Dear Fellow HKRCSS Members,

I have honor in my first term as Chairman to report to you the development of HKRCSS for the year 2003. We have experienced a steady growth of membership last year. Many of our new members are also new comers to the sport of r/c soaring. We are happy to share our soaring experience with them and they are keen to learn from us too. You’ve probably noticed that HKRCSS has been more established than ever before. Our club is being recognized by many people in local r/c modeling communities that is solely representing pilots in r/c gliding. We have secured many sponsorships or donations from major model shops in Hong Kong for our organized events. This recognition has a strong impact on promoting the sport of r/c soaring as the activities will attract more participants. In return, we can plan and organize more contests for our fellow r/c soarers with wider varieties of interest. In this opportunity, we would like to say thanks to our honorable guests for their generous supports in our activities. Last year we have partial success in pressing OFTA to open more r/c channels. Some of you may have a license to operate your r/c gear now. The current membership size has jumped to over 120, we are certainly one of the biggest and most active r/c club in Hong Kong. We expect that the growth rate will continue as more new comers are joining the sport. With the help from our enthusiastic committee members, we have successfully organized many competitions and other social functions for our members and their guests. Lets me summarize what we have achieved:

We have organized a wide variety of competitions last year. Three bungee and handlaunch glider contests have been held from the first trail contest on 5 Jan 2003 to the more mature contest in Sham Chung on 31 August 2003. This kind of HLG contest has proved to be very popular among local pilots.

F3F slope races, which were held three times last year, are also becoming more popular and our skills in flying the course in absolute precision have advanced tremendously. Many r/c pilots are getting interested in this kind of competition.

Another milestone for the HKRCSS is to organize a Man-on-Man race, which is really fun to both the participants and onlookers. However, to hold MoM race is not easy as it is man-power demanding. Thanks to our volunteer members C.M. Cheng and Y.C. Lui who tirelessly designed and constructed the timing and scoring system for the MoM race.

The annual slope combat contest was held in Clearwater Bay on 19 October 2003 with a total of 26 pilot participating. The competitors were split into two groups with four rounds of combat. The winners are Chan Kin Sang for the champion, Lee Chung Ming for the first runner up and Jacky Lo for the second runner up. After the contest, all the planes were airborne and made a flypass together in front of many spectators – this is really impressive. The event was reported by Apple Daily.

We have also organized some social functions for our members and guests - two soaring trips to Grass Island and a boat cruise to a remote island for slope soaring.

Look back to what we have achieved last year is certainly amazing. Look forward we would like to do more to promote the sport of r/c soaring, to improve the safety in our flying fields, and to organize a wide variety of activities to satisfy our members' interests. I would like to thank the committee members for their tireless contribution to the club and, of course, your full supports are the most important ingredient to make HKRCSS successful – you would be proud of being a member of HKRCSS. In this opportunity, may I wish you a prosperous Lunar New Year with plenty of wind to soar and to land safely.

Chairman (Chester Tai)

11 January, 2003