Below is an article, courtesy
of
Ross Harvey 3D Competition
March 2007
After checking the forecast
it looked like there was going to be some wind around for competition
day. Knowing that wind was coming I checked the rain radar and thankfully
none was forecast until late afternoon. With that done, I loaded up the
4x4 and headed to the field.
Pilots briefing was scheduled
for 10am, where the usual rundown of the day’s events, rules and time schedule
were done by the two Steves. Even at 10am there
was a healthy turn out of probably around 20-25cars. As the day went on
this steadily grew and probably turned out to more like 30-35.
After the briefing with the
wind steadily increasing Steve N came over and asked if I’d be the first person
to get the ball rolling in the 3 fun events. These event included take
off and landing into two squares as many times in 2mins, Knocking over skittles
(My fav) and precision landing. So without even
warming or doing my pre flight stretches I fuelled up the heli,
started it up and headed over to the games area.
I’d opted for the skittles
and precision landing as my heli wasn’t running quite
right and I didn’t want to push it. First was skittles which with a good
side wind was extremely difficult! I managed to most of them over but ran
out of time before the last few fell. Next was the precision landing
where you take off hover fly to the mark and land all within 10sec. I took
off, I flew I aimed for the X and landed... 3metres away.
After I had completed the
games there were plenty of others lining up to have a go. With everyone
who entered being entered into the prize draw it was well worth doing, and by
the end of the day pretty much everyone who had a heli
had a go.
Around lunch time there was
the very impressive turbine heli demonstration.
These things looked and sounded like the real thing. The thing that was
most impressive was the attention to detail and how well flown they both were.
Lunch time my favourite part of any day was as always at the club events
excellent. Free bbq sausage and drinks, it
doesn’t get any better than that! This along with the
participates made for a very enjoyable day.
Wait that’s not all!
After lunch came the 3D sessions where budding 3D masters strutted their stuff
for the crowds, pulling off crazy moves which defied gravity, almost.
Steve Engle who had
previously had the quickest crash I’d ever seen (Sub 10secs from takeoff)
managed to pull it all together and win the event with some very low exciting
moves.
Two special mentions must go to firstly Chris Neeves(?)
who after doing a very impressive 3D demonstration had a tail failure which
caused a crash. Secondly to Jonathon Platt, using a Raptor 50 and plenty
of wind did some of the most technical tricks (Tidy ones too) that are only
usually done by top pilots on 90size machines.
With all the fun games
completed and 3D competition over it was time for the prize giving, which is
different than any other I’d been to for other sports. The club prides
itself on being fun and having fun. With that in mind its way of prize
giving is also based on this idea. Everyone who entered the games was
given numbered ticket. Tickets were then drawn out of a tin and as names
were called they could select a sealed envelope from the board which each
contained prizes. There were some 40 prizes one of which was a new EP
Caliber!
With such a fun and
successful event my personal thanks must go out to all the club members who
made this happen and I for one will be attending the next one.
Congratulation
to, Lew Henry, the winner of the lucky draw Kyosho, Caliber EP Electric Heli.
Results:
Winners of the 3D
1st Steve Engle. “Congratulation
Steve”
2nd Jonathon Platt, watch out Steve,
Jonathon is closing in fast !!
3rd Greg Guggenberger
Winners of the Games
event
1st
Amrat Kesha.
2nd Jeremy Madley
3rd Carl Hansen.
