After a disappointing rain out in April, the Old Kingsbury IMAC Roundup pulled off without a hitch on Father’s Day weekend, 19-20 June 2010. 17 pilots braved the south Texas heat with slightly breezy conditions and flew four separate rounds of sequence maneuvers over the course of two days. I was particularly pleased to see such a large turnout of local pilots from Tri-City Flyers and ARCS competing in the Basic class. We had 10 pilots slugging it out for bragging rights to be one of the top three Basic pilots and owning one of the special plaques made possible by a donation from Aeroworks. In the end, the top three spots this year went to out of towners but all the pilots did great. Maybe next year the San Anton pilots will reclaim those top spots and hopefully Jack Matlock won’t get so much dead stick landing practice!
Josh “Bonedoc” Young and Ben Gurau wowed and entertained the crowds with their incredible freestyle routines. Each flew four minutes of heart stopping and breathtaking maneuvers well choreographed to music. Ben’s low knife edge pass can only be described as “sick”. While most at best talk about how many feet they were from the ground on that last pass, Ben’s high speed, knife edge pass literally was measured in inches…no more than two inches to be exact! It brought the crowd to their feet anticipating the worst but seeing incredibly smooth, unwavering pilot skill at its best!
While the turnout was a little lower than expected due to the original rainout and upcoming NATS competition, overall the event was an astounding success. The Tri-City Flyers all pitched in keeping the flight line operating smoothly, the kitchen serving food, and selling raffle tickets and hosting all our pilots and spectators. Saturday afternoon saw a large spectator crowd with folks visiting from across the region to not only watch the IMAC competition, but to experience the Pioneer Flight Museum, and witness some giant scale air racing when the IMAC event was done for the day. A huge thanks to all the Tri-City Flyers!
Of course a special thanks goes out to all our sponsors. Thanks to them, our raffle had over $2,000 in prizes and merchandise that we gave away throughout the contest. I think Andy had a little too much fun giving away those Higher Plane calendars though…something to keep in mind for next year. It was great to see both pilots and spectators alike winning airplanes, engines, electronics, and a whole host of RC goodies! So when thinking about where to spend your next hobby dollars, think about Aeroworks, Desert Aircraft, Carden Aircraft, Higher Plane Productions, Tru-Turn, 2DogRC, Smart-Fly, 2nd Chance Hobbies, and Horizon Hobby. These companies played a huge part in the overall success of our event. Our final net proceeds, after all expenses were paid, totaled just over $1,000 for the Tri-City Flyers!! Great job to all and we’ll see you next year for the 2011 Old Kingsbury IMAC Roundup!