Day 1
21st June,
We had a long day as we were not heading out until 4-15pm so we had a good
deal of time to get our gear ready and to ensure it was within the weight
limit to take on the plane. We also did a lot of window shopping at the terminal
where we ran into Chris Tank. Bryce and Chris slithered onto the plane and
went into Business class while I was forced to retreat to Zoo Class for the
11.5 hour trip to LA.
We made it to the other side and were met by Charlie Johnson and were whisked off down the road to near San Diego where we had a couple of beers and took a trip down town and enjoyed monday all over again! LA is 5 hours behind but the day before so the jet lag should not be too bad, but as I am writing this at 9-12pm local time we are all getting a little weary, although Bryce found a couple of gun mags and has had a smile on his face since discovering the vast array of weapons available! Robbie would be spinning hehehe.
We have a few days in the San Diego area before we head back to LA to get our flight to Detroit where we are being picked up by Brad LePointe and taken into Canada for a week of trimming. More to follow............
Day 2
22nd June,
Today we drove down the coast towards San Diego and looked at what the poor
people were doing. We stopped in at a sport shop that did hunting and fishing!
and as we do not have access to some of the weapons that were on display we
looked with jaw open at all the pistols and there was one that caught our
eye.....a .50 caliber Smith & Wesson but due to certain laws we were not
able to take any pics. We then strolled through a model shop and drooled over
the 4x4 gas cars, one of the monster off roaders had twin .26 abc motors.
We then headed back to an indoor gun range and saw the same .50 Cal S&W hand gun but it was US$25 to rent for 5 shots, so we went off and had dinner at a friend of Charley's and the end of another day in California.
Day 3
23rd June,
Well today we headed for March Air Force base museum and checked out some
big planes, from a B52 bomber, an SR71 Spy plane all the way down to the "Top
Gun" F14 Tomcat and the "enemies" Mig fighters! plus lots of
memorabilia right from the Wright brothers and a few first hand stories from
some of the Vets who were volunteers there.
After a Mexican fast food lunch we headed back to the shooting range and hired us some "BIG" Guns!......... First we fired a 10 shot .22 Cal western style hand gun and after a box of ammo loaded up the 9mm Glock one used by "Bond......James Bond" and that had some kick and Bryce, Chris and I had massive grins after letting rip with this beauty. Chris was the best of us and had a pretty good grouping with both guns.
We headed into San Diego city and had a drive by tour from Charley and across the bay was a massive aircraft carrier in current service and just in front of us was the newly restored "Midway" aircraft carrier from the second World War. We then stopped in on another friend of Charley's and bryce's and had some more beers (it was hot today in the mid 80 Deg F) and then off to a local Pizza joint where we were filled to over flowing before heading home for sleep.
In the morning we are off to LA to catch our flight to Detroit where Brad will be picking us up......we hope.
Day 4
24th June,
Today we headed for LA and got ourselves to Detroit (4 hour flight) and Brad
was there waiting for us and we got all our gear into his van and headed for
the Canadian border (and back to metric!) and that was the easiest border
crossing in history! Stopped at a local pub about an hour down the road and
had dinner and a Heineken and got back to Brads place about mid-night and
did some mouth racing till about 1 am.
Day 5
Fri 25th
June,
We headed for the workshop after breakfast (and after Bryce went for a run
down the road!) and unpacked our models that had been sent from Adriano a
few weeks earlier. The whole day was taken up putting them together and motors
mounted ready for tomorrows trimming day and getting introduced to the comedy
show "The Trailer Park Boys" and a whole new look on life as we
know it! A new acronym is born.... well kind of, more of a catchy phrase that
some's up a day in the life of a combat team. This will appear on the Acronyms
page.
We also went into town to check out the local supermarket and model shop to
get supplies.
Day 6
Sat 26th
June,
Today I killed my legs! Bryce got up and I thought I would go for a run with
him as I had not been on my bike for a while and with all the flying we had
done our legs needed some work! Well our run was about 5km's and by the end
of it my legs were buggered! (give me a bike.......)
