So, just a few short months after JIMAD 2003, it was time to go to Jersey again, all in the name of having a laugh. Much less serious this time around, it was all about the "friendly" rivalry between Guernsey and Jersey. And have a laugh we did...many times over.
The weekend started with the Van-packing on Friday evening, where we threw in what we could and left behind what there wasn't room for. The picture you should see is of Shane's Transit fully loaded with planes. Andy's was just as packed too!! The weather early on in the week had been, well, crap to be honest. Even the Red Arrows Display in Guernsey was cancelled because the weather was crap in Jersey at the time, but we wont go there. Up until Wednesday it had been rain and gales, but by Friday it was flat calm, sunny and quite warm. Saturday was no different. Once we were in Jersey, the first stop was the model shop. There were a couple of decent planes in there, including a huge 1.40 size ARTF Mustang, which Julian nearly bought there and then. Then it was off for a bite to eat. Pete Rondel contacted us to let us know where he was (at one of the places along 5-mile road) so we made our way there. We drove past it without realising first time round, from one end of the road to the other, then it turns out it was one of the first ones we went past...great!
We had our lunch, chatted about flying for a bit, then headed to the Les Landes flying site to do some electric flying before 2pm. This we did, including the first go at piggy-backing a glider...a nano-floh on top of a terry using a small thin strip of Velcro. It seemed to work quite well, until the aileron horn got jammed on separation. Damage was not too severe, but it was not tried again. Then 2pm came. I thought that as I didn't fly my Capiche 50 last time I took it to Jersey, I better give it a go. All was going fine, flying it as I usually do, then it started getting nasty glitching which carried on until it hit the gorse. It was too damaged to fly again during the weekend. But we needed to find out why it had happened. I did a range check...no good. I range checked my Funky Chicken...no good. This pointed to my transmitter. To confirm this, I swapped the crystal into my dad's transmitter...fine! Luckily, my dad's radio had 2 spare model memories and one of the Jersey boys had a Campaq, so we copied both of my Helicopter memories to my dad's radio so I would still be able to fly them. Good job too, with an Autorotation spot landing competition coming up later in the day.
Mid-afternoon, I had a chance to have a "familiarisation" flight with Nick's Mustang Pylon racer, to see if we could fly it with the magnum's on Sunday. We fired it up and ripped up the sky! it was going just as well as it had ever done, getting from one end of site to the other in a blink of eye. With no throttle, it was a case of waiting for the fuel to dry out to bring her in to land. After about 3 minutes, it ran out of fuel, so I started a usual landing approach, which with this model require a VERY long approach. I could hear people saying things like "Where the hell's he taking it", and "he's gonna have a long walk!" Then a few seemed to realise I actually did know what I was doing. It kept on floating and floating, then someone piped up "jammy bas***d, it's gonna be right to his feet!" Not wrong. I didn't have to walk more than a couple of feet to pick it up.
one of the planes Andy Best took over was his Hotspot Jet, the only turbine aircraft at the event, following a bad couple of weeks for Jersey's Matt Besnard. During his flight on Saturday, he asked if I wanted a go. Well, I wasn't going to say no to my first chance at getting my hands on a Jet!!. I knew they were smooth to fly, going on how they look in the air, and from what Jet fliers tell you. Well, smooth is an understatement! It flew like on rails, going exactly where you tell it to. I did a couple of low passes (flat out of course) then handed the tranny back to Andy for landing. The touch down was unfortunately a bit heavy, bending the retracts, but nothing that couldn't be sorted for the next day. I can't thank Andy enough for giving me a go, it was the highlight of my weekend.
Up next was the Helicopter Autorotation Competition. Entrants were, Myself, Pete Rondel, Andy Best, and Mick Wilkinson. Pete suggested that I go first. I don't know why, whether he wanted to see me set a decent benchmark, or crack under the pressure of being first up and making a mess of it. I was flying my Fury 60 Expert, which auto's brilliantly with the SAB Carbon main blades and driven tail system, a feature which was not present on Pete's or Andy's helicopters. Pete let me place the spot (a square foot of carpet) where I wanted on the runway, and I put the heli on it. Take off was interesting...as the pitch started going to positive, the air started getting under the piece of carpet, and it started skitting about like a hovercraft. It got to a point where I just had push the collective to the top and get the heli off the ground. I asked if we could have 2 goes, as I was sure my first would be nowhere near the spot, after all I have never tried autoing to a spot before. Pete said "sure, no problem". So I climbed up high, turned it into wind and hit the throttle hold. I don't know how, but I landed it square in the middle of the spot, so I cut the motor as I didn't really need a second go to improve. Next up was Andy with his Raptor 30. He landed a couple of feet from the spot on his first go, and a little bit closer on his second. Pete was next, and he managed to get one skid on and the other half on n to the spot. At that point Mick said, he couldn't be bothered, as he wouldn't be able to get any closer the spot than me. Hoorah!! I've won my first competition!! First prize...bugger all!!
