Becsta.COM

Becsta loses a Glider!

A few weeks back, I witnessed a disgraceful piece of flying by a pilot in a full-sized aircraft - they decided to fly low and slow diagonally across the HSL field right into what I believed was the same patch of air that we were thermalling away in. Because I couldn’t ignore this aircraft, I had to take my eyes off my own, and within a few seconds, lost an awesome glider.

When I looked away from my plane at the slow moving aircraft directly overhead, my eyes reacquired one of the other gliders flying in the same manner as my fingers were working my transmitter. It just so happened that Fred had the same intentions as I did, and was flying slit-s turns to warn the pilot that there were model aircraft around him. When Fred decided his glider was clear, he straightened up and flew upwind towards a lake. I was flying his plane too, and my heart sank as I realised that I didn’t have control of it (believing it was mine, of course).

April 15th, 2009 | Tags: Icon | Category: Gliding | Leave a comment

Becsta.COM takes on another Web Site

Yesterday, I took ownership of the most popular website covering the Australian ice hockey scene, HockeyPulse. I’m absolutely thrilled and excited to take ownership, and hope that I can expand on the fantastic work to date by Rowan.

This site had been running for a number of years, and gaining in popularity because it was the only site catering to the rather close knit ice hockey community. The previous owner (Rowan) decided to sell Hockey Pulse, because he couldn’t maintain the site due to other work and life commitments. As time slowly marched on, it became apparent that HockeyPulse wasn’t going to be sold in time, and thus, I decided to step up.

For me, it’s a commitment for the long haul, as it’s both a financial investment, and a hobby - it’s my opportunity to interact with the ice hockey fraternity more. Because Ice Hockey in Australia is so small (and so unknown), the more information we can put out there, the more popular the sport will become. Popularity, branding, sponsorship, exposure to the greater population, and I think ice hockey will expand in Australia

It’s a big step for me, as I never thought I’d be investing money into a website, but the opportunity to do so couldn’t be passed up. One big benefit to me will be the branding aspects - I have a ready-made logo for branding my ice hockey photos.

Where do I plan to be in a few years time? I’d love to provide some quality sponsorship to state and national teams.

If you’re interested in everything ice hockey, head on over to HockeyPulse.

March 15th, 2009 | Tags: hockeypulse, Ice Hockey | Category: General News, Ice Hockey | Leave a comment

The Cult of Mac, Part Deux

I’ve been playing with the new Macbook Pro now for about two weeks, and am really growing to love it, and Mac OSX. I took it to work on the first day, and everyone oogled over it, wanted to touch it, play with it, and all thought that it was the Macbook Air, even though the white writing on the bottom of the screen said “Macbook Pro”.

After about an hour or so, I’d managed to connect it to the network at work using a Telstra NextG Expresscard modem. Of course, the security guys were saying “have you got antivirus on that? Want a firewall on that?”. Umm, no…

February 26th, 2009 | Category: Rant | Comments Off

Armidale Sailplane Expo 2009

I attended the Armidale Sailplane Expo 2009 over the Australia Day long weekend recently. To sum up the weekend:

I flew quite nicely, and quite consistently in the Open Class Thermal Duration.
My Pulsar 3200 also flew well in the Limited Electric Glider event. The guys discovered a problem with the motor battery during the weekend, Peter Pine swapped it with a known-good battery, and the plane climbed amazingly! My 18+ second motor runs were reduced to <13 seconds.
My White Icon F3B didn’t want to fly - I kept having problems with the wiring harness, and now need to replace the harness entirely. She just didn’t want to leave the ground it seemed…
I’m going to wear appropriate clothes for flying before I leave home. I left home on the Friday wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and packed my long pants and shirts in my bag. By the end of the day, my arms and legs were beetroot red, and for the rest of the weekend (and the rest of this week), I’ve been suffering from the after effects of severe sunburn. So, no shorts, and no t-shirts!
My repairs to the yellow Icon F3J have so far held up to the rigours.
The Super Ava flew in anger for the first time on the weekend, and I managed to speck it, and get a 10 minute flight. The conditions were just right for the glider.

Alas, no trophies this time around…

January 30th, 2009 | Category: General News | Comments Off

The Cult of Mac

I saw an graphic during my travels through the Internet today, which described an equation for the Apple Mac:

iMac + MacBook Pro + iPhone == Fanboi

I’m not quite an Apple Fanboi, but I did come a bit closer to it today - a brand new Apple Macbook Pro 15″ turned up on the doorstep. I have the iMac, now the Macbook Pro, and *feebly* I have plans to acquire an iPhone.

Does this make me a fanboi?

What’s prompted this latest acquisition?

Why am I becoming so, umm, fanboi-ish?

January 30th, 2009 | Category: Rant | Comments Off

A Mishap at Cowra

I attended the Cowra round of the Millennium Cup on the weekend, and didn’t do too badly in the end. The conditions were interesting - weak lift, lots of broad sink including various spots around the field with guaranteed sink, and a fairly defined shear layer with winds aloft. The first day of the event saw me crack 2000 points from 8 flights with one drop. The leader of the day was around 2400 points. The second day was much more successful, and I finished in second place after some good flights. Overall, I came about 8th for the weekend.

However, the highlight for me was maidening my new Pulsar 3200 electric glider. I had my reservations about it whilst building it, but flying it was great! It was a bit squirrely going vertical under power, but going up at 45 degrees or so, it tracked straight, and was easy to fly. Power off, and it’d float around the sky, thermal quite nicely (though it needs to fly at speed to avoid tip-stalling), and rolled quite axially.

Unfortunately, I ignored a warning sign, and watched as it shredded itself in a tree.

October 1st, 2008 | Tags: 2M, Cowra, Millennium Cup, Pulsar 3200 | Category: Gliding | Comments Off

Ice Hockey Winter Season is Over!

Well, the formal ice hockey Winter League is finished for this year. I had fun, learnt a few things, scored some quality coaching, and worked on gaining a new respect for the game I’ve grown to love over the few years I’ve been playing.

We didn’t do too well as a team this year, with two ties the only highlight to the year. However, we’ve bonded together closely as a team, and I hope that next year we’ll be stronger for it. Highlights for the year have to be the rather close games against Penrith Phantoms. One game they only scored three points, instead of their usual expected 11+ (and in the end they were panicked, and scratching for answers to why they did so badly!). Another highlight was tieing with Canterbury, who were a powerhouse team last year.

I think the biggest issue for our team this year has been our scoring - we’ve generally been unable to convert the opportunities into points, even against weak goalies. Ya can’t win a game if you don’t put the biscuit into the net!

So, what’s the plan for the off-season? D-league training, Wurz Cup, and working on my defensive skating (ala skating backwards and transitioning). My new skates (Bauer Supreme 70’s) are working for me, and I feel _really_ confident in them when trusting the edges to bite into the ice.

September 15th, 2008 | Tags: Ice Hockey | Category: Ice Hockey | Comments (1)