problems . Quite a few more local entrants turned up on Saturday to give us a total of 54 competitors with just a little shy of 80 aircraft . This was the best turnout we have had for an ANZAC Jet Meet . It was also the best attendance we have had from Australia with 14 making the trek over from as far away as Perth . These days we were seeing a wide array of aircraft from the very well proven ARF Boomerangs to the scratch built 4 meter long , twin turbine , MIG 25 built by Clinton Kraidy as a school project . The MIG weighs 55kg and is powered by two ATJ – 170 turbines which seem to give it plenty of authority . Clinton also does a great job on the sticks flying it too . Another true work of art was Colin Austin ’ s scratch built Panther F9F powered by a Behotec 180 G . This aircraft weighed in at 23 kg and flew beautifully . Unfortunately due to a nose wheel collapse on landing , that magnificent paint job took a close up view of the asphalt surface . Another new aircraft was Mayur Topiwala ’ s composite ARF Ultra lightning powered by an Evojet 180 VX . This is a superb looking model . Our two competitors from Adelaide , Vin Pike and Rick Davies travelled with Ricks Elan powered by a Jetcat P80 and Vins Electric Habu 2 . Both of them getting plenty of air time .
Neil Giggins from Perth with his Jetcat powered Boomerang Nano . Packs up nicely for the long trip .
Also becoming more popular at our jet meetings are the turbine powered helicopters . Carl Hansen does a great job of flying both of his scale machines , the ML Mil24 HIND powered by a PAHL GPH 70 and his Bell 206 Longranger powered by a Wren 54 . These machines look magnificent in the air and Carl flies them very scale like . Also we had Lloyd Bushby flying his Airstar Jetcopter and Pete Brown with his trusty Robbe Quatro which are both sport type machines .
As Saturday flying wound to a close , the night was about to start . Starting off with 60 of us having dinner at the Tokoroa club and a few cleansing ales followed by more ales … stories … ales … lies … ales and problem solving . Half the reason for attending these events is for the camaraderie that follows them .
SUNDAY To kick the morning off we knock over the NZJMA AGM . Due to the size of this event it is really the only opportunity we get to have the majority of our membership together in one place . Elections , previous minutes , general business and a couple of sub committees formed in under an hour , and then we are back into it . Again the weather was perfect and with the winds getting lighter , leaving no time wasted getting into the air . Today we seemed to be seeing more of the larger models in the sky . The Skymaster Phantoms of Pete Brown and Dave Hodges , The MB339 Machi of Tony Whithey , Rene Redmond ’ s Strikemaster and the A10 Warthog of Jared Mulholland to name a few . Also the two Airworld BAE Hawks of Paul Conner and Peter McGregor ’ s , but unfortunately Pete ’ s aircraft suffered an engine failure at the worst possible time , at about one second after take off . It was quickly put back on the ground with minimal damage .
Two of the higher performance aircraft flying were Andrew Stiver ’ s Simjet powered Rookie and my new Jetcat P140 RX powered MAS Vigilante . Both aircraft demonstrated the performance levels capable of theses jets with very high horizontal and vertical speeds . Steve Engle was manned on the radar gun and clocked my Vigilante at the highest ever recorded speed of an R / C jet within Australia or New Zealand at 384 kmh on one pass and 340 kmh in the other
Max , with his 2 sons Daniel and Ben make up the Jameson family from Sydney with their Jetcat P120 powered Reaction .
Mayur Topiwala ’ s Evojet 180 VX powered Ultra lightning
Tarquin Brooks and Rene Redmond with Reds Comp ARF Flash