I would love to say the day dawned clear with no wind but that would be an outright lie... The forecast was for wind turning to showers and that’s what it looked like upon arrival at John Danks’ field in Mercer. The masses had come from all over the upper North Island for the competition, planes had been assembled and practice was over or so I thought…! That was when Danks asked or rather told me, I was going to be flying his trusty old Zen complete with prehistoric Y.S.1:40FZ (There have been 5 generations of Y.S.’s since those bad ol’ days!) and he was going to program Baldricks TX because I fly mode one and he supports Fords!!!!


There was also the, “There’s no practice time for you Granny, it’s cold turkey all the way”! Now this should be good, never flown the schedule ever, so guess it’s a day of unknowns.

Baldrick was the only competitor in Advanced and completed 2 rounds in fine style.

Ross (I’ve just won Lotto) Brown was first up in F3A and was struggling with a lack of practice and the conditions. He was followed by John Danks and Dave Wilkins who put in solid flights.

Our own Mike Sutton was next but struggled to keep his O.S. running while John Knox and Ross Craighead flew well. I was up next and while struggling for power I didn’t crash at least. I still can’t quite work out the 70 raw point’s differential between the two judges tho.

Aunty was last up and flew well, clearly the practice is paying off he even scored a pair of fives for a blown spin, should have been 2 ¼ opposite but we all counted 3 then 1…oh yeah so did he!

Rd 2 came and went with a judges change, some engine failures, better geometry and distances been flown,

Baldrick busted out another round of Advanced but suffered a flameout half way through and landed just short of the strip but not before taking out a standard and consequently a chunk of his wing…ouch!

F3A Rd3 Came and went with Mike Sutton unable to keep the O.S. going, Browny nearly taking off his undercarriage on landing again , me realising Baldrick had flipped a rate switch causing high aileron movement and zeroed 1st manoeuvre, John Knox remembering to install fully charged batteries and Aunty remembering to count his spin turns!

A fun day was had by all and more than a few dollars passed over the counter of the shop as goodies were purchased, its dangerous having a model shop beside the strip at least for the modeller’s wallet!

Many thanks to John and Sharon for an enjoyable days flying and we hope to see everybody at the Waikato Champs at HMAC’s field in a few weeks time,

Granny...