I too was there and enjoyed myself thoroughly , a great event , great atmosphere , and great fellow aviators, however I must mention an incident that happened on arrival around Friday lunchtime. I was traveling with a friend ( I am saying this constructively and by no means making a complaint about any of the hard working and generous volunteers that gave their time up to make Naromine the success that it was) Anyway getting back to the incident.
On aproach and about six or seven miles north of the field, with about seven or eight planes inbound at that time there was a call to Naromine requesting a straight in aproach for 29 , I had guesed that it was a fast plane from his distance out and his arrival time however I can't remember what the responder said in return as it was not all that clear , anyway we and the plane that had asked for the straight approach were all five minutes from the circuit.
On arrival at the circuit and just about to join cross wind the other plane called again asking if he was okay to come straight in and once again I did not understand the call from the field except that it was positive, the pilot then did an inbound call saying he was two miles out , not two mile final
Just after turning downwind we ie. my friend in front and me behind were requested to do a wide base, now I must tell you at this time that my friend who came to Australia quite some time ago from Europe who both speaks and understands english very well was struggling to decipher the unclear calls plus as you well know the amount of radio traffic from arrivals was incredible . Whilst looking downwind I could see the approaching twin on long final just as my friend with his eyes now on the freshold turned base , after some more radio chatter he was asked to go round by the chap on the ground which he did , incident over.
Now what are your thoughts on this , I belive the volunteers on the ground worked their guts out and were under tremendous pressure on the day however perhaps they might need to be much better briefed and trained before the event to be more authoritive with unwise requests.
Do you think as I do that perhaps there should be some rules put in place for these big high traffic events such as not allowing time consuming straight in approaches also we as pilots need to be aware that in these high traffic situations that we might think outside the box and think of the other seven or eight pilots in close proximity who will be as nervous as hell about approaching what could be their first circuit into a big event such as Naromine