John and I were met at Brisbane Airport by Ron Cavanagh( ex Palmerston North Scale Guru) and he took care of the model box. We had a day and night in Brisbane where we met up with some Northern Hemi imports for the event, namely Ali Machinchy from the UK, Mike McConville and Sam Wright from the USA. Mike is well known to those involved in aerobatics. He is heavily involved with Horizon Hobbies. Sam is known in the USA for his expertise on the microphone at various major model events. However, he is a very active modeller, has an online Scale Magazine up and running and is very social. Ali is most widely known and he is a man of extraordinary talent and skill. He owns Al’ s Models Shops in the UK and now spends a good deal of his time travelling around much of the world with a display team. His real love is Jets. He in fact, seldom competes but when he does, he steps right up.
insulated, fitted with insect screens, have a power supply and beds. There are permanent shelters for model prep and pitting. This proved very welcome as not only did we have sunny days but one afternoon of heavy rain.
The program was arranged around having public attendance on the Saturday and Sunday and that plan worked very well. They turned up in droves. The only slight hitch was the rain on Saturday afternoon which created very muddy access ways. With the fine weather and high-ish temperature on Sunday it dried out very quickly.
As well as the competitions there were display slots for public interest featuring Ali and Mike. Ali is as skilled with a Discuss Launch Glider as he is with a Jet, a Scale Aerobatic model or a Pylon Racer. He has a Discuss type and size Glider powered with a JetCat P20 and his display routine with this is like nothing I have ever seen before. Mike put on some stunning displays with a large Citabria model. Both of them competed in Scale Pylon Racing. This is a popular discipline in Australia and is indeed a lot of fun. They ran“ Reno” races,“ Texan” races and“ In Line” class racing. The In Line Racers must be models of types from the golden era of Air Racing … Mew Gulls, Hawk Speed Sixes etc.
In one of the In Line heats Ali found himself alone in the sky so he completed his laps with variations of rolling themes. One lap was a rolling circle, another inverted with a full roll down the long legs of the course and yet another with two full rolls in opposite directions down the long legs. All this with an aeroplane that someone had handed him for a test flight just the day before!
In the Reno races Mike McConville had a wing failure on a large Spitfire he was charged with flying. I’ d been on the lights at number one pylon the day
A“ few” beers at an Irish pub then a trip on the river to a Thai meal set the scene and our little group quickly became very much like any other group of modellers who had got together for a few days of organized model flying. Credit must go again to Greg Tracey who arranged that get-together and played host in his usual style.
The event itself was run from 14th to 17th of Feb at Gratton Field. This is a private model flying site about 2 hours South East of Brisbane. It boasts a clubhouse with kitchen, Caravan and Camping facilities along with four“ Cabins” which are
Top: Phil Crandon-Alf Williams Typhoon Middle: Paul & Brett Gordon Brander models Bottom: Phil Crandon- Expert class