Good Friday dawns with a group meeting for the trip to Jerilderie. The trip is made all the shorter with a lively conversation over the CB radios between the cars. Before we know it we are driving in to the Jerilderie racecourse and starting to set up.

The racecourse at Jerilderie is a very large open space on the outskirts of the town. Probably the largest flying area we encounter in the scale calendar, the facilities allow us to shift the strip in any direction dependant on the wind.

By the time we set up the shade and get ourselves set up, there is already a good contingency at the field. David Hobby has his Cessna tow plane (which has become a very reliable performer) set up in mere minutes and with a quick pilot briefing, towing commences.

The weather forecast was for fine, stable conditions, and that is what we got all weekend. Other than some early morning wind, the days stabilised to a dispersed cloud base and as the days progressed, so did the thermal activity. Early evening usually brought in the slowdown of the thermal cycle but people were still achieving 15 min flights with the thick evening air. Only the pangs of hunger brought a halt to proceedings.

New arrivals on the scene this year was Gregg Voak with his 1:2.5 scale Duo Discus. Gregg flew across to the event from Belgium, picked up his sailplane from Sydney, drove it down in a wagon for 8 hours, set it up the next morning with JR 2.4 radio gear and had it flying by mid Saturday afternoon. Now that is what I call commitment! It was also clearly an impressive sight!

Another new plane to the event was Neil & Henryk’s ¼ Scale Pawnee tow plane. Trying to get it stabilised for towing duties, it suffered from a tail wheel system that never quite came good in the rough conditions and in the process, lost three tail wheels trying to get it right on the weekend. In the end it was more prudent to put it away than continue with it. Performance wise, it is looking to be a great tow plane, with more that adequate power.

Also there was Wayne Jones with his rebuilt ASW22, Lucky Leon with his immaculate Fafnir and many of the usual suspects.

Our thanks go out to Vic Shaw who came over from New Zealand to have a look at what we were doing. It was great to have you there. Also thanks to Chris Carpenter and Sam who trekked from Adelaide via the locust plague to get there… hope you managed to clean up the car!

Thanks to David Hobby and Theo for doing a large proportion of the towing duties. Without them, and their tow planes, the days would be very long.

A special thanks also to Andy Smith for not only making Leon one of the happiest men over the weekend (yes there is a story, but I will have to ask Leon if I can tell it) but also that he donated the RCGA keyboard which went to good use over the weekend. It was a great system and worked a treat.

Its only a small wait till next year…

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