be able to understand what I was doing.
I was pretty angry when I landed and sulked over to my seat refusing to acknowledge anyone. When I saw the girl was near completing the addition of my flight scores I stood waiting for the paper work. Unbelievable, the gamble paid off! The judges liked the flight and I had improved from my first round with a score that was one of the highest in the second round. Now that II was happy again I started talking and showed Bill and Caroline the score. Although I can’t quite remember, I think we all did a little happy dance and headed back to town to relax and do some shopping. After shopping we picked up Bill and went back to the field to see if the second round scores had been posted. They had and I was in third place. At first I was in disbelief so we had a couple of beers from the bar that was about 5m from the score board. I remember feeling so happy that the name Australia was sitting there in black and white at third place and for that moment in time it wasn’t going to change. Then the pressure started building because I had to try and stay there.
August 4th. Another early morning. We once again climbed on the trailer and rode to the runway. Caroline and I had been discussing the flight constantly since last night. This flight was really the one that counted and I just had to pull it off. After a nervous wait it was my time to fly. I gave my diagram of the Lomcevak to the judges and tried to explain how the manoeuvre would look. This became a very difficult task as the judges started arguing amongst themselves as to how the manoeuvre should be judged. It took some time and I was feeling very uneasy; I was starting to think I had made a big mistake changing the flight. I then started explaining the change I was going to make to the half Cuban 8, but as I saw the confusion grow on the judges faces I decided to leave it as it was. We started the motor and I remember thinking as I taxied out that I’d blown it by changing the flight routine. On my first turn after the take off was completed the hooter boy honked his horn. I knew I hadn’t flown behind the line but I was still rattled by this, thinking I’d zeroed my previous manoeuvre. I found out after the flight that the judges paid no attention to him as he would fall asleep and randomly honk the horn on waking up. SOMEONE COULD HAVE TOLD ME. By now I was convinced the whole flight was shot to pieces and there was a lot of confusion between myself and my caller due to the manoeuvres I was doing ( and weren’t being scored) to increase my scale realism score.
Victorian Model News
Looking at the scores it was fairly obvious first and second place were out of reach. These two places will be fought out between Mark Levy who was now in first place and Max Merkenschlager who had dropped down to second place, but at the same time I knew it was going to be very hard to keep third place as Peter McDermott hadn’t yet flown at his best and he had won static which gave him a 170 point advantage over me. It was also possible for any one of about five people to take out third place. Anyway back to town and Bill shouted Caroline and me to dinner to celebrate. August 5th. The last round is always run in the order of position after the second round and it starts at the bottom. This means I get another day off. We decided to see as much of the town as possible as this would be our last chance. After lunch I went back to the field to watch a few of the third round flights that could affect my position, Peter McDermott being of high interest. Peter was the last to fly today, his flight was good and his score showed it. That night we went out and partied with the English which included the Scots. We had a ball. August 6th. Today is the last round. The competition is going to be over by lunch time. From memory we had the last ten flights left and I was third last to fly. I remember telling everyone and myself that I was relaxed and it was going to be easy, but it was really the opposite. I had been doing the figures all night long and knew I could hold on to third if I flew the flight of my life. There were people from home calling and sending me good wishes as well as telling me I could do it. The other flights seemed to be over in a flash, and then it was me. I flew a good flight with a higher score than my last, but not my best. I think I will remember forever the painful stabbing feeling of every little mistake I made . page 13