Just got home from a great weekend inbetween Melbourne and Adelaide for the Horsham Heli Hoe down. Rolf put together the best organised funfly I’ve seen to date. The professionalism that went into the event was second to none. It was great to get out in the country to a picture perfect back drop to the field. The pits area along with tx compound with frequancey scanner was world class. In typical Melbourne style the weather gods weren’t too kind over the weekend. Saturday the wind didn’t hold anyone back from a very active flightline. Was great to catch up with the boys again and beat up on some helis. After organising a second 14MZ courtesy of Dale I was able to buddy box all the guys at the event on my Synergy. After 8 litres of coolpower, I managed to get through all the group. It was great to see guys doing their first flips, loops and rolls on a new machine. I was over the moon with the once in a lifetime moment to be a part of someone’s progress. Thanks to Jared, Dale and Si for a great pit crew on the refills.Saturday night turned out to be rather eventful, with Rolf taking us down to the local hall which was about the size of 2 squash courts needless to say the flying in a confined space was rather eventful. You couldn’t get the smiles off all the guy’s faces from the amount of close calls and cutting edge inverted boom whacking dragonfly action from the guys from SA. The boys from SA also brought along some Zaggies decked out with switchable night lights, so out the front of the hall the night combat started. With the football goal posts being the only thing they could manage to hit after at least 20mins in the air it was time to pass the radio around for a few more laughs. Dale got on the sticks with limited fixed wing flying and to say the least was rather impressive for the first few seconds. From there is was all laughs, I’ve never seen a Zaggie take so much beating from the ground and still be flying. Next I was up and with the radio in mode 1 configuration, I figured if Dale couldnt kill it after his innings then it should be fine. The flying was going great for the majority of the flight, had a few extremely close calls with the surrounding trees which was a great laugh. My hat goes off to Scott for building such a robust plank

Sunday morning arose fairly quickly only to find the weather had turned from bad to worse, with the wind picking up even more and showers starting to fall. Rolf made an executive decision to hire out the local shed which accomodates the annual machinery display. The shed being 60m long by 40m wide and 6m tall was great fun for some electric action. I managed to get the ‘600 up for 2 demo flights in the shed which was great to show the locals and also get the adrenaline going flying in such a confined space with a larger heli.

My hat goes off to Rolf and helpers and sponsors for putting together an event with a backup plan for all conditions. I think the organisers of events to come can learn from the professionalism and dedication Rolf put into the fun fly in Horsham and i really look forward to coming back to the next one.

The CAOCC Japan has started this week with today being the preliminary flights. I would just like to wish all the Australian competitors the best of luck in both F3A and F3C. Also wishing Steve “the man” Coram our best wishes from everyone in Western Australia, one of our local pilots. This man i can sit and watch everyday of the week, a plank thats on rails is truly somthing special. Give em heaps mate

Link to main site

http://www.rc-tech.co.jp/2006CAOCC_index.html

Link to Australian F3C updates

http://www.ausf3c.org/

Team F3A

Team F3C

Align has some great upgrade parts coming out soon for the 600 for all you guys loving some more bling or for the rest of us that just enjoye stronger parts thats are more crash resistant Main blade grips, tail pitch slider, head mixing arms, carbon fin set, speed controller, tail pulleys and a few other parts will be out soon, just a sneak peak of some of these in the flesh.

Hope you like