Hi Guys,

Just thought i would drop a quick line and let you all know i got out of hospital on Saturday afternoon. Its taken a few days to get over the anesthetic and the side effects of the pain killers. I’m happy to say everything went well, Dr Greg Witherow did a great job of my knee. I thoroughly enjoy catching up with Greg, though it always seems to be for the wrong reasons. Great to hear you’ve also given up the ghost of riding dirt bike, cos my surgical skills aren’t quiet up to your standards. hehehehe

Thanks again Dr Witherow for patching us up one last time. Fingers crossed, heli flying only hurts the wallet from now on

Cheers
Nigel

Hi All,

The Align funfly has been great. Saturday we did 2 flights with the ‘600 which the first flight went great with. The second flight began with some blade flutter that proceeded to get worse until about half-way through the flight when pulling out of a tail slide the flutter took over and bled off all the head speed which resulted in a crash. The heli landed square on the head and had next to no damage: the V’s didnt even get scratched in the muddy grass. We accumulated enough points from my first flight and salvaged a few from the second to get in to the final 7 for the finals on Sunday.

Saturday night was unreal – Alex the owner of Align put on a killer fireworks show, while Nick and Marcus did some night flying. Marcus had some nice fireworks attached to the ‘600 while doing some mild aero work.

Sunday we had the the first ‘450 flight which went great. Matty was great calling the times for the change in music and his commentary kept me amused for the flight. Next up was the final for the ‘600. All the guys put in a great flight as spare parts weren’t an issue My flight was to Incubus, Pirates of the Carribean and Thunderstruck. The fight was going great – a lot of deck work and some graceful stuff in the slower music, we made it 3/4 of the way through the flight when the motor cut out. I auto’d the model down just in front of Matty and I. After picking the model up, smoke started coming out of the speed controller. So i turned the heli upside down so it didnt get into the canopy near the lipo. A few seconds later the speed controller burst into flames, so having the skids pointed towards the air seemed to be a good thing. I didnt plan though on the wires melting and the flaming circuit board falling from the heli onto my hate-face then onto my 14MZ.

After throwing both the heli and radio on the ground to get the hot stuff off my neck, the ladies from Align where quick on the scene with some ice to cool things off. A huge thanks to all the Align staff for helping. No sooner had i cooled down with some ice than the Align guys had changed all the electronics over in the heli and she was back to new.

The 450 final was up next so we got that dialled in good. Half way through the flight the heli went full positive pitch through a hurricane and locked out. I think when I dropped the radio on the ground while i was fighting off the fire, had taken its toll on the poor 14. So it was back to the building table for a quick rebuild in preparation for the obstacle course.

This event took all who entered prisoner on the first run through. There was a freeway jam line of sacrifical 450’s waiting to meet thier doom. Alan had his f3C 450 setup that he worked on at the Align factory during the week dialled in for his second pass and put in a smoking run through the course with his low profile no skid heli. Top job mate . Jason smoked all his machines in trying to get throught the first obstacle, so a mandatory inverted attempt was necessary. This one looked good for about 5 metres then smoked in again around the same spot as the first. ehehhehhehe I give him credit after that for trying to fly again, his 450 was the worst shaking heli after that at the event. Great to see him soldier through. My second attempt got me through all but half of the last obstacle course with only 10cm to go the final propeller blade got the tail of the heli and smoked it in. I have never seen a bunch of guys laugh so hard in my whole life. The carnage continued for the best part of a few hours until dark.

The awards were held afterwards with Alan taking the cake in both classes and Jason coming in second in the 600 class. I managed to get 6th place in front of Marcus who also had issues in his flight. My bad luck continues from here. The boys had organised a spraying of beer for the celebration of the top 7 on the podium. I caught them running over out of the corner of my eye and proceeded to turn left and run behind me to get away. All seemed great in theory but my left knee didnt agree with procedure. I made it 1 step and a hop before it gave way. It felt much like the usual motocross experience after a big crash. Again, the Align ladies were quick to the scene and got some ice going. After 20mins of evaluation and not being able straighten my knee or bear any weight, I thought it was best to get it seen to. A quick ambulance ride to the hospital, an xray and physical evaluation showed a broken medial ligament and torn cartilage. They put a half-cast over my knee and some crutches to get me going again till i get home as i didn’t want them to operate on it there. All booked in now for a knee reconstruction when i get home tommorow. The Ladies at Align have advised me to buy a lotto ticket as they said i should have some good luck very soon.

