IMAC NI Tyrella 23rd & 24th May 2009

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IMAC NI took place on 23rd & 24th May 2009 at T-MAC. It was a massive success and with the help of many friends it was the biggest IMAC event the UK has ever seen. I must also thank all the competition sponsors for their kindness, without them it wouldn't have happened, Horizon Hobby UK, Desert Aircraft, Flightpower, Carden Aircraft, Powerbox, Mezjlik, MTW, Expressfly, Northern Ireland Water, Philips, Model Shop Leeds, Angelwing Designs, Motors & Rotors, Global RC, Dave's RC Models, Jersey Modeler, MT Custom Graphics/Smoke & Handley Heating Services.

The Article and more pictures are below, enjoy!

EVENT SPONSORS Click the logo to visit the Sponsor's Website

-HANDLEY HEATING SERVICES

A massive thankyou to all the event sponsors. 

The IMAC NI Story..................................... 

Well finally IMAC UK has come over the Irish Sea to our little country. For many years a group of keen IMACer’s, Myself, my Dad, Simon and Sean have been travelling over to various IMAC UK comps and about 2 years I planted the seed for a competition to be held in Northern Ireland. Last year my dad and I persuaded this a little further and we got a very positive response, so it was a system ahead.

Plans started just after my return from Tucson last winter, we investigated a few sites, talked to a lot of local friends in the Aeromodelling community and after chatting to my good friend Phelim Lundy he suggested the Tyrella Aircraft Club Site. Phelim put me in contact with Dessie Graham the T-MAC secretary and on a cold January weekend, dad and I travelled to Tyrella to meet with Dessie and a few of the T-MAC members, (Norman, Tom, Glen, Colm, Gerry, Owen to name a few on that day)

We flew the 100cc Votec that windy cold day, the site was perfect, a polo pitch set in a large estate, which also contains Tyrella house an old stately home. The field itself had lots and lots of space, a steady wind blew straight of the sea, but was nice to fly planes from as it was gust free. The field was so large it was hard to visualize how it would all come together but it was by far the largest area I’ve ever flown aeroplanes, so I had no doubts it wouldn’t work. That very day the T-MAC guys talked to the Estate Owner David Corbett and he kindly agreed to allow us to hold the event and camp on the site, which was a major bonus. This confirmation allowed me to publish on the net details of ferries, hotels, camping arrangement which travelling pilots from the UK would need and in plenty of time to get cheaper rates and book time of work.

The organising then went into full swing, arranging judges, organising training days for interested pilots and the judges, seeking out sponsors and all the logistical items, such as a marquee, roping/posts for fences, competition paperwork the list could go on and on!! This took a good 3 months and gathered pace in the two weeks prior to the competition, but it came together well and we were left with very little in real terms to do by the time the first pilots arrived.

Wednesday

For me Wednesday started early, I had worked late the night before so had lots of stuff to sort out in the morning, I got all the prizes for the raffles organized, the pilots raffle & their prizes sorted into their relevant classes, printed pilot orders, competitor certificates, cut some of the competition vinyl graphics all in a few hours, I was very busy despite officially being on my holidays. Mid morning I got a phone call from Steve Mallinder, he had arrived in Northern Ireland and managed to show me up by being first to the Tyrella site!
Just after lunchtime I made my way up to Tyrella and was met by Steve, A friend of Steve's John and Colm Deery a member of Tyrella model aircraft club. We chatted for a while then Norman and Glen also from T-MAC arrived to refurbish the recently relocated club hut, they worked all day, relining and painting it and it looked really well after their efforts, top marks to them all! Steve, John & I enjoyed the good weather, drinking tea and flying EPP models all afternoon, very hectic you'll understand! We finished our day off with a lovely meal in Dundrum and then a final flight as my Dad arrived with the Van and indeed our sleeping quarters for the weekend!

