There is no doubt that Autumn is a great time of the year to fly model aircraft, and there is no better place to do this than at the Annual Autumn Scale Rally, held each year, at the Twin Cities Model Aero Club based on the NSW/Victorian border at Albury.
This year was the 12th year the Club has run the event and it is now well established on the Scale Calendar. Weather for the weekend could not have been better, with bright Autumn sunshine with almost no wind and, as the advert for the event says, it is a great time of year to visit the border region.
This years Rally attracted over 30 local and visiting pilots with over 60 aircraft displayed over the 3 days of the event.
This is a non-competition Rally for Scale models from all eras of aviation. Displayed during the weekend were aircraft from First World War, the Golden Age of Aviation of the 1930’s to modern Jet Fighters.
There is no competition flying, but a committee is charged with selecting the best Military and Civil aircraft displayed, To qualify an aircraft must fly over the course of the weekend, but can be scratch built, a kit build or an ARF, and the pilot /owner does not need to be the constructor of the model.
This year the committee judged Melbourne based pilot Tim deHaan to be the winner of the Civil award with his excellent Rothmans liveried Stampe, and local Pilot Michael Guinness to be the Military winner with his highly detailed Spitfire.
A highlight of the event was the impromptu mass flight early Sunday morning of a large number of Bi-Planes entertaining the breakfast crowd, and this is a concept that we will be looking to include as a feature of next year’s Rally.
This years Rally, as in past years was supported by Albury RC Models who donated a beautiful Mustang ARF as a raffle prize, the lucky winner being local pilot Andrew Ward. Many thanks to Rob and Ken from Albury RC Models or their continuing support.
The next big event for TCMAC is their annual Float Flying weekend to be held on the weekend of October 18th, 19th and 20th 2019, so make sure you mark your calendars for that one and be sure to keep the first weekend in May 2020 free for next years’ Autumn Scale Rally.
For pictures and videos of the event check out the Gallery pages on the website