Rivatta RC Club

What a weekend! Sun, air, cool wind. The turn up was outstanding with 37 pilots signing the pilot registration. The first people to arrive were Richard and Frank Mudge on Thursday afternoon. On Friday Stewart and I painted the lines on the strip and we got into the final stages of preparation that afternoon. Mat Werner and Peter Harrison and his wife turned up Friday night while Moss Heard, Dad, Mum, Richard, Frank and myself were relaxing in the warmth. Saturday was a fine day with low wind speeds and nice weather overhead. There were two crashes on Saturday, one being John Reilly and the other was Andrew Taylor from Camperdown, where his Old Timer clapped wings and spectacularly fell to the ground. That night Mat Werner was flying his Telink Toro with LED lights on it and he attempted to swooped Peter Harrison as he'd just pulled up, little did he know that in his flight line there was a tree and just as he was preparing to dive he hit the tree. We all had a good laugh then retreived it.

On Sunday we had a few more people there than the day before and some even more spectacular planes in the pits. One of the most memorable being the 46% Ultimate bi-plane previously owned by Mike Holmes from South Australia. There was another crash that day, it was Brendan's Nemesis which won the award for best crash of the weekend. It failed to turn out of a bank on final and skimmed the water and mud before finally bursting in an explosion of balsa. The engine of it ended up about 10ft away from what was left of the fuselage. After lunch we gave out the awards, Mat Werner won the award for most flown, Richard Mudge got the best flying display, Pilots Choice award was Rob Pederson, Best Military was Mark Radburn for his P-51D Mustang, Best classic model went to Daniel Mendoza and the Best Crash award went to Brendan Maretta for his Nemesis. We then drew names out of a bucket so people could come up and grab themselves a set of glasses, a Jack Daniels speaker set, or a bottle of wine. We presented our president - Moss Heard with a life membership for his outstanding work in the club over the years. We'd like to thank everyone who came and hope you could all make it next year and a special thanks to everyone who helped.

- Chris Lovell

P.S. If you see this Frank Mudge, you left you hat and sunglasses behind.

What a lovely day today.. Sun and fresh air with that hint of petrol coming from the marvelous beasts that inhabit our club for the Vic State Champs of 2012. Practice was fantastic with around 10 pilots arriving today and 4 or 5 yesterday morning. Mal Craig put on a good performance with his Krill Katana with the fantastic smoke system. Phill crashed his P-51D on landing due to lack of speed, nothing a bit of CA and duct tape can't fix, haha. Looking forward to the performances for the next two days. Good luck guys!

- Chris Lovell

Photos : http://ararataeromodellersclub.webs.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=13761827