Thursday

I was woken a knock on the van door and a lonely voice saying breakfast in 5min!! Steve had kindly prepared a full fry up for himself & I, which we both enjoyed immensely! Steve nipped over to collect John from his hotel and after I did the washing up I thought I'll test this full-size polo pitch out with the flash, well 3 batteries later I decided to have a play with the polo goals, needless to say knife edge directly into them with my dads flash made this a silly idea, motor out, not a major job but a silly crash!! Oops!! Once Steve returned I set off to collect the Marquee and a few others bits and bobs, namely a van from my friend Ryan’s company fleet, it turned out to be a life saver all weekend!! I returned about 2pm with the Marquee and tables from Dromore High School. With many hands the marquee went up in about 20mins the tables all installed and ready to go. Massive thanks to Arran, Alistair, Phelim, Richard, Dennis, my dad, Steve and John for helping getting things setup on Thursday afternoon. I had to go home on Thursday evening to sort the last of the competition essentials out but left it in my Dads capable hands. A good few more visitors arrived, Mal, Phil, Dave, Brian, Richie, Chris & Win all arrived later that night.

Friday

Friday again came early for me, I was making the final stickers for the competition, these turned out to be very time consuming but well worth it. I made the decision that if I was to do all of them on my own, I’d get to Tyrella about 3pm, so I gave up headed to the site just after 10am in the hope that I’d enlist some help up there! I arrived to a busy field, plenty of flying and everyone was settled in. Richie Badham has some bad luck with his 2.6m Yak, his trusty BME 110 stopped in flight, Richie brought her in but it bounced on landing and damaged the fragile composite undercarriage, my Dad had already phoned me early in the morning to get me to bring something to fix it with, so I brought epoxy cloth, resin and some tools, my Dad and Richie worked for a few hours and had it up and going again mid afternoon, another test flight and all seemed ok, for now!! Meanwhile I had managed to convince Jeanette to help out with the stickers, so I left it in her capable hands, meaning one less thing for me to worry about, thanks Jeanette!

IMAC NI 2009 Vinyl Sticker 

My dad and Dennis had also been made a frame to support some of the sponsor’s banners, we couldn’t mark the field out with posts and rope until after a polo match on Friday evening, so about 5pm the Polo crowd turned up, this is an impressive site, very very large horse trailers containing on average 12 Polo Pony’s (I believe that’s their technical term) we even had one of the player’s turn up in a Robinson R44 to play his match, now that’s flash!! Whilst the polo match was taking place we had a spot of dinner and watched polo, not your usual IMAC Friday evening but everyone enjoyed it. Once the match was over and the horses were packed up, there was a mad scramble to fly before the light faded, it also gave us a chance to get the fences up to separate the crowd line, pits and flight line, with many hands as always making light work, I had no sooner said go from here to here than it was done, thanks to everyone for helping out! Late on Friday evening Tony Robinson and then Phil Mousley arrived, the local pilots all enjoyed a few drinks and some chat, some more than others but that’s what it’s all about “relaxing with your friends”, IMAC Summed up in four words and this was before the competition had even started!

Saturday

Saturday dawned and brought with it a totally different climate, strong wind, clouds and a nip in the air!! We got ourselves sorted out and prepared for breakfast. This was one of the first bright ideas I came up with for the competition, a cooked Ulster Breakfast for everyone on Saturday morning! Many of our UK visitors would never have sampled this local delight of fried soda bread, fried potato bread, egg, sausage, bacon & tomato, Phelim kindly agreed to sort the breakfast out and with the help of Harry Reid they did us proud. There was enough food to feed everyone twice and most did have seconds!! It all worked out very well a massive thanks to Phelim. After breakfast we had to do a cloud base check, it was very low, so Dave Lucas did this with his Quique Yak. Within about 3seconds of a vertical after takeoff, the plane was gone, so we had no choice but to put back the start time. We had our pilots brief in the meantime, I handed out the pilots packs to everyone, which contained a competition certificate, an IMAC NI sticker, various bits of competition info like pilot worksheets and a pilot raffle ticket. This raffle ticket was for a pilot’s only raffle to be drawn on Sunday evening. With the pilots brief complete we decided to do another cloud check, it was a good bit better but still low, we asked all pilots and they all agreed to get going, fingers crossed by the larger advanced & unlimited sequences it would clear a bit. Our three judges Alan Tedds, Paul Harrison & David Nolan got comfy and ready for the long day ahead. Kicking off IMAC NI about 2hours behind schedule due to the cloud was Andrew Wallace in basic; the crosswind was very strong probably above 25mph but its competition and the same for all. The first round was to be a double known, which is two schedules back to back; with a very large entry of 21pilots it was going to be a long round. This is the largest entry of any IMAC UK competition which is hugely positive for the sport.

