Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd of December, 2001
At
Coperfield Dam, Pine Creek.
Despite a lack of flyers making the trip, a great weekend was enjoyed by those who attended. The dam still had sufficient water for float flying. Fortunately the weather stayed fine all weekend despite some rumblings on Saturday night but no rain. Tindal was represented on Saturday by Ben Vickery ( scaled down Aquamaster ), Brian Mullin, Steve Lewis, Daryl Lee ( Cessna ARF on floats ) and Peter Noyce ( Aquamaster ). Ben, Brian and Peter camped overnight, Daryl and Steve Lewis returning to Katherine late Saturday afternoon. Darwin was represented by Chris Walker ( Seamaster ), Graham Taylor ( Kobold Heli on floats ) and Kevin Bott ( electric Nora and a Karinya slope soarer glider ).
Ben also provided some entertainment during the evening with his Dart Nightflyer. Ben had a deal of trouble getting both engines to run in his PBY Catalina. With a little more running in it should be a reliable model.
Interesting photo of Daryl Lee's Cessna showing the remains of the aluminum spinner that disintegrated sometime during flight. Note the piece of aluminum embedded in the left float.
The only crash of the weekend occurred when Peters Aquamaster, being test flown by Ben, suffered throttle control linkage failure. This caused the throttle to stay wide open the ensuing elevator flutter saw the entire tailplane part company. The model proceeded to rotate about the wing with the motor still running at full power until it came to earth at the edge of the dam. The damage sustained was remarkably minor considering the height the incident occurred at. This is how it looked after the aircraft was recovered.
Pictures supplied by Peter Noyce.
 Ben Vickery's scaled down Aquamaster
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 Graham Taylor's Vario Kobold on floats
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 Peter Noyce's Aquamaster before ! !
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 Peter Noyce's Aquamaster after ! !
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 Ben Vickery's Dart night flyer
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 Ben Vickery's PBY Catalina
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 Daryl Lee's ARF Cessna
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 Chris Walker prepares his Seamaster |
Edited 06-Mar-2006