By Dan G., MVSA Webmaster
Yesterday’s May Thermal Duration was cut short by severe weather after two rounds of action. (Related – Two & Out May Thermal Duration Cut Short by Severe WX)
RES
Dan G. led a family of guests to watch Rich S.’s first round landing in RES. The countdown came right to the 10-minute task – right down. His red winged glider landed 84 points and at the 10-minute mark to the second. He smiled a little as he picked up the glider and may have looked for Bob G. on the field. Would his flight be enough to fend off last year’s RES champ on the day and continue his single contest winning streak?
Three of the four flights in round 1 of yesterday’s RES class landed at or just passed the 10-minute task mark. Dan G. did a last second “go around” with the Ava Pro after a failed hi-speed final approach. He’d put it down after a quick circle at 10 minutes 2 seconds landing at the 85 on the tape. Going two seconds over gave the round to Rich S. despite the landing. Bob G. would also go overtime by 6-seconds but landed a round high of 96 points and the best flight of the round beating Rich and Dan by 6 and 7 points respectively.
Rich would fly for 7 minutes 50 seconds and 83 points on the landing. Would this be enough to win in May like he did in April? The answer was “No”. Bob G. flew the Ava Pro for 10 minutes 4 seconds and landed for 74-points eking out a 90.4-point normalized score win.
Would it be enough to keep his 2023 RES title for another month? The answer was “yes”. Yesterday’s score sealed a 283 point lead over 2022 RES Champ Bob G.
UNL
Robert S. landed his first-round flight at 10 minutes 5 seconds on the 85-point mark. The score is 20 points shy of a “perfect flight” (10-minute flight at 100-point landing = 700 points.) Yesterday’s 80-degree, light air, partly cloudy with bug on the sunglasses humidity seemed to be Robert’s recipe for greatness.
Unfortunately for Robert, there were others cooking with the same recipe. Bob W. on his first light of the 2023 season goes for a perfect 10-minutes flat and sticks the landing with 91-points – 11 points over Robert. Wait, there is more. Last year’s UNL class champ goes for 9:59 and 92 on the landing – a tie with Bob W.
Robert would repeat his flight in wound two just 12 points shy of his round 1 total. Bob G. would land short on time at 9:14 with a 96-point landing.
If you do that math it comes to a 7-point win (out of 1348 points) for Robert S. or a 5-point normalized win to bring home 1st place UNL for the day. He trails Bob G. for the season by a mere 106.5 points out of 2,000. That’s 106 seconds of flight-time or 6-seconds and a perfect landing. It’s the difference between landing 50 on the tape and trailing the leader by a minute in the air. We still have 6 contests to go and the season is already hot.
Landings:
Round 1 in Unlimited saw 3 sorties at the 10-minute mark (one was a 9:59) and 3 landings in the 90-points. The landing average the round in UNL was the best of the season with an average of 74.6 with one exception – RES’s 1st round – 79.5. The “G” boys dominated lead the landing average with Bob G.’s 94 average in UNL and Dan G.’s 90 average in RES.
Next Saturday is the monthly Fun Fly – Stay Tuned.