 On what seemed to me, the coldest night in Adelaide on record well, that is what it felt like to the Phoenix, we had a magnificent attendance for tonight’s indoor flying at ETSA Park. The cold weather suited me because, as most of you realise, I cannot fly too close to the sun or my wings melt, and so do I. No fear of that tonight though and I would almost guess at it being a near-record crowd, whose activities filled the indoor air with aircraft of all shapes and sizes, both fixed wing and helicopters. Before I touch on the flying antics, and there were plenty of those, I most say how pleased I was to welcome two of our very important guests. The first of these has been flying with S.S.L. for ALMOST longer than I can remember (but I must be able to remember, otherwise how would I be able to write about it uh?) he is Matthew Wood whom, these days, fits the left hand front seat of B-triple sevens living in, and flying out of, Dubai. First Officer Wood began flying with the Southern Soaring League when, being long before he was old enough to attain a driver’s licence, he was ferried to and from the field by his father, Bruce. This was a task that Bruce filled admirably for the entire (almost) duration of Matt’s brilliant model flying career. I might add that I was surprised to find Matt there tonight, without Bruce. It WAS a cold night. The other very important guest was Dr. Nic Chabrel. Whilst Nic has appeared at ETSA in the past, his intensive studies within the advancement of his medical career, have curtailed his flying involvements in many ways. It was an enormous pleasure, and honour to welcome a gentleman of such World famous qualifications to our humble venue of indoor flying. We can hope that, now his studies have become much less time consuming, he may find time to join us on the 3rd Thursday of each month. 
Well dear readers, the first of my pix from tonight’s enjoyment features what I have roughly termed a Baby Blade. It is tiny in every way except its flying ability and Matthew Waye showed us the way (pun definitely intended) that it should be flown. With its twin counter-rotating blades it was a smooth critter, believe me. I shall deal with it in more detail next month, for, at this stage, it is barely on the market, and I shall cover, not only its correct title, but also its price and availability etc. (Micro Blade CX, on sale 30/9/08) 
I mentioned last month that we had ten (10) of the ever-popular Vapors in flight at one time, exemplifying the beauty and safety of 2.4Ghz radios and tonight, Matty Waye displayed one of these aircraft in inverted flying – impressive. In case his aircraft had been set up specially for this antic, I handed my Vapor to him and he did the same maneuver. Okay, there is no excuse for me now. It also gave us pleasure to welcome back within our fold, David Wearing-Smith and his son Scott. I do believe that more than half David’s flying time in the past has been spent in nurturing Scott’s flying and I think that he is now being weaned considerably into solo flying. David is another of our full-time full-size pilots and work pressure for some months past, has kept him away from ETSA Park for quite some time. I hope it has eased up some what David and that you are able to join us more frequently. Welcome back, and welcome to David’s good friend John Forrest down from Sydney and also enjoying the pleasures of flying a Vapor. 
Jamie Nancarrow, Mike O’Reilly and Matthew Wood are featured in my next picture and they had just arrived from, what, no doubt, was an enjoyable dinner, Matty found himself in the position of “borrow a model or don’t fly” mode and this, coupled with his lengthy dinner, may have been the cause of Mike’s disc finding itself with a half-inch less material on the end of each propeller blade. I am pleased to say that he flew my Vapor without fault or mishap – in fact, of all his borrowed craft throughout the night, I do believe that Mike’s aircraft was the only one to suffer. Being so proud of the flying ability and ease of flying of my Vapor, I had no qualms of handing my JR transmitter to SSL’s Treasurer, John Blanchard. The only problem then was getting the tranny back again. I did mention earlier that our crowd was huge tonight but, standing out from the large number of fliers, was the brightly illuminated Ikarus Shock Flyer of Justin Galbraith. Justin had also removed one of his fingers from that place in which they are renowned for becoming stuck and, as well as his Ikarus, he returned to the throngs of heli fliers and it was great to see this pilot of such outstanding ability back playing his usual role. He is photographed in intense concentration! 
Whenever I pointed my camera at Matthew Wood, he seemed to have a smile on his face that really did seem to stretch from ear to ear. Now, good friends, this is far from a humorous situation for I do not, even after some hours of thought into this matter, know whether he was so pleased to be back with a lot of his old friends, doing things that he so totally enjoyed, or whether that evening meal was longer than I had previously stated. I really am kidding Matty, for it was great to have you back within our fold, even be just for one solitary week and I know others join me in wishing you and your family a safe journey back to Dubai. 
Following those last two shots of Matthew, I managed to focus on Shane and his quite exciting model. This is the first Eflite Tensor that we have seen at ETSA Park and, not only did it fly beautifully, it obviously gave Shane great hunks of pleasure whilst flying it. He said that when he was deciding on his purchase, he looked at Grahams model, which I featured last month and which, I might add, was vastly improved on his flying displays tonight, and Shane, using his words, not mine, picked the uglier one. I rest my case on that Michael?? 
Next month, I hope to feature in this column, Graham’s wife and HER Vapor. It was a great night dear friends and you can make it a part of your individual enjoyment and entertainment by coming to ETSA Park Netball Stadium on the third Thursday of every month. The stadium is on Railway Terrace at Mile End (Adelaide, South Australia) and it can be a free nights relaxation for you – it will only cost you ten dollars if you fly. Feel free to speak to any of the fliers – each one is proud of his model/s and would be only too pleased to explain or answer any query that you may have. I do hope to see you there, perhaps when the weather is a little warmer.
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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I
want a quote on how much freight it will cost to send items to me.
