THE HISTORY OF V.A.R.M.S The Annual Diary 1990 - 2009

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everything we needed with male and female toilets and a porta shower. Basic, but
far more importantly there was plenty of hangarage for our models. This consisted
of one big three sided shed and a smaller lockup shed., Horsham township was
about 10 minutes away with lots of motels and takeaways and most importantly, a
well stocked model shop right at the top of the main street ... ... perfect for our
needs.
Saturday started with one rain shower in the morning and a bit of wind
greeted the early birds (about 8 a.m.) The wind flew across the field and while
takeoff was o.k. landings has a row of trees to negotiate with nobody attacked. We
had about 50 gliders and a few motor gliders but importantly there were at least 5
tugs, some of which could tow small 3 metre gliders vertical! Of these models I
think 12 or 13 entered the scale comp (scale glider comps are still not overcrowded.
The comp slowed down the general flying as comp models had tug priority but with
the rate the tuggers were operating you would never have known. The club had a
normal frequency board which worked perfectly and also provided excellent
barbeque facilities for brekky and lunch. We had 3 flyers from New South Wales and
50 / 50 from South Australia and Victoria. As for models, the whole spectrum was
covered, big, small, medium, museum standard to plain (no markings or pilot), T
tails, V tails and No tails. Some of the larger models were 3 x 1/3 Fox's and a Swift,
2 x 1/4 scale Swifts plus the little Schweizers (about 5) for the aerobatic flyers, and a
couple of Woodstocks which don't know they are not supposed to be aerobatic!!!1
(Mr. Ed and Slacko again doing their aerobic routine). (The documenter suggests
that whilst the Editor can do aerobatics of sorts, aerobics is NOT within his sphere of
capability). A 1/3 Nimbus plus a DG 600 and a Nimbus 4 in 1/4 scale for the high
performance end.
On Sunday the wind was even lighter and by Monday it had stopped, but
people were still flying even as late as Wednesday. As my notes have gone AWOL
here are some of the club building group models which attended.
1/4 Scale Bergfalke's Collyer, Reaby and Favaloro
1/4 Scale Woodstock's Collyer, Slack, Smith, Hipperson/Keep
1/5 Scale Schwiezer 1-26 Collyer, Slack, Malcman, Hopper, Morland,
Down.
On Sunday Mark Doyle has his ASK 13 thermalling against a fluffy cloud a fair
way down wind and I overhead a couple of fullsize pilots remark that "a fullsize has
come to join the fun". Now that's what scale is all about, having people think they
are seeing full size machines when in fact it's a model!
Full marks to the Horsham Club, they provided us with really first class
facilities and did it all with the absolute minimum of fuss ... ... We thank them.
This was the first scale thingy that I had attended and while a bloody long
way to get there, it was well worth it. Admittedly we stayed at a caravan site and
had to drive the 10 minutes or so to get to the flying field, but the event was very
well run and worth it just to see those 'clipped rotor choppers' going up vertically
with a 10 footer behind them, fantastic. Average tow turnaround time was about 3-
4 minutes from 10 till 4 with an hours break for lunch and fuel.... with 3 of them
going flat out all day you can do the maths for how many launches they did over the
three days. (between 650 and 750 launches!!!!) The good thing was that you landed,
joined the queue, had a chat and were up again very quickly. Definitely a meet to be
repeated ...... Oh, and the wife enjoyed the long weekend away as well ... ... ... ... Mr.
Ed.