2012 SOUTH AFRICAN INDOOR ELECTRIC NATIONALS -- Hatfield Christian Church, Pretoria -- Report and photos by Dave Harris

The South African Indoor Electric Association hosted its very successful Indoor F3P Nationals in Pretoria on Saturday 14^th July 2012.

The organising committee, which consisted of Blake Dormer, James Hill, Kristi van der Mast, Sharna Simpson and Judy Harris, presented the competitors and judges with a really nice venue to hold the first team selection event for the forthcoming Indoor World Championships, which will be held in Germany in February or March 2013.

Three classes were flown: Sportsman, Intermediate and Masters with the Masters Class flying the international F3P – AP Schedule.

Indoor flying is starting to grow in South Africa and as can be seen from the group photo there is a lot of interest with many spectators turning up to see the incredible skills shown by the pilots. To fly a sequence of manoeuvres inside a hall requires a lightly built model set up to fly very slowly. This allows the pilot to have enough time to present a well-controlled display to the judges.

All the pilots flew really well and are to be sincerely congratulated for entering the competition.

The score sheet shows the positions for each class, with the three best flights out of four normalised to give the final positions.

I would like to thank all the pilots, judges, organisers and spectators for making this competition a really fun day for indoor flying. In particular Shaun Pershouse from Hatfield Christian Church for arranging the hall and to Marthinus Potgeiter and SAMAA for their support for the Indoor SIG.


All the photos here.

The next official indoor competition will be held on Saturday 6^th October and will be Team Trail #1. Please visit www.samaa.org and click on the Indoor webpage for more information about this exciting, affordable form of aeromodelling.

RESULTS:

SPORTSMAN CLASS:

1^st        Jacques Porter                                      3000 points

2^nd       Dylan Roberts                                      2528 points

INTERMEDIATE:

1^st        Blake Dormer                                      3000 points

2^nd       James Hill                                            2699 points

3^rd        Tiaan van Rooyen                                2658 points

MASTERS:

1^st        Roston Dugmore                                  3000 points

2^nd       Christopher Johnson                             2549 points