Phoenix Indoor Flight Reports
Indoor Flying at ETSA Park 2009
| Date |
Court |
Time |
| Thursday 17th September |
1 |
8.30-10.30pm |
| Thursday 15th October |
1 |
8.30-10.30pm |
| Thursday 19th November |
1 |
8.30-10.30pm |
| |
|
|
THE MARINATED PHOENIX
Or
THE PHOENIX GOES TO WATER…
Good morning, dear readers! Now you may wonder why I am saying “Good-morning!” Please let me elucidate. When one is lying in bed and ideas keep running through one’s head, one must rise and put those thoughts onto paper before they are gone – for ever. That is why you find me, at 4 oclock in the morning – the oil-filled heater cranked up high to get warmth into fingers that must be made to glide over the keys of my PC and thinking boats, boats, boats, while my out-door thermometer says 6 degrees and my first cup of tea is beside me. What? Glass of red at this time of the day? Surely you don’t think I have a problem like that, do you?
Whilst the M.D. of Model Flight, Mike O’Reilly and his friend Matthew Wood (Manager and scribe for the team) are revelling in higher temperatures at the F3J World Championships in Slovakia, we residents of the driest State are persevering with extreme cold, but, “the show must go on!” I am sure, dear readers, that the full results will be placed in print for you but, at this stage, please let me say that Dave Hobby took out his second World placing in this event.
Walking into Model Flight recently, my left eye – well – both of them actually, were held focused (damned American spelling) on a blaze of bright red coming from the top of one of the glass fixtures in the shop. Being one whose favourite colour is red, MG’s, Minis etc., I just could not drag my eyes away from these wonderful Budweisers that were sitting there in all their glory. There were three models – the smallest, known as the 470EP is powered by a 600 electric motor and sells for $279-00. 
Now – that’s right up my ally ços one could run it just about anywhere without offending the neighbours – yep, even in the pool. Well, would be a bit of a handful in my bird bath. Then there is an intermediate which is called the GP18 Pull Start with a water cooled Glow motor and the ticket on that little beauty says $499-00 – but – the leader of the pack, the 1300GS260, costing $799-00 comfortably takes a Zenoah 260. I ask that you see my picture at this stage. If you cant think what a Budweiser looks like, and you live too far away from Maple Avenue at Keswick (for the Interstaters, that is pronounced Kezzick – not Kezwick) hop onto your Fox Channel and I’m sure that you’ll find them racing there – one of the most popular and well known boats of its class in the U.S.A. So if you are like my friend Simon, and have a few Zenoah donks laying around doing nowt, grab the big Bud and drop it in that. Simon got a bit carried away, having a pile of motors sitting in his workshop, grabbed, first of all, a delightful kit for a Lance Air and followed that up a few weeks later with a huge Cessna 337 push/pull with a span that stretches over 8 feet. Sez RTF on the box – that’s okay for those eager little fingers in the Chinese Republic, but, by the time that Simon gets his B.I.G. (that stands for bum into gear) me thinks it will be nigh onto Christmas (next year) before it flies in all its glory.
Now, before I go into dream land about that lovely Budweiser, since first compiling this article, some very fortunate gentleman, with lots of play dough, went into the shop and soon after, was seen walking to his vehicle with a lovely Budweiser box, or should that be a lovely box of Budweiser Thinking of those lovely boats, with a whetted appetite, I found myself on a recent Sunday morning, driving along the Western bank of the Patawalonga (that’s a little creek down Glenelg way that houses a marina for the wealthy, and enough water for a few acquatic sports now and again) looking for the model power-boat people that I had once seen there. Little did I know that they had been forcibly removed from this little water hole and now run at Clare, in the North of the State.Speaking of the Patawalonga, have you ever wondered who taught the Aborigines to spell – I mean, they didn’t have teachers – in fact, not even schools and yet they came up with these hugely long names for towns right throughout this wonderful land of ours. Primitive? Good heavens, their intelligence would run rings around that of the white fellah, over and over again. However, my trip was to no avail in that regard, there was not a screaming motor to be heard or synthetic fuel to be smelt and, sadly, thinking that my trip had been wasted when I could still be in bed, I turned around and headed back along the West bank. Ah ha! I had not traveled far when, looking across “The Pat,” its not very wide so I didn’t get the ever-present binoculars out of the vehicle, I espied a group of men standing in the water on the far side. I assumed they were men, although the fact that they were wearing trousers doesn’t mean anything, these days, but the fairer sex would not be stoopid enough to be wading around in freezing cold water, turning their knees and other parts into icicles, particularly at that early hour. There ladies, you got one back on last month’s article and the score is now even. Even looking across the water, I could see that, if they didn’t have fishing rods in their hands, they were holding radio transmitters. That’s my boys – boats. I crossed over the creek (I find it difficult to call it a river) and pulled up by their area where the first object that impressed me was a highly polished triangular wooden container of quite large dimensions which, being so alert, I realized was a sail box. There were ten of these lying about on the neatly trimmed lawn of the East bank. 