After that bit of fun, we packed up and headed up to St Mary's for a decent meal and a few drinks. T-bone steaks with all the works...gorgeous! Then we all had desert too!! From cheesecake to ice-cream, it all looked good. We chatted about all things modelling as we ate, and a few other things besides. Simon was asked if he would do the commentary for the Mini-piper slot on Sunday afternoon...here we go, Simon's imagination free to do its work and cook some harebrained scheme about the Guernsey "Painted-Pipers" display team!?! When we got to our hotel, we headed for the bar where this "nonsense" was cooked up. There was Simon and I, with him telling me what we would be doing, and how we would change from one formation to the other. Nobody wanted to know though, which was a shame because if we had thought about it earlier, we could have worked it out better and got a better result from it. But it didn't end there. Next morning, Simon would have us practising on the ground. He was determined to make it work.
After a cracking breakfast next morning, we headed to Noirmont point for a bit of gliding / bungeeing. When we got there we were greeted by a distinct lack of wind. So, bungee it was then. But where to mount the end of the line. This is where the funniest part of the weekend happened. Simon decided that the end of the Canon looked good, so he straddled the gun out over the cliff to loop the bungee over the end. None of us could believe he would be so stupid. It didn't work in the end anyway. But we found a way. Somebody in the bunker crouching behind the wall, with the launcher outside the bunker pointing the glider skywards. This system did work very well, and we had a right laugh doing this for about half an hour before heading back off to Les Landes.
Once we got there we set up all our gear and got some food from Chompin' Charlie's Burger van. Flying stated with the trainers, moving on to Sport and aerobatic. In this slot I flew Nick's new Graupner Extra 300S with ASP 120 4-stroke. With this motor it was absolutely ballistic, with endless amounts of power. I gave it a good flight, doing all sorts of aerobatics with it. Others included Thomas with his Synergy 90, a couple of Capiche's, cougar's etc. Streamer chop was less of a plane killer during this visit, I think there was maybe only one mid-air, while the streamer was getting the chop for a change. I wasn't the first to get it, but I did get it at an awkward time for the tug flier. He had landed to fit a new streamer after someone else got it, and I was coming through for a low pass just as he was taking off again. He can't have been off the ground for more than 2 seconds when I went through the streamer right behind his tail. So he had to land again to fit another new streamer.
Andy's Jet slot went well, as he put on a great display with it, but again the landing suffered as the runway is very short for Jet flying. The helicopter slots were also very good. I only flew in the second one as my dad and I were sharing the transmitter. During the second slot, Pete and I did some formation inverted hovering, a real crowd pleaser. Talking of formations flying, Pete and I also did some formation flying in the electric slot with our funky chickens. Chicken Loops, Chicken Run's and best of all, Chicken Rolls. Going through a turn at the end of the site, Pete Chicken went all Hannibal on me, eating a huge chunk off my tail. We saw a load of bits fly off one of them, but they both carried on flying. On landing, I saw that half of my tail was missing. How the elevator still worked without making it roll I'll never know.
So, the Mini-piper Cub-Combat slot...
Simon took the mike, we all took off (a dozen in total, but only 5 Guernsey pipers) and Simon asked the Guernsey fliers to get into attack formation. It actually worked quite well, with the four of us (Thomas was flying low-level reconnaissance with his glue-and-tape piper) actually keeping a good pattern going. We needn't have flown in this slot though, as all the Jersey boys seemed intent on taking each other out. We were just spectators as all these white-pipers were falling out of the sky. By the end of the slot, the Guernsey pipers were the only ones still flying, even Thomas'!!
The last slot of the day was the Limbo. And we had our not-so-secret weapon, the most perfect plane ever made...the Club 2000!! On the first run through, I went straight into the limbo pole and the plane bit the tarmac hard! The club 2000 was knackered. But nothing that couldn't be fixed once we were home. A few moments later, Simon hit the other limbo pole with his Kwatz, and snapped the limbo pole in half!! Towards the end of the slot, Thomas was flying FU2 fun-fly, and Simon let me fly his Zagi. I was taking out the Poly stakes with no effort at all, while Thomas had the bright idea of prop-hanging in and around the stakes. Duh!! I flew the Zagi straight into the bottom of Thomas' plane and they both fell onto the tarmac from about 4 feet. And he had the nerve to blame me for it...dear oh dear. Serves him right in my view!
And that pretty much ended proceedings for the day. Now was time to pack up everything away, say our goodbyes, and get to the harbour. The plan was to get to the harbour and get to KFC before we went for the boat. We succeeded. We had a top quality KFC, Avalanche Ice cream and all. Then it was the boat ride home and that was that. The end of another cracking weekend away even if a bit low-key after the last one. can't wait till next year...