Wayne W.
It was quite the day. Hot and windy to start. High overcast moved in after 2nd round. Wind calmed a bit but the lift got very fickle.
In unlimited I had to motor up in round 2, taking a zero, so my score is the result of only three flights. If those darn trees hadn’t got in the road…… sigh.
Last flight in unlimited, ran downwind to chase a read only to get skunked. At 2 minutes I was at 50 meters. Managed to work small bumps for the last 8 minutes to make my time. The whole time was spent between 45-60 meters. Hardest round ever.
RES on the other hand was just a case of head upwind and let the lift come to you. Ride it high, then come home. Not as hard, but lots of fun.
Thanks to Dyno Don for timing for me til he had to leave. Good time gossiping.
Cheers,
Wayne
Dan G.
Yesterday was rough. The winds were 10 with gusts up to 20 (Weather Underground) with little direct sunlight reaching the ground. It was partly cloudy with a high overcast. I struggled to come up with a 6-minute flight. Most of my flights were between 3 and 4 minutes with landings averaging in the 80’s for Unlimited and two 98’s and two zeros for RES. I kept leaning in trying to make something happen but not much did.
The highlight of the contest was seeing Joe fly a 9:34 in his first contest. He asked me to time him and help with his first winch launch. In his last RES flight of the day, he found a vein of lift at 600-700 ft. I stopped reading times because it wasn’t going to help. Instead, we kept the plane in the river of up air until it was time to come down. The Ava Pro descended with high speed jittering wings until final approach. He landed short and then I showed him the time.
I made two more flights after the contest. The last flight was an easy 11:14. Was it in me the entire time or do I just fly differently when I’m not in competition? Hmm.
I left feeling hot and tired knowing the results my flights but excited about Joe’s first contest.
Dan
Dave Q.
Hi Gents,
Yesterday sure was a heat beat down. Even though it was hot it was still fun. After the 4 rounds I was done.
On my 3rd flight I was back behind the mass of trees on the north side of the field by the train tracks. I had slipped much further down wind than I initially thought, and the Prestige was dropping slowly and heading below the tree line as I was trying to head back. So, finally remembering it’s electric, I armed my kill switch and put my finger on the motor/launch mode switch. I got lucky as I started getting a little lift before landing in the trees and rode it up and over the trees a little closer than I would like. I was within a second of relighting the motor which I was glad I didn’t as I would have taken a zero.
Seems like I have had several close scrapes with the trees over the years and have gotten away with it.
Dave
Paul L.
I had not been heading downwind toward the tree line at the NW corner of the field for the 2nd and 3rd flights and was under 5min for both so I determined to head there on the 4rth and final flight. I did then find lift beyond the tree line but by that time it was a bit hazy and though I wasn’t far enough out that I would normally have any issue, I started to lose sight of the plane entirely at points as I circled. That spooked me enough to head back, once again ending up short on time. Though a warmer day than I would have preferred, It was good to spend part of it out flying with friends.
Paul Luebke
Joe P.
Saturday was my first opportunity to join the TD contest with my Ava Pro after several weeks of practice and excellent coaching from Dan. On the first round I launched using the winch for the fist time. My first three flights all came in around three minutes with one landing on the tape. On round four I had a good launch from the hi-start and quickly found lift over the upwind end of the field. The Ava kept climbing with little effort on my part other than maintaining a heading into lift. Dan was timing and eventually asked how long I thought it would take to land from my altitude…. I estimated two minutes and he told me I had 2:30 to do it. I had a bit of a challenge bringing the Ava back down. Coming around for my approach I was still too high, deployed spoilers, got too fast and too steep, retracted spoilers, recovered and landed short of the tape with a time of 9:34. It was a nice finish to a fun day.
Joe
Contest Results.
UNLIMITED
Dave Q 2333 1000.0
Rich S 2189 938.3
Wayne W 2059 882.6
Bob G 1928 826.4
Paul L 1599 685.4
Dan G 1354 580.4
RES
Wayne W 2350 1000.0
Rich S 1732 737.0
Bob G 1723 733.2
Dan G 1484 631.5
Rich R 1250 531.9
Joe P 1176 500.4
Bob W 1001 426.0
2M
Bob G 1404 1000.0
Rich S 1254 893.2
Joe P 818 582.6