Report on the 2006 Aerobatic Nationals -- Quintin Schroll

I would like to start off by saying a huge thanks to all the pilots. 56 pilots entered the competition and each pilot had to fly 4 rounds, thus giving the organiser a nightmare from the start: 224 flights had to be completed within three days.
To start by saying this was a huge undertaking is an understatement. With only a couple Northwest comps behind my name and dare I forget my better half, we tackled this mountain step by step.
To take all the credit would not be fair, a lot of communication between lots of parties made this event a huge success; Andre Stockwell, Pierre Marais and Ivan Olivier, Burt Botha and Nico Erasmus (my right hand man) need to be mentioned.
Then to make a competition work I need to thank the following people:
1. Judges- Ivan Olivier, Nick Dreyer, Kas Hamman, Noel Booysen, Neels Bergh and Paul Hern
2. Scorekeepers- Roy de Beer, Andrew de Beer and Elaine Martins
3. Score runner and Mr DO EVERYTHING - Stephan Malherbe
4. Chief Official and Mr ANYTHING ANYTIME - Thys Du Preez
5. TX control - John Trethewey and Piet Malherbe
6. Cd - Danie Potgieter Snr
7. Food and Catering - Klerksdorp Spur
Then one final BIG thank you goes to the four ladies that helped tremendously during the week of the Nats: Nikki Schroll, Louisa Schroll, Phelani and Petro Erasmus. These ladies ensured the smooth running of basically everything behind the scenes.

The wonderful atmosphere and camaraderie between the pilots was present from the official practise day that took place on the Thursday, and continued right through to the closing banquet on Sunday night.
All the classes proved to be very competitive till the final round.
Sportsman class- (17 pilots) was huge with Jonathan Vosloo 1st, Mark Hubbard 2nd and Divan de Kock 3rd vying for top honours.
Advanced class- (9 pilots) saw the local boys (Stephen 1st, Siggie 2nd, Quintin 4th and Nico 5th) competiting for positions with Dirk van Rhyn clenching the third place.
Expert class- (11 pilots) saw the two young guns Josh Smit 1st and Calvin Schroll 2nd battle it out for the top two with Pierre Fouche closing the top three positions.
F3A class- (8 pilots) saw a once off class that flew four rounds of PO7 schedule and the top three were Dean Grobbelaar 1st, Walter van Huysteen 2nd and Burt Botha 3rd.
F3A Master class- (11 pilots) saw the old faithfuls taking the top three positions Andre Stockwell, Pierre Marais and Danie Potgieter with Ian Wentzel and Mark Wolfe snapping at their heels, this class flew two rounds PO7 and two rounds FO7 schedules.

Best wishes and many more flying hours till the next competition,
Quintin

2006 Gliding Nats -- Evan Shaw

Hi All

Let me just remind everyone that the Glider Nationals will be held at BERG on the 14th to 16th July.

Time to start planning and getting you models ready. Please remember that no entries will be accepted without two frequencies per event. So make sure you get your crystals in good time.

Are we going to see anybody from the Cape Town, PE or East London areas this year? I wonder? It would be nice!
Also all you old timers! How about you lot? We have a class for especially for you guys - RES/100 (A model with Rudder, Elevator and Spoilers only or any model not exceeding 100 inches (2540mm) span) Planes like Aquila's, Olympic's, Grand Espri's, Viking's, Sagitta's, Wind Drifter's, Spectra's, Bird of Time's, etc. There must be hundreds of you guy out there who haven't flown in a comp for ages because you didn't have a class where you could fly with similar models. Having to compete with fancy molded ships all the time was always putting you off. Well now is the time to dust off those old "Gas Bags" and come and have some fun again!

It is also the first F3B qualifier. F3B will be held on the Friday with as many rounds as we can squeeze in and any spill over will be first thing on Saturday & Sunday mornings.
The main emphasis of the NATIONAL will be Thermal Duration, which will take place on the Saturday and Sunday. F3K will also be squeezed in there somewhere.
There will be no electrics at this event as there is an Electric Nationals planned for end of October at Groen Goudt.

The days are short in July with sunrise at just before 07h00 and sunset at just after 17h30, so we have to try and get as much flying as possible in about 11 hours of daylight.
Because of this we need to keep a tight schedule. We would also like to work out the program so that everyone can get as much flying as possible in a day, without having to sit around for ages waiting. We need to cater for Open, RES/100 and 2 Meter in the Thermal Duration. Open & RES/100 - 12 minutes working time with 10 minute flights. For the 2 meter - 8 minutes working time with 6 minutes flights. (Maybe)

Now for the main reason for this email:
It would help a lot if we can have some sort of indication as to how many people will be attending and who will be flying what. Open and 2 meter is pretty much a given. There will more than likely be enough pilots to fill three slots per round.
My concern is that there will not be enough pilots to make up 3 slots per round of RES/100.

So, can I ask you to please let me know what you are going to fly. Just your name and which class/classes you would like to enter.

Club Chairpersons, please gather the information from people who are not on the mgasa and SARFly groups and send it to me as well.

Examples:

Joe Blog - F3B, Open, RES/100 & F3K
Joe Moer - Open & 2 Meter
Joe Wie? - RES/100 & 2 Meter

The main entry forms will be made available shortly here and in both the SAMAA News and South Easter. This is just a prelimmmery request to try and judge the entries and to help us plan the event so everyone is catered for.

Many thanks
Evan Shaw
evshaw@telkomsa.net
083 254 1809

Final scores for the 2006 Aerobatic Nats -- Andre Stockwell

Link to raw scores (pdf)
Link to normalised scores (pdf)

Round About for May 2006 -- Percy Attfield

Link to 40k pdf

LiPo batteries, a cautionary tale by Andre Beukes

Many of you have seen the Hobby Trailer in which I transport my models.

My trailer stands underneath my carport, with the following planes in it:

1. 46% ULTIMATE
2. 40% EDGE 540
3. 120 ULTRA STICK
4. X-CELL PRO IIK HELI
5. 10 L Petrol
6. 2 l Moto 800 Oil
7. 15 L of Morgan Fuel with 15% nitro.

The Ultimate has 2 x expensive lithium polymer packs in it to supply the radio in the plane with power.

Yesterday at approximately lunch time, I decided to start charging all my planes. I first balanced the 2 lithium packs, and then hooked up the chargers as I always do, while the planes is still in the trailer. I went to check on the chargers @ +/- 18H00, and smelled electric fire. After investigating, I found that one of the packs inside the Ultimate burnt. Luckily for me, the only damage I sustained was to the Ultracote that was melted at four different places due to the heat.

Learn from my experience. This time I was very lucky. All my models could have burned, including my trailer. And to top this, my carport is next to my garage, where my 2 cars were parked, and all my other models are stored hanging from the garage roof.

Please charge your LiPo batteries in open space.

I had one of the best lithium polymer packs inside the plane, and I'm using decent chargers, and it still burnt.

These things are volatile. Please handle with care.

Regards

Andre Beukes

2006 Boland R/C power champs

Link to entry form (word DOC).
Contact person Dirk Coetzee 076 471 4617
or opzoek@mweb.co.za

Dirk Meyer acts as chairman of the SAMAA management committee

Joe Coetzer will be out of the country between 3rd and 26th May 2006.
During this time Dirk Meyer will act as chairman of the SAMAA management committee.
You can get hold of Dirk on 031 560 3111 or by email at dirk.meyer@corobrik.co.za