Iain Johnston was my flight line director, he was on the PA all day reminding pilots about the running order and who was supposed to be scribing and calling for which judges, which was a huge benefit, thanks Iain. We steamed through the classes getting up to the first pilot in Unlimited by about 1.30pm, I was that pilot, just as I landed the wind really whipped up and a few spots of rain started to fall. We decided to call a halt as we could see a front moving in, lunch was ready to be served anyway. Lunch was my second bright idea, I wanted soup and traditional Irish Stew for all the pilots & helpers, this job got landed with my mum and Liam Nolan, they worked very hard to make about 5 big pots of different soups and stews, all served with bread rolls, with the very strong wind blowing up it was gratefully received to warm pilots and mainly judges up, thanks Liam and Mum. The rain began to get a bit harder so everyone which for the plane covers, as I walked toward my plane a gust came through, I just got my hand to my plane as it whipped round 90 degrees in a split second, luckily no damage, as I held my plane down, I looked around me, planes lifted some 2 or 3 feet into the air, Richard Boyd’s light Katana50 got lifted like a leaf, ploughing into Tony Robinson aeroplane, no damage to Tony’s but Richard's model was in a bad state, motor mount was broken, wings crushed and canopy beaten up, not fixable for Richard at the site, so his IMAC flying experience came to an end very early.

Once the rain stopped, we had some sunshine and the wind had moved round to straight up and down the strip, we quickly finished our unlimited double known and got stuck into the Saturday unknown. It was about 4pm at this stage, very late in the day, but the weather screwed things up a little. The unknown round ran through quickly and we made the decision to fly up to Sportsman as we had to draw the Saturday raffle, we would finish Intermediate to Unlimited after.

Dennis had been selling raffle tickets all day, the prizes for Saturday’s raffle were very good, some great prizes, Spektrum DX7 set being the main draw on Saturday, we had a total of 25 prizes from all of the sponsors on Saturday, the raffle went very well and everyone was excited to see if they had won a prize. Thanks to Dennis for selling tickets all day. We then got the unknown round finished up for the day, this went very quickly, by around 7pm the sequence flying was complete.

Saturday's Raffle

Wow, what a long day and it was still to go on, Alan, Anne and Becky had to get back to their hotel for their dinner, so Phil Mousley stepped in to help Paul and David judge the freestyle. By the end of the unknown the wind had gone completely, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, perfect freestyle weather, 9 pilots decided to have a go and with all the local pilots offering some encouragement in the form of cheering it was going to be exciting. Everyone few great, Simon’s routine was very good and his torque roll with smoke on, filled the flight line with thick smoke and looked awesome, I flew my Sukhoi and really enjoyed my flight in the perfect conditions. The freestyle came to an end just after 8pm, a late finish, the latest ever at an IMAC comp, but it was the biggest entry.

Simon's Yak in 4min Freestyle

My Sukhoi in prophang, smoke on

David Drummond Sat Free

Matthew Poots Sat Free

Saturday finished with a BBQ, a few drinks and some electric & glow flying from the pilots and the T-MAC guys, a bit of fun round the camp fire on the beach and into bed before earlyish, well for some, some didn’t even go to bed at all, but will remain nameless!!

Sunday

Sunday morning brought a totally different start to that off Saturday, clear blue sky, the sun was out but there was a breeze, not as strong as Saturday but steady none the less. With time against us we started flying early, just before 9am. I had hoped for earlier but time in Northern Ireland works different to everywhere else, so 9am was impressive as locals will know. I decided to only fly a single known, an unknown and a freestyle, many of the visitors had to get away to catch ferries so we needed to be finished around 5pm.

As before we flew basic through to unlimited, with Iain directing things it all went super smoothly! We started the unknown round and decided after sportsman we would do lunch then finish the round after. For my third bright idea of the weekend, I asked the Tyrella club and in particular Tom to help out with lunch on Sunday. Tom prepared a lovely BBQ with a large array of food and drinks, a massive thanks to Tom and Colm for all their efforts and again no one went hungry, it was a huge weight of my mind and I truly appreciate the effort that went into, a personal thanks from me.

