Howdy,

Today was our off day as far as the competition is concerned, tomorrow the flyoffs start for the top 15 pilots and we will go do our bit as spectators.

We took the day to travel to Dayton Ohio to visit the National Airforce Museum. What a trip, interesting seeing planes we'll probably never get a chance to. The Museum is HUGE HUGE HUGE!!!!! Took us probably 5 hours just to walk through that sucker. Pics on the gallary, sorry for the quality the lighting was terrible in there. Look out for the F117 and big stealth bomber though, wow those things are BIG.

After that we visited John Drake at OhioModelProducts headquarters, fun outting.

Time for food!
Ciao
08/10/2009

Ahooy all!!

Well not what we wanted today, but can't say we really should complain. Today was windy as ever, just howling from behind and slightly from the left, crazy. It was not a good day for the team, but fortunately not a good day for anyone really. Today really messed up the scores all around as everyone had a good round yesterday on the respective flightlines with now a bad day today, mixing up the normalising quite crazy.

We all put up the best we could today though considering the conditions so we still brough the fight to these lads. It still wasn't pretty however. We got stuck with the strict judges and I was lucky enough to officially be the last pilot on the line of the prelims. A nice long day to lay around getting myself worked up and stressed out. Grrrrr

We got some nice pictures with the entire JR flying squad here which is something I've alwasy dreamt about. That was one of the cooler things that happened today. We got some more coaching from the different judges and folks around and some more new things to ponder over, we're truthfully dreadfully confused right now but hopefully we can still bring alot back to the up and coming F3C pilots of SA.

Well then on to the standing I guess.
I ended up in 30th
Arney 32nd
Jason 36th
South Africa 10th

I can honestly say the level of competition this time around was MUCH higher than Poland, everyone came out here to put up the fight. We can only single out maybe 5 guys which would be considered noobies in the pack. Even these guys on occasion put up some impressive manuevers which was awesome to see.

We did good all, we are happy and so should everyone back home. I would have loved to break the 20's but no doubt the other guys were better, some really great.

Now we rest, get our heartrates back to normal and enjoy what's left to see of the USA.
Salute!
Spacey
08/09/2009

Quote of the day "Is it hot in here?". Ask no questions and you shall recieve no answers, ask too many question and you shall recieve all the wrong answers! Proven fact!

The Budweisers in the US don't seem so strong but when you haven't slept properly for a week the darn things start doing the trick just dandy. Ok so I changed up my auto entirely, completely and utterly. Apparently that helped, I got a score today better than a darn 4 even after getting to the spot just fine. I'm sure my autos weren't perfect or great to begin with, you know how it is from a pilot's perspective, but watch the video on the website and you tell me? Hehee

I was fortunate enough to get some inputs from my pal Gordie Meade on the flightline yesterday and Gordie, you rock sir! I took his advise, tried the near impossible and managed to get the judges to put something a little more respectable on the score sheet today with an even less than great auto. (I did get to the spot though somehow). We ran through probably 30+ autos yesterday afternoon after getting the motor on the A model re-tuned and the Carbsmart back up and running after the mixture servo failure. Went for another round of getting the thumbs loose and auto practise this morning at a place I'd have to kill you if I told you where it was. Thanks to the folks for draggin us along this morning to their top secret location so we could work a little on our mistakes of the day before.

I hope our efforts to help said friends did indeed return the favour, the score sheet certainly reflected greatness! You go buddy go!

Sorry for all the confusion, but the right persons reading this will understand. :D As ya'll (Yea I can say that proper now, accent and all) can see we're having a bash here right now. Dawie even stepped into the batting cage behind the hotel this afternoon to lay into a few baseballs, yeh you heard right not softballs..baseballs!!! We'll get him on a stiffer pitch setting tomorrow though.

We'll today's flying in general went a little better than yesterday. I scored my own personal best ever at a 212.5 raw, hovering went well, aerobatics went ok'ish and it all paid off just fine. Arney flew the worst I've ever seen him do but knocked out a 209 later the day, good deal for the SA team yes! Jason's flight late this afternoon I unfortunately didn't watch, we really wanted to go watch and see what Scott does on the other flightline to hopefully pick up a few tips on what the judges are looking for. Jason did however knock out a 204, good goin dude! Next time wake up your dad before 9am so you guys can support me at my flight also yeh? Nevermind that, where the hell was our team manager? Rough day, rough week, we'll forgive you guys.

The team did well today again though, raise a beer ya'll! Hopefully tomorrow we can put the icing on the cake and push the SA team into the top 10. I certainly hope we can have all the pilots in the top 40 also, that'll be just awesome.

The judges are still strict, the competition is still ridiculous!!!!! But we're trucking on, celebrating each day's flight to the max. Bringing back good memories no doubt.

Till tomorrow!
Salute,
Spacey out.
08/08/2009

Welp,

What can I say? I'm too miserable to write much really. Today did not go so well, but again we wouldn't expect anything less from our good friend Murphy. We today flew round 1 actually which would tie in with the scores from the previous day. Jason had good weather and a pretty decent flight but ran out of time again, just a few seconds but a few seconds enough to score a zero on the auto. He still put up a good round though considering.

I ran into all sorts of trouble, nerves just did it's thing again and I messd up all kinds of bad. The wind was terrible and of course as to expect right from the front into my face. I flew 90% of the hovering with one eye closed due to the smoke in my eyes burning and watering up everything I was hopeing to see. Upstairs everything just went south, no power to be found anywhere and the wind still doing its thing. When we landed we immediatly noticed the fuel tank was empty and the hopper nearly done also....like what the? Got the heli on the bench to find the mixture servo has stripped a gear and was skipping a few beats in a few spots to even locking. Problem found fortunately for us, the heli was running as rich as it could ever with the carbsmart not being able to do its thing.

Then came the question of the judges? Hahahaha...nough said, a story for another campfire. These guys on flightline one wants all sorts of weird and wonderfull things we couldn't know. Hate so say it but I also overheard the most dreaded biasd comments coming out of some of the judges's mouths sitting under the tent next to the flightline, if a judge is reading this? Dude beware, we notice these things and when it comes to things like this...I do hold a grudge! Don't piss off this South African a tad too much, nobody's above a good a beating. ;) ;) Hahahaha. Unfortunately the trend became more and more obvious for more and more pilots on this line as the day progressed. I got a little grumpy. Unfortunately as to be expected the really good and known pilots will not admit downright something's off, I mean what have they got to complain about anyways?

It's the same ol story with my luck. By no means am I saying I flew well today, I didn't. But there were certain things.......

Arney struck it lucky and apparently danced to the judges's tune this afternoon, through what we thought was a about as bad as Arney could possible do it? Buddy what happened?

We're trucking on, had a great social session at the hotel with some of our friends. Hopefully tomorrow we can boot back up and bring the fight back to these guys.

Love ya'll! Thanks for visiting.
Spacey
08/07/2009