South Australian Helifest right now
Season just starts in the Southern Hemisphere
As the season comes to the end in the North, the Southern Hemisphere just warms up to the season. And the best place to do so is the SA Helifest near to Adelaide, which is happening right now over the weekend.
The SA Helifest is hosted by the Adelaide Model Aerosports Club, where the areas are enormous with a tarmac strip, four flight stations are prepared for the pilots. And these flight stations are not small boxes, they are big indeed. The electric power is provided by industrial generator and all facilities required for a long weekend with camping even - like shower, canteen, covered pits with tables - are there. Dennis Beilby reported that one of the sponsors set up a cappuccino machine, so hot drinks, good cappuccino, hot food are all served. No reason to complain.
Early birds arrived on Thursday, which was not an official day of SA Helifest, however the weather was the best on that day so far with just over 20°C, almost no wind and no clouds, then the first day of the event yesterday wasn't so nice. Teens Celsius, light showers, clouds waited the pilots, and the temperature felt lower than it was because of the cold and strong wind.
Kenny Ko, pilot of XLPower, Egodrift, Hobbywing, Azure Blades, SupraX, Redzone, VBar, winner of the FAI World Championship, 2nd of the Global 3D 2019 Expert category arrived yesterday to present his abilities for the crowd of pilots and attendees despite to the strong wind. In one of the flights Kenny got closer to the tarmac in a piro manoeuvre with his XLPower Specter 700 than he was supposed, but he managed it, and he landed the helicopter with no crash, however with a bit shorter tail blades.
Many pilots turned up even on Thursday. Australia is huge, therefore people motivated to drive from Western Australia had to be next to the wheel for three days (if he wants not to drive for 30 hours constantly), and many pilots arrived from Melbourne and New South Wales as well (just half a day driving).
Saturday morning the Sun came out, the weather was way better than on Friday and still not too late to get there. Many flights and a night flight show also planned for Saturday night.
