G'day from the Goldfields. Hope you've all been treated to this great weather we've been having in the last few weeks since the last edition.

Kalgoorlie Aeromodelling is suffering something like a mini crisis at the moment with two of our longest participating and most valuable members, Cliff and Mike, both having problems with work rosters. It is not until club stalwarts such as these are not able to attend frequently that the rest of us really appreciated what a contribution they make. Whether it's just their contribution to the entertainment and banter, instruction of beginner pilots or maintenance of the club facilities - they sure are missed.

On a brighter note, it has been pleasing to observe how our newer members are rapidly fitting in and filling the conspicuous gaps left by our less fortunate members. In fact if our two newest soloists were receiving frequent flyer points they could probably afford to circumnavigate the planet. I am, of course, referring to the two Peters, one the Oxenham variety the other the common or garden Degroot. Both make flying look like fun again, whether it is a first attempt at inverted or stall turns or the obvious pleasure these guys are experiencing just getting a landing right.

It is interesting to see the subtle influence the flying styles of our more experienced pilots has had on our impressionable soloists. In fact Peter O does a wonderful imitation of a John Bates patent take off, which uses every last inch of concrete to gain speed before going vertical. Hey! I never said anything about being a good influence!

Even Peter D was observed shoe horning a bigger engine into his Pheonix Scanner in a vain attempt to imitate the Bates philosophy that bigger is always better. Fellahs, the reason that your aircraft roll six times faster to the left than to the right is not because of some mysterious servo problem, it is purely engine torque! I would have thought that John may have got the message that his engine is a little on the heavy side when it dropped off the front of his aircraft a few weeks back, but it appears I was mistaken. Fortunately the aforementioned incident happened after landing.

Some of you may recall my mention of my construction of a Britton Norman Trilander in an earlier edition. As pen goes to paper the aircraft is at a local computer graphics studio being decorated with some hopefully scale-ish decals and is obviously not far off a first flight (we will get some good photos, please. Ed). I must admit that it was very difficult to hand the model over to a non-modeller. Will he do it justice? Will he stick his finger through something? Will the shop keepers son take it out the back and try a few hand launches? These questions and more will be answered in the fullness of time.

Due to time constraints, or possibly sheer slackness on my part, this column will be a little short, however, to finish I will share this with you.

A fully laden Jumbo Jet was on fnal approach to Bombay Airport, when the pilot fortunately noticed another Jumbo was about to lift off on the same strip. Aborting his approach he jumped onto the radio. "Control Tower, what the hell are you doing? You almost killed over 600 people!" To which the tower replied with "Oh, my golly gosh, not another day like yesterday!"

Best wishes from the Goldfields crew.