Even with all the bumps along the way the trip has been awesome and a huge thanks to Alex and everyone at Align for all their help and support and for putting on the best organised event to date.

Pics coming as soon as i get home and get them off the memory stick.

Cheers
Nigel

Hi Guys,

We arrived in Muncie Indiana late last night and this morning we began putting the heli’s back together to head out to the fun fly when we had car troubles. So we didn’t make it out to the field for the noon demo’s. Matt Botos flew a synergy in the demo’s and Wazza said he was absolutely rocking!

After we got there, registered and set everything up on our table it was time to go for a late afternoon fly. I was throughly enjoying myself when at about 4 minutes into the flight I was locked out and she hit the deck. So Wazza and I grabbed the heli and went back to the tent to fix it.

Wazza started stipping down the broken tail whilst I got my second heli ready to go as I was scheduled to do a demo flight tomorrow. We got the second heli up and going and it was flying beatifully on a different channel.

So with a working heli, we decided it was time to head off to the Texas Roadhouse for dinner with the guys.

Cheers

Nigel

Hi All,

Last night Todd and I flew back from Seattle to his house in California, with a late night working on helis we got to bed at 3 in the morning. Today we headed not far from Todds to his local flying pad with was on the top of a mountain. The best thing was playing around with the terrain, being able to do tail slides into the canyon was great fun. Todd and I both got our helis dialled in and are all packed up now ready to fly out tommorow to IRCHA.

Hopefully ill get some time over the IRCHA weekend to post pics of whats been going on.

Talk soon

Nigel

Hi Guys,

Sunday has been great in Seattle. We put in some solid flights in the morning then took off to the Seattle river where the Blue Angels were putting on a show at 1 in the afternoon. This was part of the Ultimate Hydroplane racing that was taking part on the foreshore.

I’ve never seen such tight formation flying in my life, these guys where all over it. One super low pass along the foreshore was that low that one of the boats parked along the riverfront moved as the jet blasted by, not only that but the surface of the water became turbulent. I thought this thing was going in the drink for sure. The head-to-head passes along with super low inverted manoeuvres where you could see the pilot waving to the croud was insane. When these flew overhead your whole body resonated and your ears felt like they started to bleed. It was only then you really appreciated the sheer power and size of these machines. The FA18’s definately in the right hands are inspiring to see. Their slow formation pass with the nose pointing skyward really showed the brute power even without afterburner throttle settings.

The great thing about Seattle is blue berries grow wild everywhere, so when you start to get hungry even while watching the jets, it’s normally a 3 step walk to the nearest bush to grab a feed. Extremely tasty and healthy, thats my kind of food.

Sunday night we let rip with fireworks, we had some great ideas of strapping some killer morters to the foamies and flying them up in the sky and watching the detonation. The poor foamie didn’t stand a chance. Two of them where torn in half and the second one turned into confetti with all servos being blown off the airframe. The fireworks that where strapped to it looked great too.

It’s Monday here now in Seattle and Todd and I have been doing a 2 day school here after the event. It’s been really great to working with the guys on the buddy lead this arvo. Frank has been getting his backward circuits down, with a few more flights tommorow we should have then into a nice figure 8 by the afternoon. Collin, a new pilot, had only a gallon of hovering experience before doing the school. Within 5 tanks of fuel today, i had him doing inside and outside figure 8’s and loops on his last tank. Three consecutive loops in a row is a record in my books. Great work guys.

I finish up in Seattle tommorow and head out to Todd’s house in California tommorrow night to get organised for IRCHA, ill keep you all posted.

Cheers

Nigel