Swan Hill Weekend 22 to 25 APRIL 06?

By Ian Slack?

A few VARMS members made their way to Swan Hill for their annual Scale Aero-tow weekend.

A full report can be found on the SSA web site at www.scalesoaringaustralia.com

Much fun was had by all with David Weller finally getting some quality airtime with his Woodstock.

Gary MacDougall was having a fix before going overseas but suffered some damage over the weekend. His Woodstock is no more after battery failure led to a crash and his Lunak also decided to free flight. This was fortunately recovered with only minor damage. However his DG 600 flew well all weekend.

Martin Hopper dropped in with his Schweitzer 1-26 just for the Saturday. Geoff Moore bought his DG 300 out to play which was great to see. Needs some colour though. Barry De Kuyper racked up plenty of flights with his Slingsby Gull and his Tandem Falke. Colin Collyer had his usual trailer full of models. The ones I can remember seeing are his Golden Eagle, Swift and Bergfalke. 8 point rolls with the Swift are very impressive.

Finally I had a ball with my Woodstock and Schweitzer 1-26. I might add that the experience of soaring with the eagles is something that will stay with me for a long time. The thermals on the Monday were magnificent and if you were game you could speck out without any trouble. My best flight was 57 minutes and plenty of other long flights were had by fellow flyers. We even had times when all the tugs were turned off as everyone was still in the air flying!

A great long weekend and one to repeat next year.