While Ewan frantically worked away at completing the new airframe, Aarn Taay Finlay got keen on the idea of doing a Masters trip too, but he was soon deflated when I told him the old Lotus I had sold him was not going to cut the mustard. Why don’t you borrow Hamish’s Matrix Euro again (currently nicknamed the “Mattress You Know” ) I suggested. Another quick phone call to the Gallent F3A factory, a trip to the Hawkes Bay to collect the model, and Aunty was all set.

While Aunty practiced making his Waikato Wobbles look more like snaps, I rallied up a few more troops to boost the trip. Alan Belworthy from New Plymouth was keen, and initially he wasn’t even going to bring a model. Well it would be rude not to have a go at Sportsman Alan, so he set to work on completing his new 2m Extra 260, while practicing the Ozzy Sportsman schedule with his Tai-Ji 60.

Mike Sutton showed some early interest in making the journey too, but in the end he backed down, and used the impending SARS outbreak as an excuse instead of admitting that he couldn’t come cause his blouse was in the wash.

At the end of March, I went to Timaru for the weekend to fly demo’s with the TOC model at the Airshow. That weekend the South Island Champs were on in town. It only took me half a Speights to convince Dunedin flyer, Johnathon Elliot, (here in referred to as 1 Can John) that a trip to the Australian Masters was what he needed to do. 1 Can has had a Matrix going for over a year, and had been chomping at the bit to come up for a North Island pattern comp.

I got back to Hamilton late that Sunday night to find a brand new pink, yellow & blue Matrix DZ had magically appeared in my workshop. Ewan had dropped it off on his way to head bang in the mosh pit with other 20,000 other Bruce Springsteen Fans. A receiver, a battery and 5 Gallons of fuel was all the new machine needed, and with only 3 weeks to go, I had my fingers crossed that the weather would be nice at Easter !

And it was…usually the weather at Easter is crap, but we had four days of perfect trimming weather. I rang Ewan Galloway as soon as I had test flown the model. “Ewan … got some bad news for you … just test flown the new Matrix and I have a major problem…” Ewan goes quiet … “It flys so good I ain’t going to want to give it back !!!”…sigh of relief from Ewan. Yep, it flew right off the board and the DZ had more grunt than a pig on heat !

Alan Belworthy came up from New Plymouth to join me for a bit of pre Masters practice in Matamata. By now he had given up on the idea of finishing his Extra 260 in time, and it looked like the one piece wing on his Tai-Ji wasn’t an instant fit into my old Lotus model box, so we decided to take my 2m Extra 260 instead. Being blokes we decided over a few beers that it’d be a great idea to put Alan’s Turbo Jett muffler on the Extra so he could get around those outside loops a bit easier. Unfortunately this resulted in numerous dead stick landings at the field the next day, as we battled with the mid range adjustment on the 160FX. That night after a few bottles of Red Wine at Baldricks place, and a carburettor change, Alan and I fired it up at 11:30 pm for one of those “It’d be nice to see if that new carb has fixed the problem before we go to sleep” engine runs … gee that 160FX sounded great doing 8000 rpm with the workshop door down ! Not sure that the neighbours were as happy with its performance as I was though …

Aunty joined me on Easter Monday for a final practice session at Matamata. By the end of the day that 5 Gallon shipment of 30% Nitro Fuel was almost gone, and I was down to the finishing touches in the trimming department….Aunty walked away mumbling and shaking his head as I added a 5 gram weight to the left wing tip !

On to the mission of packing. Now Aunty has been on plenty of overseas flying trips with me in the last 5 years, but this was the first time he had to pack a plane for himself, and what’s more, it was a borrowed airplane too. As you can imagine, the pressure was too much for poor Aunty, so he decided to take the week off work to get in some more practice, and more importantly, to make sure his part of the packing job was done with the utmost precision & accuracy.

I packed the 2m Extra for Alan into the old plywood Lotus box on Tuesday night. Took me about an hour or so. No drama there. As for the two Matrixes, we found an old F3A wing box that would do for two sets of wings, plus stabs, and a huge TOC wing box that would accommodate the two F3A fuselages. Alan arrived from New Plymouth just in time to help Aunty finish his packaging fracur, and then it was all in the van and off to a dodgey Auckland Airport Motel. What time did you say our flight was Aunty … 5:30am ? That means we have to check in at 3:30am … Alan, how about we go to the Pub while Auntie has his nap ?

Absolutely no drama what so ever getting out of Auckland Airport with all the model boxes etc. I guess there is one bonus of flying out at such an early hour.

Arrived at Melbourne Airport 8:30am to be greet by rain and low cloud….hmmm, bummer, hope its fine up the road in Shepparton. Off to the Avis depot to collect the Rental cars. A pair of nice new Holden Wagons. A white one and a blue one huh. Ok, Alan you and Aunty look like you’ve got already got half your gear in that nice Blue one, so I guess I’ll have to settle for this stink old white one then … (I’m thinking, bugger, last time Worms and I had a white rental car, it was a hell of a mess to clean up after a weekend of wheelies, donuts and hand brake slides, gee I wish I had that blue one !). Oh well, never mind. I guess I’ll get over it. Hey guys has your one got electric windows and CRUISE CONTROL ! nyah, mine has, hehe Alan’s going to have a sore foot holding that peddle down all the way to Shepparton.

Right o lets go …. Hang on, where’s 1 Can John ? A bit of drama here trying to track him down. 1 Can had flown from Christchurch to Sydney, and then connected to Melbourne arriving at 9:30am. Now you’d expect him to turn up in the Domestic Terminal wouldn’t you. So we sat in the Domestic Terminal for a while. The flight from Sydney came and went, but there was no sign of a South Islander pushing a big trolley with a model box on it. Maybe he missed his connection ? 30 minutes later, another flight from Sydney came and went, but still no 1 Can ? A bit of a reckie back to the Main Terminal, and here I bumped into this big lanky Speights drinker walking around with a small bag and mini transmitter case in one hand, and what looked like an over sized guitar case in the other !

Right come on 1 Can, we’ve got the good car, chuck your gear in the back and lets go.

To be continued ….

Bogan

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