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

Hey guys,

Just woke up to awesome fine sunny weather here in Seattle. Saturday turned out to be a great day with the same sort of weather as this morning. All the boys got a tonne of flights in through out the day with minimal wreckages .

Late in the arvo i was setting up and doing some testing on Franks new N9, we really need to introduce our friend to a life time sponsorship of locktight. after 5mins in the air one tail blade grip was holding on only by the huge 3mm ball link on the Synergy, after getting this one sorted i managed to get 3 more mins out of it before the tail pitch control arm came lose and resulted in a nice fast nose left piro. throttle hold came in handy and we got it all sorted. Once it as all sorted out about 2 mins after that i started to beat up on it, man tha helis was hauling, We found some nice hay bails to do some obsticle work over which turned out to be a great spectical. after 2 tanks of fuel in the hay field we got Frank back his heli in one piece and was ripping.

Some late afternoon sunset Zaggie action was going off, with combate action between the Mikes trex and the 5 or so Zaggies that where in the sky, needles to say the trexs evasive action resulted in it living to see another day.

Last night we ran a much doing some night flying, Mike Scoles was ripping it up the N9 which was great to see. We only had 2 faitalities over the night session which we though was good odds considering the helis that where out there. After that the foamies came out and a flood light for some late night entertaiment. Jason was ripping this fomy around flying it over the heads of everyone at the field along with some prop hangging action over the camp fire . With in a hour or so most of our lipo supply had been depleted and we had run out of glue to continoue fixing our poor little plank. So Ray the owner flow her around until the moto sererated from the fuselage in flight.

Breaking news, We have just had a lipo burst into flames next to the motor home, Thank god Jason got to this one in time and saved Waynes half a million dollar motor home from thermal meltdown. Not too much damage, a little discolouration on a Fury canopy and a toasty N9 one. Luckily the lipo did most of its ventiing on the grass along with an intensive fire ball. The Astro flight 109 took its tole on this trex pack. Again the danger of lipo packs which really need to be charged in a bomb shelter. Ive got some pics of the inferno along with all of yesterdays action coming soon.

Cheers

Nigel

Hi All,

I finally got to Seattle yesterday and was able to easily find my way around the airport which was great.

Yesterday we put in a huge day down the field on the Friday practise day. This event is so layed back its awesome. Arriving at the field it was amazing to see all the Motor homes and people already set up for the weekend. Todd, Jason, Matt and i have our own motor home that would cost more than the average house back home. The setup here is isane, perfect flying field with blue skys, green grass and a nice corn field in the background which is perfect for turfing helis into and fly again the same day hehheheehhehe

Todd and Jason have been running a much as usual along with Mike Scoles the fireworks king. Mikes got a killer hummer that we took out this morning to go get coffee. With semi hard acceleration you can easily get the miles per gallon down to an AMAZING 1Gallon per mile. Oh my god show me the fuel costs. luckily the cost of fuel is a little cheaper here

We’re all kicking around the motor homes at the moment on the laptops while helis are flying around on the main flight line in front of us and the one behind the motor homes.

I’ll try and update some more this arvo after todays wreckages clear heheehehe

Hi Guys,

Yesterday i arrived in Seattle for their anual funfly. What a mission it was to get here. The Trip from london to Chicago was great, had nice food on the plane. It all went downhill from there. I had 2 hours to get a connecting flight from Chicago to Seattle which should have been a heap of time. After getting off the plane and making my way to the immigration section, the line started at the front and zig-zagged for the best part of 200m’s outside that section into the area where we got off the plane. After standing in the line for 30mins i decided it was time to take evasive action and go under the guide ropes to the front of the line. On the way though the “sorry” seemed to pay off and the other english speaking people seemed to understand. As i didnt have an address on where i was staying, immigration took a little longer than expected (about 10mins). After getting through there i managed to gather my luggage that was on a different baggage machine than the one they said on the plane. From here i ran to American Airlines and noticed another huge line, so again i stood in line for about another 10mins until i thought – enough was enough. Again, i apologised all the way to the front to speak with a AA lady only to be told that 15mins before the flight was too late. God Chicago and American Airlines are a joke. They offered me a cheaper hotel and a shuttle bus that was supposed to pick us up form out front of the airport, this wasnt to be the case. After standing out the front of the airport for 40mins waiting for a shuttle to come through. I headed back to American Airlines to find out what the go was. They gave me new directions to the other side of the airport after contacting the hotel via phone. So again i was off to the other side of the airport looking for the shuttle that was due at 9 at night. I had met up with some other guys and was doing the rounds with a guy from Germany and another from China that where in the same boat as i. We got there 15 mins early and waited till 9:30pm only to find no shuttle bus was coming. I priced up staying at the Hilton which was just over the road from where i was at this time, but at USD$280 a night sleeping in the airport looked like a better alternative. In the end we managed to track down a phone number for a taxi company and payed to get to the hotel, which we arrived at around 11 at night. So i was up for 2 taxi fares and hotel cost for the night.

The next day i was up at 5:30am in the morning to get to the airport for 6-6:30 to get my flight out at 8:45am. Which i though would give me a heap of time. Again finding your way around Chicago was a mission and everywhere you went the line was at least a 30min wait. After having to pay USD$80 for excess baggage i got through the check in and onto the xray machine, which they got all upset about the radio and did the ion scan all through my hand luggage. Great just my luck a little more time to waste.

In the end i managed to get through all the political issuses and onto the flight to Seattle only a day late.

I dont ever plan on flying into Chicago again as this made 3rd world countries look like heaven and the customer service was nil throughout the whole event.

Im now in Seattle, Oh what a relief.

Cheers

Nigel