With lunchtime over we completed the unknowns, everyone flew really well all weekend, the standard was very high as was the judging, a credit to all involved!! Everyone was relieved to finish the sequence flying for the weekend there was a lot of it and with the varying conditions a challenge to compete in all that said everyone had a smile on their faces and enjoyed it. We quickly got the freestyle setup and ready to go, it was going to be fun in the stiff crosswind. All the pilots pushed hard in the 4minute freestyle and the crowd certainly enjoyed the exhibition! Tony had a problem with his engine and Phil Hoyle decided not to compete in the last round and enjoy it as a spectator. Simon got low again and did a very nice Knife edge pass at less than a foot down the runway, I thrashed the Sukhoi like I stole it, again I enjoyed myself out on the line. Chris Currie took some video of Simon & I's flights on Sunday, here they are,

Simon McNeill Sunday Free

Whilst Win Bull worked on the scores we did the Sunday Raffle, with a DA85 up for grabs as a top prize along with 24 other excellent prizes from all our sponsors, Dennis had no bother selling some raffle tickets, but tirelessly walked about all day selling tickets. The prizes offered were better than any other UK comp has ever offered, so all winners went home happy.

Straight after the raffle we did the competition results, Win had worked all the scores out and all weekend inputted scores as they came in, a big thank you Win. Iain read the results out and our landowner David Corbett came down and kindly presented the trophies to everyone, we really appreciate the use of David's facility and for presenting the awards. You can see the results below and the pictures of the top three pilots in each class. You can see by the scores it was all very close.

Placings

Scores

Gordon McCrea 1st in Basic 

Andrew Wallace 2nd in Basic

David McClean 3rd in Basic

Richard McMaster 1st in Sportsman

Andy Wood 2nd in Sportsman

David Drummond 3rd in Sportsman

Phil Hoyle 1st in Intermediate

Sean Scullion 2nd in Intermediate

Richie Badham 3rd in Intermediate

Phil Mousley 1st in Advanced

Mal Green 2nd in Advanced

Matthew Poots 1st in Unlimited

Steve Mallinder 2nd in Unlimited

Simon McNeill 3rd in Unlimited

Matthew Poots 1st in Freestyle

Simon McNeill 2nd in Freestyle

Chris Currie 3rd in Freestyle

David Corbett, the estate & polo field owner, thanks David!

After the results we called each pilot up in turn to choose their prize, this again was another first for a UK IMAC comp a prize for each and every pilot. Finishing off the day was the pilots raffle, we had 10 very good prizes the top one being a DA100, this was open to pilots only and Tony Robinson took home the 100, a deserving winner I can see a new freestyle model on the horizon for Tony!

That rounded off IMAC NI 2009, it was an awesome weekend and I thoroughly enjoyed organising it, I must again thank all the pilots, the judges, all of the Tyrella Members, the Banbridge Members, all the local supporters, Win Bull, Big Ian, my Dad, Dennis, Alistair, David Ardis & NI Water for helping with the water container, Dungannon MFC for their BBQ and water boiler, all the cooks during the weekend, Dromore High School, Handley Heating, every Sponsor without them it wouldn’t have been half the event it was and off course David our landowner. If I have forgotten anyone please be assured your help was appreciated.

Everyone who travelled to the event enjoyed their time, I believe it was the best IMAC UK comp of all time, next year will need to be bigger and better, I can't wait. I think there will be an even stronger IMAC UK contingent coming over and the feed back I’m getting locally is huge, a lot of new IMACer’s have been recruited.

A lot of the pilots left to get home to their families and catch ferries, a few of us went for a meal in Dundrum and thoroughly enjoyed chilling out with a nice pint of the black stuff!

Thanks,

Matthew

My Carden Extra 300 with DA170, powerbox Royal, flightpower batteries & Spektrum Guidance

Dave Lucas, preparing for his unknown

Phil Hoyle preparing for his known!

The Judges! (nice blanket David!!! )

Pictures in this gallery below are thanks to John Pearson, Gerry Smyth, Letterkenny MFC website, Kestrels MFC website and Ballymoney MFC website, thanks guys!