Thursday, August 17, 2023

Full Practice Day #2

Yes folks it’s Deja-vu all over again as we basically repeat yesterday’s adventures.

Up at 6 am and Kelly had the coffee in my hand shortly thereafter.  I raided the fridge and made up some meat & cheese buns for my lunch. Out the door and down to Chad’s van for a 6:30 departure back to Inglewood Aerodrome.  This will be our last trip out before the Preliminary flights commence.

A quick stop at McDonalds for a road coffee and we were off. John and Michi were right behind us and the drive was mostly uneventful…. until we rounded a corner and a police car, lights ablaze came at us in our lane…. hang on as we pulled over to the far left of the road as he passed by us. Shortly followed by a Wide Load Vehicle and the largest Wide Load I had ever seen on a public roadway came by us..


This happened again about 3 minutes later with a second vehicle.  Got the heart rate up I will say!!

The usual crew was out at Inglewood with New Zealand, Australia, Austria & the USA. We unloaded and joined the fray.

 




Jason came down when his flight ended after just seven maneuvers in…. turns out the batteries didn’t get switched out and the plane lost power. Hey…. it happens to the best of us.

The boys all got together for a photo op as Aaron needed some promotional shots for the local paper. Unfortunately Henry and Terri had not arrived yet and he missed out.

 

 Michi managed a flight on his backup Excess Bipe and then switched back to his primary plane, the Akuma monoplane for the reminder of the day. Chad and Henry continued with their primary planes (Henry only has one plane, his Apollo here in Australia… yep there is a story) Chad eventually flew the backup as well.

More flights ensued and the USA guys headed off to Warwick Aerodrome for processing at 15:00. This is when each of the competitor’s planes are weighed, measured and motor cut-offs checked. With the Americans out of the picture, the afternoon TBF factor was greatly reduced…. TBF stands for “Time Between Flights” and is a new acronym I have invented because, well we need more acronyms :-)

Ultimately you want to get in as many flights as possible and if there is a large group it can be up to 2-1/2 to 3 hours between flights. You generally move to a less busy airfield or one that has more flight lines if this is the case.



The flight line was moving fast and we managed to put in many flights. Little tweaks here and there but overall, we are all happy with the flying.  In fact the Canadians shut the place down as Michi flew the last flight before darkness set in.

 We packed up and headed back to Warwick via the Cunningham Highway. A quick fuel stop on the way home as Chad's van is on "E".  

Initial reports had us all going for burritos but that was changed to Psycho Susie's Brewery. Turns out the entire Processing Committee was engaged in a debrief at the brewery. Phil Spence, Norm Morrish and Russell Edwards joined the table and we all enjoyed a drink together.  Norm reported that all the scheduled teams had been processed successfully.

There was one negative to the day with a report that CPLR's son had lost his plane at Warwick Aeromodeller's Field due to a lock out of some sort. He is the French junior pilot but fortunately has a backup plane to fly. 

Breakfast locally tomorrow morning and then it is Canada's turn to have it's planes processed at the Warwick Aerodrome mid day. 

 

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