Monday, October 22, 2007

Ocala Fl. IMAC contest

This past weekend Oct. 20-21, 2007 I competed in the Ocala Fl IMAC contest hosted by the Ocala Model Flying Club and CD'ed by Fred Johnson and assisted by his wife Julie and son Baron.

Fred Johnson, contest director.

I got to the Ocala area several days before the contest began giving me a chance to fly the '07 IMAC sequence again after having been away form it for quite a while to practice for and fly in the (TAS) Tucson Aerobatic Shootout.

The Ocala Model field is a beautiful place especially after having spent a month or so in the Desert of Arizona it was great to be back to green grass and not dirt and dust.

As a special bonus of arriving early I had a chance to go for an airplane ride with Fred Johnson in his T-6 Texan. Fred picked me up at the field early one morning and took me to Leeward Air Ranch where he lives and has his hangar.

After the mandatory preparations and walk around I got a quick lesson in how to get in and out of a T-6, I was then strapped into the back seat with a parachute and restraining harnesses and a Bose noise cancelling headset completed my preparations.

During start up and taxiing away from the hangar Julie Johnson was in charge of taking pictures. Julie is a digital photography "shutter bug" and took a series of great pictures, far too many for me to post here.

After take off we proceed west to a practice area near the town of Dunnellen where Fred took me through a series of maneuvers, a loop, barrel roll, a Cuban eight ans so on, I even got to take the T-6 through a loop on my own (with some assistance from Fred). After all that I suddenly wasn't feeling too well so we landed in Dunnellen for fuel and returned to our home field soon after that. What a fantastic experience and one I will not soon forget. Thanks Fred.

Back to the contest. We had two great weather flying days for this event with 48 contestants, of significance it is worth mentioning that we had 18 competitors in the Basic class many of whom were first timers. IMAC is alive and growing in the SE region for sure and seems to be in the rest of both the US and Canada as well.

I flew my new YAK-54 from Quique Aircraft Co. to a first place finish in this contest. This is a 120" version and the latest in their now well know YAK-54 series of airplanes.

Quique now has this airplane in stock at the very modest price of $1800.00 check it out on the web at this URL http://qqaircraft.com/

This is a great flying machine! I now have about 120 flights on it and have really come to appreciate its VERY strong rudder and perfect axial rolls. At 42.5 lbs it does require a strong running engine. A DA-150 on Greeves pipes combined with a Mejzlik 30x12 2 bladed prop is plenty of Power.


I really enjoyed this contest and met many old friends and made some new ones as well, of course it helps coming away with a first place trophy.

Here I am receiving the first place trophy from Julie Johnson.

David Moser, my young 17 year friend from Florida has been giving me a lot of trouble in unlimited ever since he moved up to this catagory a couple of years ago. In fact I have not been able to beat him in any of the 4 or 5 contest we have flown in together until this one. David placed a close second though.


I congratulate David on his early success, he is a great R/C pilot and has a wonderful personality. David, I predict that you will be successful in whatever endeavour in life you choose.

David Moser calling for me in the last round of the contest on Sunday.

I mentioned that we had great flying weather and we did. Somehow the weather gods were looking after us as it wasn't 10 minutes after the trophy presentations were complete before the skies open up in a torrential downpour. And so ended another successful IMAC contest and a good time was had by all.

Ivan K.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi there Ivan.... It was great seeing you again & flying with you. Your input for IMAC is appreciated as I'm sure that many individuals do not realize how much work it actually takes to do the commentaries & photo cropping.

Looking forward to seeing you both again next year.
Wayne
Team Jamaica