Volume 7, Issue 3 June 2006 Visit our website at www.vfsaa.cjb.net The Bi-Monthly Newsletter of the Victorian Flying Scale Aircraft Association. Inside this issue: AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS 2006. (Gary Sunderland) Minutes of April Meeting. 2 The 59th Model Aircraft Association of Aus- scale flying and the conditions were nearly President’s Report. 3 tralia National Championships were held ideal, with light winds and overcast skies in Nationals Report (cont). 4-5 from the 18th to the 24th of April at Strathal- the mornings, and a few sunny breaks and byn in South Australia. some thermal activity in the afternoons. Wagga Warbirds 2006. 6-7 The South Australian modelers had obvi- Unfortunately all this good work was negated Sportscale Rnd 3 at Ballarat. 8 ously put in a lot of hard work in preparation to some extent by a shortage of competitors! and the organization and venue were excel- Although we few in attendance enjoyed our Let the Diagrams Rule. 9 lent. Contest Director Bob Fisher and his unusual and unexpected success in the deputy John Woolfitt were quietly efficient prize-giving, we would have enjoyed more Scale Rallies at PARCS and 10 and, with their many helpers, deserve full company and competition in the events. This P&DARCS. marks for making this one of the best run shortage of competitors extended to all 11 nationals for many years. events in all disciplines and, I am sure, was The Percival “ Mew Gull ”. Special Dates and Points of Interest- VFSAA General Meeting Thursday 1st June VFSAA Trophy Sat-Sun 10th & 11th June at Shepparton VFSAA Sportscale Rnd 4 Sun 25th June at State Field Even the weather co-operated to some ex- a great disappointment to all those South VFSAA General Meeting tent, despite a windy start to proceedings, Australians who had put in so much time, and AGM including a squall which managed to blow energy and money into organizing the Thursday 3rd August down my tent in the middle of the night! For- Championships. tunately the winds abated at the start of (continued on page 4.) Minutes of April General Meeting. Date: 6-4-06 Location: FNCV Time: 8.15 pm Attendance: 22 Apologies: Barry Reaby, John Gottschalk Previous minutes: Read Matters arising: Nil Correspondence in: • Receipt for hall hire. • VMAA minutes. • Letter from the VRF re attendances at long weekend events. • Letter from Greensborough re display day,. • Invoice from HWT for Ian Watts add in the Sun. Correspondence out: Thank you letter to the VRF. Matter arising: • Noel spoke on recognizing Ian Watts in some way, perhaps a trophy, or name change for Queens Birthday event. • Trevor enquired how many would be coming to the Greensborough display day. Treasurers report: • Opening balance 02/02/06: $4410.44 Receipts: $345.00 Expenditure: $483.38 Closing balance 06/04/06: $4272.06 CD’S report: • John commented on the State Champs, Large Scale poorly attended but the ARF section was good. • A reminder of the Scale Rally at PARCS, and the Sportscale at Ballarat. General business: • Brian Green queried the $100 deposit for the Team Trials for the World Champs and moved that the money collected be transferred to Clive Butler to help with team expenses. Seconded by Noel Whitehead. Accepted by the members. • John Lamont referred to the photo of the South African Harvards and as to whether it was genuine or not. General opinion was yes. • Gary Sunderland noted that there were some changes in the Nationals calendar. • Noel noted that there was no reply yet from NSW re the contest between Vic. And NSW. • The Trans Tasman will be the weekend before Easter next year. • Clive Butler did a presentation on Static Judging. • Many thanks to Frank Singh for providing the supper. Meeting closed: 9.00 pm Show and tell:- • Clive showed his large ARF Blackburn Monoplane. • Brian Green showed various bits and pieces of his Panther project. • Ken Thomas showed photo’s of some of his models and his next project, the Me323 Gigant. THE VFSAA TROPHY. Sat. 10th & Sun. 11th June at the Ian Watts. Field, Shepparton. Both Scale and ARF classes are open to all members of the MAAA. Competition Rules are MAAA Large Scale but with no limits on size of model. All models exceeding 7kg must have a current inspection certificate. ARF class will be flown jointly with the Scale class. Scale class only will include static judging. Come along and bring your flying mates to enjoy a great social weekend. page 2 Scale News Back to the Oval Office. I was watching TV the other day. Well, there was nothing else