Overall Best on Show: U-Boat Type XXIII -- Mathew Kalkwerf

 NATS 2009 kicked off on Friday 20th March at the SAAF Museum, Hangar 5, Swartkop AFB. For those who couldn’t make the trip on Friday, registration was still open on Saturday till around 12:00. All credit must go to Rob Heath and his team for putting on a decent event at a decent venue. The event coincided with the radio controlled jets flying weekend so luckily this meant that there was a lot of public interest in the NATS. At one stage during judging, the area had to be closed to the public so that judging could be concluded! It must be said that there was a pretty decent turnout in most of the categories which made the tables nice and full and something to prove to the public that our hobby is indeed alive and well in these trying times!

Theo Groenewald in conjunction with various IPMS members from around the country had for the last 18 months or so been developing a new judging system. This was trialled at NATS 2009 and it can be said that it was a huge success! With any new systems there are always little glitches etc that need a bit of fine-tuning but overall this new method looks here to stay as all judges that assisted at NATS 2009 found the system to be spot on and much more user friendly than its predecessors. Well done to Theo and his team for this effort! Overall Best of Show went to Matthew Kalkwerf with his U-Boot Type XXIII.