown b y C a r l . B o t h m a c h i n e s h a v e turbine power plantsand are also fairly