to There was an important note in the latest MAAA newsletter con- do because having my right hand all ban- tained in the VMAA newsletter that all members should have re- daged up and immobilized has curtailed at ceived by now. It emphasized the necessity to have proper large least two of my favourite activities. I was model and turbine certification before flying a model. Their point watching Aerobics Oz Style, just out of aca- was that if an uncertified model causes property or personal dam- demic interest, when something strange age, then the insurance cover would not apply. struck me about the on screen activities. When the lead chickie was facing the camera and said to do some- And quite rightly. One could not have much sympathy for anyone thing with your left leg, she would do it with her right leg. This was caught in this position. But of more concern to me is the possible actually quite confusing and the only way I could reconcile it was situation where the MAAA was aware that the hypothetical flyer that the program is principally aimed at women and that this is just had ignored the certification requirement and had done nothing another manifestation of the women’s Melway syndrome. about it. You can bet your boots that the MAAA, i.e. you and I, would have its pants sued off. I just hope that the MAAA takes this For new readers, it has long been my contention that women have issue as seriously as it expects us to. poor spatial awareness, as evidenced by their need to turn street directories upside down when navigating, and that this is why we My main recent activity was to attend the Wagga Warbirds over the see so few women flying models. Anzac Day weekend. This continues to be the biggest and best Anyhow, I happened to mention the left leg/right leg phenomenon scale competition in the country, and despite local quirks, has run to my sister-in-law who is a primary school teacher. Imagine my very successfully for over 30 years. How disturbing then to find shock when she said that this was standard primary school teach- that the SA Nats scheduled the scale events to run at the same ing methodology. I felt safe telling her what I thought about the time as Wagga. What a surprise that hardly anyone turned up at teaching profession because she is one of the very few people in the Nats. I had not intended to go to either event this year, but the World that I can outrun at present. when the Nats program was revealed I decided to make my own small protest by going to Wagga. It just might be time for the Aus- Look at the implications of this. The vast majority of primary teach- tralian Scale Association to get up and run its own scale Nationals ers are female, who all suffer from the Melway syndrome, and they to avoid this sort of destructive behaviour. are trying to bring up boys the same way! Have we been looking at the wrong reasons for the shortage of youngsters entering the Anyhow, enough of this. I have to go and attend to some of the ac- hobby? Is the real reason our female teachers? Could it also be tivities of daily living. It’s lucky the First Lady is a nurse! that our adult flyers are losing their skills because they are watch- ing Aerobics Oz Style, and that this is why fewer people are turning Noel W up at the flying field? Nah, it’s just apathy. AGM and Elections. VIC LONGBON 1945 – 2006 The August meeting is the AGM, at which we must elect the Of- ficebearers and Committee for 2006-7. All positions are available and members should start to think about the future direction of We lost another fine modeller last month when Vic Longbon col- our Association. The present Committee has been in position for lapsed and died at his home in Perth. Many of you will not have some years and it may be time for a change. If you believe that known Vic but he was a leading light in many facets of aeromod- you have something to offer why not nominate. elling in the west for many years. Anthony Mott has indicated that he will not continue as Treasurer Vic built all types of models but scale won out, at least temporar- and I am stepping down as Contest Director so we will need to fill ily, and in more recent years he was heavily involved with tur- those vacancies. The Treasurer is an office bearer of the Associa- bines, both in construction and flying. tion but the CD does not have committee status although he may attend committee meetings and is able to have input at these Western Australian modelling will miss this talented modeler who meetings. left us at such a relatively young age.