MAAA Wingspan

32 WING SPAN AUGUST Phoenix Ka8B scale glider soars over Jerilderie Having a scale glider fun fly at Jerilderie in southern New South Wales over the Easter long weekend dates back to 2003, when Gregg Voak and LSF Australia approached the local council. The local racecourse had proven itself to be a great venue for the June thermal soaring event since 1978 so it made sense to use this amazing facility for the emerging class of aero towing scale gliders. Large numbers of pilots have gathered there every Easter since (except for COVID affected 2020) and this year saw 26 pilots with over 60 models present. Once again, the MAAA was very helpful in enabling the LSF to renew the Area Approval for Jerilderie with a more than adequate height clearance. The models ranged in size from two metres to nine metres in span and were wooden through to full composite construction. One that slotted somewhere in the middle was Keith Quigg’s Phoenix Ka8b 4.5 metre vintage glider. Keith hails fromMelbourne and is a member of the P&DARCS Club. Based on the Schleicher 1957 German wooden glider, this is a beautiful example of a vintage glider in full flight. The original was a 15-metre glider, so this model comes in at 30% scale. The Ka8B comes as an ARF and is very well prefabricated at the Phoenix factory in Vietnam. Keith fitted 440 mm electric spoilers in the provided slots in the upper surface of each wing half and used Dualsky DS589 HV servos throughout. The model can be fitted with an electric motor in the nose for self- launching, but Keith chose to set it up for aerotowing. A Jeti DS24 radio provided control and, on several occasions, the vintage Ka8B was seen mixing it with some of the modern fibreglass gliders and out-climbing a few of them in the plentiful thermals. The outstanding weather we experienced on all four days made for a lot of successful flights and happy pilots. Modellers came from New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia with most launches by Aerotow. However, it was evident there were more self-launching models than in previous years. The Diana 2 of Carolyn Michaels and Arcus of Jim Houdalakis were standout self-launching models. Several tow planes were present, including the Piper Pawnee (DA 120) and Extra 330 (DA150) flown by Greg Leigh, an Extra 300 (DA100) flown by Theo Arvanitakis and a Paulistinha (Zenoah 80) flown by TimMoreland. A big thank you goes out to all the hard work done by the two pilots. You can see more photos from the event on Scale Soaring Australia Facebook page, and some great video footage on YouTube from RCModelling AU. Be sure to check them out! Article by Mike O’Reilly. 33