I cannot write as poetically as Tom, but here it is. XC and F3B weekend was very different dependent on what you were trying. It was northeast wind about 10-15 mph and clear on Saturday, the F3B boys and Girls were pretty happy, they were launching huge and having fun, on the downside of the IAC, scale looked real happy (when you can launch to 3K who cares) and XC was just plain tough. I was on the sticks about 4.5-5 hours total trying for my LV XC flight and came no where close. There was lift that could get you to 2K plus, but you could not even get off the property cause the lift was so spread out. Team Bubba, Rob Glover, Steve Siebenaler, and yours truly on the sticks, were persistent. Rob told me I could not quit trying once I started and other than one break, that was the case. The sky was a huge blue one with high cirrus, but finally some small cumes started to form. Once this happened, we barely got off the property and had to stop after covering about 3/4 of a mile while loosing 2200 feet of 2500 to get there. We sat at the the first corner for about 15 minutes working under a cloud and made it back to 2500 and off we went. Found some more air in about a mile further and made 3K, the highest point of the day. This is where we started the run over the dreaded blind spot in mid course and we cleared easily and kept on truckin. Another spot of lift and back to 2500 and away we went and this is when we found the big blue hole. The cumes had stated to spread out (total time flying on the flight now was about 50 -60 minutes I guess) and we were back looking for air, found a bit but not enough and in trying to get to more useful stuff, ran out of air and time, we landed at about 6.8 road miles down the course. It was enough to win XC but the LSF task was not even in sight. Larry Storie and team were extremely close as it worked out to only about .05 miles difference in distance. That was Saturday. For the record I flew an EMS Albatross.
Sunday dawned cool, spitting rain and real cloudy. When the XC and scale folks made the field, it was messy enough that no one was going to fly any time soon, so I went over to F3B and helped in distance and speed tasks for two rounds, was a hoot and learned a lot. By this time a few folks had started throwing up XC ships and some scale too, but it was not anything to go anywhere with or even make the course. I did not even get my Albatross out of the car on Sunday, just was no way I was going to improve my situation and F3B needed the help. The high light of the day was Skip Miller getting a tow, under control, to 3999 feet with his Nimbus, and then Dr. Dan doing opposing rolls to Johnny Berlin's tow plane and then ending in an inverted tow to altitude, all to the howls of the crowd. In the XC scale event, it was won by Team JR flier Peter Goldsmith barely over Skip, both flying 7 meter size ships. I wish I knew who won F3B, but the prizes are going out tomorrow AM. Monday started better for HL than any time since I have CD'd the event, cool, cloudy, and mild breeze. But that changed as the day went by, we flew eight rounds, had numerous intermissions for rain, but got it done (about 6:00pm) in style with Bruce Davidson winning over Joe Somebody third, and Mike Smith second. Wish I could tell you more but I just drove home and the brain is about out of gas. Sure more will be wrote. Marc PS: All altitudes were known with Picolario verification. RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off.
