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Yep, I popped off :-(
I and two others launched into a violent bubble blowing thru and bopped us
of the line. :-(
I hate pop offs.
That gave me 238 for a round and moved me from 6th to 80th. Maxed the
rest of the rounds and even got some landing points...till the last
round...evening air about 6:30pm, warm with a light breeze, bouyant air. I
went for a mega vertical launch to get all I could since it was a hang kind of
air at that point...and lost site of my plane till it flopped backwards losing
me 100' off of Josh's Pike's launch. I went out and covered but it was clear to
see the difference thru the flight. That difference put me down low on the
landing approach and him just high enough to take two extra wraps before
landing. Not sure what he hit but I nailed the nail with a no flap, no
waste of seconds, drop the nose on the nail 100 pointer. Felt good. :-)
So not sure what place I am in, but the Maestro of thermals Tom Kiesling
flew another concert for all, including the last flight of the last round for a
max. DP is still the big dog and Insane-ity with his giant home brew,
only off Tom by 3 points.
JoJo is third trailing by leaving too many landing points in the
circle...add up 10 here 30 there and you get 100 points off the two
others. No one is too happy seeing him in their round, ALL are happy to
have him call/time for them :-)
Rain at the start that caused a very late day....tomorrow may just be the
thermal day most dream about at the Nats. Warm Dry following cool wet, means
lift...lots of it.
Edgar and fellow Swasa pilots have taken over the bad flying luck I have
been carrying, but tonite Edgar flew an extremely smooth evening air flight
against JoJo.
Peter and John D of Horizon have their Team JR possie assembled, playing tough, and in general being great guys....the bunch of them. Peter is a wayyy amazing TD pilot...with John moving up the skill levels fast. LOTS of new JR 9303 TX's out there, obviously the most popular TD radio on the scene. Top servo choices are still JR & Volz, but there are plenty of
Hitecs working just fine too.
JoJo got an email from the President of their RC Association congratulating
him as being the second best "American" 2m pilot, need less to say, they
don't mind ribbing each other too, But he wanted to know why anyone
would allow someone to waste a good day flying a 2m sailplane???
Okay the last part was poetic license on my part
:-)
Charles River guys are representing well with Supra's and having fun
too.
Mark Nankavil, Marc Gellart, Jim Thomas, Steve Siebenaler, Brent Hoover and Butch have been ...human...in their official tasks, we are all very proud of their work and ability to balance responsibility with a priority on not harming a pilots fun. The big deal of the day!
Doug Pike, super star, world class pilot and woodsman of this year's DLG
Nats, launched......HIMSELF! He walked up to the winch pedal with his
model hooked up, he decided that the pedal needed some straigtening and gave it
a nudge with is toe. Instead of sliding in the grass, it flipped over. Its
base being so heavy caused the pedal to engage. Doug tried to hold the plane, in
hopes of a break or being able to get off, but in the end took about a 10'
flight himself thru the air, his TX made it about 30' and the plane continued
down the line until someone cut off the winch. The model was a compilation
of parts of other moldies crashed so he had to switch to an old Saphire.
His head was dented but being a Canadian no important data was lost :-)
Likely he will be stiff and soar tomorrow, but it didn't stop him from putting
up a few maxes after. BIG kudo's to the JR radio which survived the flight
with out notice. Seriously though, Doug represents the best in all of us,
at least to me, I count him as one of my best friends in my soaring
travels....and I believe most do here at the Nationals....so glad he didn't
damage his radio...and er, didn't get hurt too ;-)
SHOCKING DEVELOPMENT!
Its clear that there is a bias against us redneck Kentucks
by the officials!!! Bruce actually got yelled at for circling too close to
the landing box, while i am sure no one from say OHIO got yelled at for that
same infraction! (Okay, its a technicallity that none of the Ohio guys actually
violated that rule :-)
Marc Gellart physically attacked me for being an
idiot...and I am thinking of filing an official protest with Holiday Inn, since
that's where I am staying and their adverts imply that there is no way I could
be an idiot after staying there!
Then there was the blatant attack by Jeff on our own new
pilot Tony! We are pretty sure that Jeff was 'ordered' to go out and have
a mid air in an attempt to ruin our team chances,,, us Kentucks have considered
hiring Monk to look into the conspiracy, but the consensus is that our stuff is
too greasy with BBQ sauce for him to get near the remains to collect clues. We
have our suspicions!
Some how the topic of soda straws came up in a giggle fest
between LJ, Craig Greening, Jim Bacus, Bruce Davidson and myself and I
blurted out that you could tell a guy from Kentucky because his straw was often
plugged up by chewing tobacco...which prompted LJ to come up with the
revolutionary idea of a Skoals Blizzard, which really got us busting a gut, but
all hell broke loose when Bruce rushed off to patent the idea!
There is wayyy too much noise from pilots having fun and laughing to
concentrate (definitely why I am not in the wood!). Too tired to wax on any more, or even as much, or heck to wax
anything...:-)
Nite!
Gordy
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