Never a dull moment in BERG country, we are always flying something, even if it is the Blue Bull flag. This is the weather that we had on Wednesday at work.
Meet Jo Cool.
This is what a thermal looks like – (provided that you have the correct dark glasses that is WSB standard issue- also note spy satellite vapor trail in bottom left corner)
Tony's 2.5 meter Tsotsi . 
Evan getting read to Fly (Standard 2 Meter Tsotsi )
Flying in Grand Style (Al Capone-Zimmie)
BERG Pits
BDSALL(Barn Door Stops All) nothing is ever small on Mike's models
Mike's 2.8 meter RES with Pathfinder fuse. 
Mike relaxing while Evan is working out the score.
Evan's 2 Meter Tsotsi.
The Results:
1st Evan Shaw 2083 - 2 met Tsotsi
2nd Piet Rheedres 2076 - 2,5 met Tsotsi
3rd Mike May 2009 - 2.8 met Own design (Built-up wing on Pathfinder fuselage)
4th Peter Eagle 1874 - 2 met Tsotsi (Borrowed from Evan)
5th Tony Roberts 1836 - 2,5 met Tsotsi (Rudder, Elevator only - No Spoilers)
Possible Max 2120. It can be seen from the results the scores were particularly high and as mentioned earlier a close fought battle ensued for the top spots. In the end it was the landing that separated the top three.
The Club Score is 4193 out of a possible 4240
Yellow and black wings
The final Practice for the F3B team was held at BERG on Saturday. Thanks to all who attended!
Craig
The Team
Craig waiting for the thermals
The team is in need of funds so if anyone wants to make a donation please contact Wolfgang. Golf Shirts (R250) and Tee shirts (R150).
Please support the team and order you shirt right away!We wish them all the best!
Good luck
There were a total of 4 rounds flown in distance and some speed thrown in at the end for good measure.
A huge thanks must go to all you guys for offering up your time to help the F3B team with their practice. Distance is the one section of F3B where the teams does not get a lot of practice and needs other pilots to fly against.
Another big thanks must go the the long suffering "Base B" flagmen. Gordon, Heinrich & Tony. Here seen stocking up on some much needed sustenance before the next stint at Base B. Guys, without you F3B distance cannot happen. It is people like you that are willing to give of your time to help others that make all this possible. Thanks a million!
The usual checking and range checks were done and then with Piet at the controls and Evan doing the launching it was given a test glide to see if the incidence was more or less okay. 
After some adjustment to the elevator setting it was committed to the winch for it's maiden flight. Straight up the line she went without a glitch. 
After the initial trimming, Crow break was deployed and she pitched her nose up, so more down elevator compensation was required and the dive test reveled that she needed a little less nose weight. So Piet brought her down and the necessary adjustments were done and then she was launched on flight #2. Crow was tried again and she still pitched up so more down compensation was required. The one flap jammed down when the knuckle hooked the top skin, but Piet turned her down wind, opened and closed crow again and the flap closed. Crises over he landed her and further adjustments were done to rectify the sticking flap and down compensation in Crow mode.
He was understandably nervous, but flew her like a champ and only handed the transmitter back to Piet for the final approach and landing. 
After a bit more tweaking of the settings it was up the line again with Piet's assistance and soon Tony was trying his hand at thermalling.
Even managing to catch a little bubble and extend the flight a little. This time it was his turn to land which he managed quite okay. Unfortunately the silicone hinge let go when the aileron caught the grass on landing. Luckily no damage to the model, but it does go to show that ordinary bath silicone is not the stuff to use for hinging. 
Once all the excitement was over it was down to some celebrating and Tony soon had the Champagne flowing. It was a very memorable days and the late afternoon drink after flying to celebration Tony's new Shongololo was much enjoyed by those present. 
Well done Tony She looks lovely and may she always fly in Green Air and all the landing be smooth and gentle. 
BERG hosted the 4th HTL on Sunday 3rd June. The competition was flown to a new set of rules, the BERG Thermal Challenge, developed to try and make the event more of a thermal comp with less emphasis on launching and landings. On the whole it was quite successful, with the relaxed landing system, which saved a lot of dorking. The 15 second launch window worked but did not really stop the mad rush in the beginning as was hoped, so this is an area that must be looked at for future events. Mark suggested a working time of 12 minutes and 15 seconds in which to record a 12 minute flight without any launch penalty! Comments welcome!
The winch line was well spread out with 29 entrants in 10 teams. The 27 finishes are testament that the rules did not put to much strain on ones plane. 
The thermal condition were quite tough, but there was still plenty of lift about if you could find it and there were plenty of maxes recorded. It seemed that all of the the strong thermals would develop low down upwind, drift across the field quickly and finally break away on the downwind side of the field and take the models high and far back. The weather gods smiled on us for Sunday and we must be very thankful for what turned out to be a lovely day in the end.
Our CD for the event was Charl who run a tight schedule which allowed the comp to end at a decent enough time so the fly-off could happen when there was still some lift about. Thank you Charl!
The fly-off was contested by 7 pilots (below) who ended the event in the following order. 1st Paul, 2nd Izak, 3rd Conrad, 4th Craig, 5th Rodney, 6th Michelle, 7th Mark. Well done to all. The full results will be made available on the mgasa group.
The prize winners (above) from left to right, Lionel - Hard luck prize. (For a tree snatching his model from the air and then throwing it down onto the fence and destroying it.) Alan - 1st RES/100, Paul - 1st Open, Heinrich - 1st 2 Met, Peter Karner - Hard luck prize. (Breaking his Tsotsi on the first flight of the day.)
Below, Rodney and his timer Alan, provided us with some acrobatic Hop, Skip and Jumps on his landing in the fly-off. Quite a site to see the old man leaping into the air as his model passed under himself. Who said that we don't get any exercise when we fly?
A few more photos from the events.