Walking to the waters edge, quickly sizing up the situation (how can I be so smart so early in the morning) I realized that there were ten yachts, of various sizes and classes, lining up towards the start line for their first race.
Of these ten, five were about a third the size of the largest ones and they featured an open transom, that’s the back end, something like the 505’s that gained fame when the Tillett twins (of monumental masonry) won several World Championships for 505 class yachts, and put Adelaide on the map o’seas. I mean – they were full size that two men could sit within the gunwales. These open transom models are called 1-metres and are very manoevourable. (Have I spelt that correctly? Always have problems with that.)
It was beautiful to watch as the five came almost to the starting line, their sails set just off the luff so that they held station rather than drifting to stern away from the line. When the clock (they use similar radio signals to those of our model car racing events) got to zero, these blokes, resplendent in waders, cranked in a little rudder and tight hauled their rigs to give them forward movement. Please see my picture as they cross the starting line.This was the hardest leg of their course, being up-wind which required some very skilful tacking – a too broad a tack might make it look spectacular with their sails almost lying in the water, but it would make the course much longer, so haul them in chaps – the sails almost running down the centre of the decking. 
On reaching the first boy and turning to port, they entered their first cross-wind leg and this was where the deep keels with huge hunks of lead on the bottom (you can see that I have a vast knowledge of nautical terms) keep the boats from rolling right over.
On their next turn to port, they entered their down wind leg and immediately the jib, or fore-sail was let go, to starboard, until it was at right angles to the deck and the main, or big sail to you fellow landlubbers, was released until the sail winch held it at right angles.
What a spectacle. The largest class, the 10-raters, had started about half a lap behind the 5 leaders and they, too, put on a great turn of speed on their down wind leg. They had one more turn to port, giving them another short cross-wind leg to take them to the finish of the first lap, Their races, whilst I was in attendance were of two lap duration and, with nowt to do some Sunday morning, one could do a lot worse than go to the Pat to watch the sailors. One of my pix shows Steve Arthur and he, with his yacht, are rated number 3 in Australia. Steve designed and built his craft and, to buy a completed model, such as his, would make a hole in your cheque book to the tune of seven or eight thousand dollars. 
My dear old friend, Bobby Watson can be found among these gentlemen on occasions and, together with one of our leading TV Newsreaders, and his son, Tom. it shows that their clientele is similar to our flying meetings – gentlemen of all walks of life.
THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX – I really do get involved in flying, particularly the indoor movement and the third Thursday night finds me at ETSA Park Netball Stadium with a couple of helis and a fixed wing, where you are all invited to join us. Okay, we haven’t fallen apart yet, but you can still join us. 
This month of August only found ten pilots in actual flight situations and I have included a couple of pix for this part of the story. One shows Kirk Winters with his T-Rex Helicopter, which is JUST ABOUT on the borderline to qualify as an indoor model, being very powerful and quite large. However Kirk, relatively young in experience with his Rex, was quite happy to hover within a few meters of his transmitter. 
The other picture shows Mathew Waye with a quite small Heli, called a Pixie Zap. This model is not really much larger than the little Mash and Navy helis, of which I wrote last month but, in Mathew’s very skilled fingers, it was an attractive sight. Unfortunately, the afore-mentioned Heli of Kirk’s was involved in a mid-air with David Wearing-Smith. It could only just be termed a mid-air for, when David lost control of his elevator (for some unknown reason – may have been a dying battery?) he could not lift his foam bipe over the heli which was hovering about a metre off the polished floor of the stadium. The result was a quite damaged foam bipe but the T-Rex flew away, looking down on its hapless friend. 
I am sure that, when the evening temperatures rises about 6 or 7 degrees, our numbers will increase, both in fliers and spectators.
I have included some other pictures from ETSA Park and one is of the recently appointed and anointed President of the Southern Soaring League, Mr. Mark Stone, who had dropped in to keep in touch with the indoor movement. 
Other pix included with this article are of:- the Volvo speedboat, which shared the display, originally, with the Budweiser family and, in a similar way to the large Budweiser, the Volvo requires a Zenoah-23 for power. 
I also visited the indoor site at the Seaford Recreation Centre and its vastness is displayed in the picture. It is an enormous area, even though the ceiling is lower than that of ETSA Park, but none-the-less an attractive flying venue.
I do hope that you can visit with us at ETSA Park, or other indoor venues in the coming warmer months. It doesn’t cost a cracker to come and enjoy the display but, even if you toss a foamie or some other model in the boot, it will still only cost you ten dollars to fly.
Phoenix Indoor Flight Reports
Indoor Flying at ETSA Park 2009
| Date |
Court |
Time |
| Thursday 17th September |
1 |
8.30-10.30pm |
| Thursday 15th October |
1 |
8.30-10.30pm |
| Thursday 19th November |
1 |
8.30-10.30pm |
| |
|
|
|
I
want a quote on how much freight it will cost to send items to me.