After breakfast we loaded up the car, trailer and the 4x4 bike and headed
for the flying site which was a few paddocks across and set about the hardest
days flying we had done for a very long time.
Bryce and Chris had 10 models each to trim and I had 8 to trim, each model
took at least 2 or 3 flights to get flat and some were more stubborn! A few
more folks turned up from the USA and also one from Russia so it's looking
like being a good contest on Sunday!
After a very long day in the field Brad had the BBQ fired up and a nice chilli cooked up and a chilly bin full of refreshments, so naturally we put our gear away and relaxed and did a whole lot of mouth racing. Tomorrow is the combat bash!!
Day 7
Sun 27th
June,
Today was combat day in Dresden Ontario and we had 4 nations represented,
host Canada, USA, Russia and New Zealand and many of them had been or are
in their national teams so this made for a great days combat.
The weather was glorious with light wind and a little passing cloud and warming to about 28 Deg. Watching all the practice it was clear that wins were going to be hard, Bryce's first match was against Bob Burch of the USA and Bryce came up with a win while Chris was a little unlucky against eventual runner up Pat MacKenzie. My first match was against our host for the week Brad Le Pointe and as we were using some of his 'old' models he stood to lose a few planes, we had a great match and a 2 - 2 cut score and ground time on Brad left me the winner.
Bryce lost in the next round to Alexi while I lost to Ivan MacKenzie and Chris also had a loss on ground time to Brad with 2 cuts a piece so Chris was now a tourist. Round three was a real bugger as Bryce was drawn to fly me! We had a great match as we always do but with a few brain fades at low altitude Bryce had the measure of me (Well I took one for the team really! hehehe) so Bryce put me out.
Bryce continued
on his merry way and had some real good match's and flew the final against
Pat MacKenzie and with some very smart flying (and Pat taking the whole streamer!)
took out the final and this left us with one more thing to do...........BBQ
and Beer arhhhhhhhhhhh
Pictures here
Day 8
Mon 28th
June,
A slow and relaxing day and a little time to see the sites in downtown Chatham
and for me finally a pin # that worked so I could get some money out of the
ATM (Thanks Catherine and Global Roaming).
Some fine food with some wine made just down the road from Bryce's in Auckland
purchsed at the local wine shop in Chatham to impress Brad, who has been an
amazing host to us. This rounded out another great day for the team.
Day 9
Tues 29th
June,
Today we did some more workshop work and cleaned up all the mess from the
weekends contest. All the gear needed to be checked out and cleaned and all
the clips, screws, bearers and anything else that looks like it needed to
be checked was. All the gear was put away and ready for the next days training
as we were not to be going flying at all today as a thunder storm front passed
over and some rather substatial rain.
After dinner Brad thought it would be a good night to show us some more sights and some of the culture in Chatham, so Brad took us into town and showed us the "Ballet" and we had a great night. Chris was the star performer of the night who showed the most enjoyment at the dancing we witnessed and will take home some great memories.
Day 10
Wed 29th
June,
Toady was another marathon trimming session and it was a hot day again with
the mercury heading to 30deg C and no wind in the morning! We each re-flew
all our models and made sure all motors and models were right. By lunch time
Chris and I went for some lunch and Bryce sat under the trees and changed
some more motors over and when we got back the wind had picked up but the
heat had remained. At least we were getting acclimatized to the weather we
were likely to meet in Muncie.
The wind in the afternoon was getting up a bit but we continued on and finished the job, well almost as Bryce still had a few to do but we were all buggered and as we were heading out for a nice Italian meal in Chatham we stopped for the day.
Day 11
Thurs 1st
July,
Today is Canada day and we went to a town called Rutherford and had a breakfast
put on at the local fire station and quickly browsed past the knick knack
stalls.
Just a few more fine tuning things to do in the work shop and re-check our gear and field boxes and a few more flights for all of us to checked any gear that missed muster yesterday and for me to check out the rest of my Fora motors on loan from Jon and Robbie down in Christchurch. All these motors went very well pulling the models around at 23secs/10 so I was now set!
It was a nice hot day again and little or no wind and by the afternoon the temperature had reached 31 deg C so it was very hard work and the well placed tree was well used.