August 13-14, 2022 saw the long-awaited return of IMAC competition to Ottawa with 21 pilots from Sept-Iles to Sault Ste Marie and Timmins to Toronto on a weather-perfect weekend.
Six Stetsons were in the mix in classes from Basic through Advanced. We were extremely pleased to see Wayne Karperien and Brian Pepin join in and have a go in their first IMAC contest. These two were out busting it for two weeks ahead of the event, practicing and soaking up info from everyone trying to help them, and really put forward a superlative effort. Brian even pulled an all-nighter putting a brand new F3A foamy together after a small incident on Saturday. He flew it extremely well the next day after only 2 ½ hours sleep and zero practice time!
These two guys are proof positive that you don’t need a huge expensive airplane to have fun with aerobatics. They placed first and second in BASIC class! Congrats to you both for the huge effort!
Pierre Coulombe battled it out for top honours in Sportsman class all weekend with Jason Thompson from Sudbury. Having won the recent Sudbury event, Pierre was looking for two in a row, but it was not to be. Jason edged him out in a very close series of Sunday flights. The score is now 1-1 between these superb pilots.
Mike Lalonde came out with a new Extreme Flight Extra 300 for this meet, and after a busy couple of weeks practicing and trimming, flew the new bird very well in Intermediate class. It’s a beautiful aircraft, Mike! I had the pleasure of flying against Mike and a crowded field in intermediate, and while results weren’t that great, it was a ton of fun to finally get the plane running properly and compete!
Dave Rees was our lone entry in the Advanced class, and with his better half Genevieve calling for him as always, flew beautifully in a heavyweight class of truly expert level pilots. Well done sir! Take your caller to dinner!
Stetson volunteers make this weekend-long event possible. We absolutely could not do this without you! Many thanks go out to Jim Denyer, Jon Harper and Dan Marcotte who did a fantastic job of keeping us fed, while Mike Lalonde, Pierre Coulombe, Tony Garbish, David Martin, Dan Marcotte and several others were busy setting up and dismantling the tents and equipment. Dave Percy was busy running registration and taking photos of EVERY entrant with their aircraft. Scoring duties were run very smoothly by Michel Boulerice, set up in his snazzy scoring trailer, with assistance from Tony Garbish who spent the weekend chasing down judges, scribes and running results to the scoring trailer. Dave Martin was our Pit Boss, keeping the flight lines and flying orders straight the entire time. “It’s a bit like herding cats” he was heard to say…
At the end of the weekend, a sunburned, tired but very happy gang said their goodbyes after awards and results were given out. Everyone went home with personalized full-size photos from Dave Percy, a Stetson/IMAC Coffee mug made by our own John Jackson, stick planes compliments of our Sudbury friend Brendan Grace, and very nice awards plaques to the top three in each class.
Thank you, Stetson Flyers, for the use of the field and facilities this weekend.
It was a real pleasure to bring competitive aerobatic flying back to the capital once more!
Gary Robertson
