Inter-Club Flying Competition.

[RHB785]

Yesterday I attended an inter-club flying competition and fun day and evening barbie. Royal Newcastle Aero Club were the hosts at their Maitland airfield and the guests were from the Hastings District Flying Club. The comp included a river bash, flour bomb drop and spot landing comp. Throughout the entire flight which was about .4 hour an instructor was the air judge in each aircraft. Before take off each pilot had to nominate their climb, cruise and approach speeds to the flour bomb and then on final landing approach and speeds with each different flap setting. There was no right or wrong speed, you just had to keep the aircraft at those speeds. If you exceeded each nominated speed or decreased it by more than 5 knots for more than 30 seconds total you lost points. You also had to maintain altitude to within 50'. If you exceeded or decreased altitude by more than 50' for more than 30 seconds total you also lost points. You also lost points for unbalanced turns.

For the river bash you took off, headed west until you picked up a certain road then turned right and followed that road until you picked up the Hunter River, then turned right again and had to keep the aircraft directly above the centre of the river, which meant of course that you couldn't see the river directly below you, only ahead. So you had to judge when to turn. Some of those turns were quite steep. 60 degrees. You then did a right turn and entered the circuit at the mid runway point and as normal let down on the dead side and did a normal circuit to approach the red cross laid out beside the runway and reduced altitude to 400' AGL for your bombing run and then back up to cicuit height and around the circuit for a normal approach to the spot landing area which was a measured 10m length marked out on the grass beside the runway. To make things a little more interesting there was a mock fence 50m back from the spot landing area. You weren't allowed to touch the fence with the u/c. I had no fear of doing that. I was way high at that point, but was still able to crab the aircraft (Cessna 172) down to a landing about 30m beyond the measured area. I didn't win the trophy, but I did have a fun time. The barbies were delicious and the bonfire looked great after dark. I need to practise my flour bombing though. I was a mile short of the cross. My air judge's comments were that I didn't do too badly, just a couple of things. A couple of my turns weren't balanced and my landing technique he judged as poor. I looked at him and said "We walked away from it didn't we?" His reply was "Well, ahm, yes we did." so my next question was something along the lines of "Well, what are you gibbering about then?"

Regards,
RHB.

[Adam the Akrodude]

Oh Ross!

When I first started flying at RVAC at Moorabbin, they used to conduct these comp's - great fun! They do sharpen your skills and attract those to the comp that only fly sporadically - great fun and sharpen skills - win, win! Combined Flight Training (became part of GFS and now Oxford airline pilot sausage machine) used to host great navex's, one involved flying up to a trout farm (Dookie from memory) in central Vic. I flew a Decathalon with a mate in the back to help with the trivia questions to be answered in-flight. The Decath was registered "VH-CUM", so we called ourselves "Team Testosterone"!

Sounds like you had a fun day - any pic's? I'm suffering major aviation withdrawal at the moment not having flown now for over a year. I will be getting back flying later this year when I get through this slug of work I have and some flying funds get into the bank.

Cheers

Adam

[RHB785]

G'day Adam. No photos of the flying I'm afraid, I was too intent on flying the aeroplane! I left my good cameras at home in the other car (took the Niva this time) and I left my mobile in the flight office during the competition. I did get some of the bonfire and a couple of videos of the bonfire and one even has that Maule Rocket flying by on take off. Well he was well and truly airborne when he got to me. I don't know how to upload from my mobile to pbucket and I've misplaced the driver disc I got with my phone. The phone is an HTC One if anyone can point me in the right direction to find the driver online. I've gotten into the HTC site and tried to find it but so far I can't understand the way to find the driver. If any of you techno geek dudes can help me I have heaps of aeroplane pics and some videos on my phone just itching to be uploaded so I can share them.

Regards,
RHB.

[Adam the Akrodude]

Hey Ross

Photos from my phone I email to myself - that's how I get them out.

How about shout yourself a GoPro. I've shot some pretty cool stuff from when flying the Laser. One does have to be very careful these days attaching a GoPro to the outside. In fact it has to be "engineered" and signed off officially I believe. I guess too many GoPros have rained down from the heavens in recent times. Easy enough to mount them in the cockpit using the suction cup mount. I've also "worn" a GoPro when flying as well - with some success plus some complete failures! I've had the GoPro fly off my head during negative G. Worst is thinking you've turned the bloody thing on when in fact you haven't!

[RHB785]

G'day Adam. Ah. Never thought of emailing them to myself. One doesn't normally email oneself does one? I'm so computer illiterate I'll have to get my local computer whizzkid (cousin's 15 year old grandson) even to show me how to do that. I've been thinking of getting a go pro as well as a dash cam with rear view camera for the car. However, first things first; the Adventra needs 2 new cat converters and maybe 2 new upstream O2 sensors. I replaced the downstream ones about 6 months ago or so, so there shouldn't be a problem there. I can see me when I'm old and doddery (older and dodderier than I am now) just driving the old Pontiac around. Much easier and cheaper to fix. I can do it all myself. No computers, no electronics, (and I'm an aircraft and auto eleco by trade) simple wiring system, no problems and quite a few parts available still after 76 years. There are apparently wharehouses full of old GM car parts in the US and often parts come up on ebay even here in Oz. Many GM parts were common across the Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac ranges so even if it's listed as say a Buick part if it's in the substition tables for a Pontiac of that year it'll fit the Pontiac.

About not turning the go pro on when you thought you had; there's a story about a very famous American test pilot hwo has been metioned in these forums going up for a record speed run and forgetting to turn on the camera which was to record the instrument readings. He did indeed break the record, but when he got back on the ground and they removed the film and there was nothing on it. Blank. Zip. Nada. He'd forgotten to turn the camera on had to wait several months for the weather to be suitable again to do what he had that day.

Regards,
RHB.