RCFCBC Field, Cloverdale, B.C.
Written by Gordon Anderson
The Dave Armstrong Memorial contest (DAM) was held on May 19th and 20th near Cloverdale in Canada. This has become a traditional season first contest for me; I think this is the 4th DAM contest I have attended. There were 21 pilots competing at this event including Rex and me from the United States. This contest had competitors in every class and 7 pilots in FAI!
Rex helps Hartley program his new Futaba 12Z.
The weather was a bit challenging; pretty strong winds blowing in all day Saturday with the threat of rain all day. Sunday the rain came and as a result the contest was called due to the weather. Regardless of the weather challenges we all had a great time. Amar Shan, our CD, did a great job keeping the contest moving and taking care of the pilots. He was concerned about the Sunday weather warnings and kept the contest moving and completed four rounds on Saturday.
It was great to see all the pilots and see some of the new airplanes built over the winter. Hartley has a new Electric Twister and he flew it for the first time during the practice session on Friday. Seems that lots of pilots are making the transition to Electric, of the 7 FAI pilots all but me were flying Electric. Simon Durkin had his new Integral on display. He will be joining the Electric crowd with his new Integral. There were a total of 5 Twisters flown in this contest and with Hartley’s new Twister, he test flew only, makes a total of 6 electric!
A gaggle of FAI pilots interested in the same thing, but what?
Saturday night Amar put together a very nice BBQ dinner, the interesting thing was the weather; the wind quit blowing and it was a beautiful evening. Chad Northeast put on a great show after dinner with his 3D Electric Genesis.
Dave Reaville’s Canada West web site has all the results (http://members.shaw.ca/patternwestnews/) plus a bunch of pictures. You can see all the pictures I took on the D8 web site. Hope to see you at this great event next season!
Click here for a link to Dave Reaville's full report on this contest.
Click here to see more pictures!
See you in the pits...