THE PHOENIX FOR FEBRUARY – at ETSAA great night was had by most people who either flew or just popped in (no charge for that) for a look-see – in fact, it only costs ten dollars if you fly all night and, of course, we meet on the third Thursday of every month, right throughout the year, from 8.30 to 10.30p.m. “Wow!” There’s a long sentence with which to start – I’m exhausted already. It gave me a great thrill to meet our Webmaster, who popped over to Adelaide, from Melbourne to take a few happy snappies for the Web. Richard and his lovely wife Shen managed to fit in some motor-home touring during their stay here and, unless they motored up to Sydney and Brisbane, should have had perfect weather for their trip. I sincerely hope so, and that you had a safe and enjoyable trip home. We had some new models on display, and not only static, on this occasion and the outstanding one, to my way of thinking was the Blade 400 3D. I shall just touch briefly on it here for there is an excellent article on it in the M/F Web. It flies aerobatically, right out of the box and coming with a Spectrum DX6i Radio, it keeps you out of harms way by putting you on 2.4 GHz. Price: $479. 
Todd is a young gentleman, blonde, extremely good looking who has achieved a lot in the first 20 years of what, I am sure, will be a busy life. He flies full size gliders but the thing that caught my eye during the evening was, although on training wheels, the steady manner in which he flew the first Blade 400 that we have seen at ETSA Park. Please don’t get too excited over this young man for he imported his special lady from Queensland which would make three a very big crowd. 
We also had a Pixie Zap making its first appearance at the stadium. This helicopter was nicely flown by Antonio Alphabet. An unusual name but he is quite comfortable with “Tony.” I had no hope of spelling his surname correctly, for as he told me, it actually contains MORE letters than the alphabet, but he deserves full credit for his skill and smooth demonstration of the little Zap. Well done Tony. 
We had several of the tiny Cessnas flying also and these, which have been around since Christmas or longer were out-shone by Mike O’Reilly’s little high wing foam Model which, believe it or not comes complete with Spectrum radio and the tiniest running gear that I have seen. It is called “Ember.” Watch Model Flight’s advertisements or the web page for mention of these exciting little craft. 
Don Rosella is still hitting the market with an excellent helicopter of his own design and manufacture. Just $250.00 will put one of these in your hands and you will find them excellent value. You can see these any flying night at ETSA. Justin Galbraith – are you wondering why he disappeared from my stories – has just returned from a tour of duty in Iraq and he wasted no time in checking out “whats new” since his departure, about six months ago. No doubt we will see him back in action as soon as he prepares himself. The slump that we seemed to go through for a couple of months has settled down and a quite reasonable crowd broke bread with us on this occasion. Mike O’Reilly has returned from an overseas trip with the lovely Janine, and he managed to take in the “hugely enormous” Toy Fair at Nuremburg. I was fortunate in visiting this extravaganza some years ago and was truly amazed at the size etc. The first two days are reserved for Trade Visitors, so we can expect to see some new and exciting “stuff” on the shelves at Model Flight, Maple Avenue, Keswick in the not too distant future. In fact, dear readers, my first picture shows Mike with the little high-winged foam model that I mentioned earlier in this epistle, which has been written for the gospel according to the Phoenix.
Phoenix Indoor Flight Reports
Indoor Flying at ETSA Park 2008
| Date |
Court |
Time |
| November 20th |
1 |
8.30-10.30pm |
| December 18th |
1 |
8.30-10.30pm |
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