01 June 2009

Glider guys Witblitzed by the pylon legends @ DMAC - Russ Conradt






Pete Sherliker with one of his all balsa Witblitz planes, chatting to Dave and Sheldon. The Jury out on whether these and John Dorse's Moldie version had any advantage over the stock foamy versions as the two pylon legends just flew so much better than the rest of us.......



From Russ:

Wow, what can I say. One of the most enjoyable day's flying I have had in a long time. Apart from being so stupid as not to measure a Course to practice on, not having enough proper batteries, crashing another Roulette, I had a ball. I was very lucky as apart from dislodging the wing hold down bolt fixing and a broken prop, everything else is fine, It lives to crash another day, another time! Having said that the Velocity race certainly made up for that mishap.

A big and hearty thank you to Gail and John Dorse for putting this day together, their tireless effort in driving Pylon in this province has to be admired. A big thank you to my glider mates for the enthusiasm in backing this event, the loan of batteries, and the prop from John. The flying was great fun, the fact that there were no midair's escapes me using a two pylon course, shows you how wide we were actually flying. I must admit to being a bit jealous of the power boys but the Witblitz will have to do at the moment.

As John indicated, a venue needs to be found and maybe Dave and Mark's Umdloti site is the best available at the moment, early start before the wind gets up. I will make an effort to contact the principal of the Crawford La Lucia and see if we could get access to the fields, but Google earth shows only 130 meters length on the biggest field, and neighbours!
I will keep looking,

Thanks again
Russ Conradt

WITBLITZ RESULTS (cumulative laps best three of four heats - best heat laps in brackets)

1. John Dorse 44 (15)

2. Pete Sherliker 43 (15)

3. Russ Conradt 38 (14)

4. Dave Greer 37 (13)

5. Richard Fleming 35 (13)

VELOCITY RESULTS (best heat of two heats)

1. Russ Conradt (15)

2. Dave Greer (14)

3. Richard Fleming (DNF)


From Dave:

The glider guys got their butts kicked but it was addictive as hell!

Thanks to the Highvelders for the good advice and encouragement, also our two local pylon legends John Dorse and Pete Sherliker. John had molded the Witblitz (Ja) and even the hard to get spec prop!

Funny enough though, Sheldon reckoned the race of the day was the three Velocity 2's head to head for a novelty race - such a pity these howlers have gone off the market.

Still buzzing.... ;-)

Cheers
Dave




The Toss/Sungazer orange shirted glider guider team of Dave Greer, Adrian Baker, Russ Conradt and Sheldon McGlone - helpers are so useful for this game.

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