New Zealand Nationals

In 7 hours time it will be 4am and I'll be driving 643km to a small town called Clareville for the 56th New Zealand MAA National Championships along with a couple of other SSW readers.

I'm flying 11 events: F2B and Sportsman stunt, some combat, some speed, some racing, carrier/scale and a bit of FF for a giggle.
Luckily I managed to get my new (12 year rebuild!) model trimmed early this morning to my satisfaction, so its full steam ahead at last!

Here's a picture of the new flagship "M2". I built when I was 16 as a profile model, but eventually tore it apart for a rebuild which took 12 years. It runs an MDS48 and weighs about 59oz over nearly 700sq in.
Black dyed tissue attached with Cabots Crystal Clear (like polycrilic) and silver and red florists tissue trim.

Anyway... Good luck to the other guys competing and for those who can only spectate, you can get results and reports once the event is underway at the NZMAA webpage:
http://www.nzmaa.org.nz/nats/56th/index.asp

A.

I plan to leave at 4.30 am, I need the extra beauty sleep, see you in the camp kitchen for a couple of cold ones..........

It must be Nationals tme, the forcast is for thunder and hail..

>>It must be Nationals tme, the forcast is for thunder and hail..<<

Don't feel too bad. It's 34 degrees here and absolutely pounding rain. Wind at about 15 to 20 mph.

Enjoy. It's SO GOOD to learn I'm n ot the only "Speed Builder" in the world.

Ash,
Good luck at the Kiwi nats, I thought it was at Masterton? Hugh & I were looking forward to being there, but the need to score domestic brownie points assumed more importance, considering next year at Muncie...
If you're flying speed, say hi to our mate Brian Howser.
Cheers, Dave

Brian beat me by 0.1 seconds in Proto Speed yesterday! He won B-TR and F2A too, I think. He got my Cstkam going well enough to put in a flight, but I caught the down line on the pylon and trashed the model. The wing, tank and motor are salvagable so I'll be back...
4th in Sportsman Aerobatics after destroying and rebuilding my only model on registration day, 10th in F2B. 2nd in Profile scale and the remaining events were of no consequence. A riotously good time was had by all!! Roll on the next nats

Oh, and the first flight of 2004 was made by Andrew Robinson who flew a pusle jet at about 12:03am NZST 1/1/2004.

A.

Hi Ash,
You guys always have a riotously good time! - wish I'd been there.

Yup, the ole down line on the pylon will do it every time...

How about some pictures?
Cheers, Dave

I didn't take any pictures, but I'm sure some will turn up as people get back to real life. In the case of my F2A there wasn't much left to photograph!! Brian got a 12.9 in practice and Bill did a 12.7ish, but come F2A day the density altitude went way up and a 13 flat was the best they could do.

A.