Having decompressed after a great weekend here's a few of my thoughts on being part of the IHLGF experience. Nothing like going back to work to bring you back to earth.
Firstly congrats to Joe for the win, I think that makes five straight and seven overall. To watch Joe fly hand launch is something else, he's almost superhuman and was unquestionably the best pilot on the field all weekend. When he's carrying a perfect 9,000 plus a 987 throwout into the finals you know it's going to take something out of the ordinary to stop him winning. It was all I could do to snag a few points from him in the first flyoff heat and stop a perfect 12,000 point win. Thanks also to the TPG crew who did an excellent job. The impound crew ran a tight ship and kept things moving well. The variety of models was interesting. The top ten shows a broader range of types than last year, and mostly flaperon or flapped airplanes. Weights have gone up if anything, my models weigh between 10.5 and 11.5 ounces, I believe this to be typical for four and six servo airplanes now. Certainly the weight is no disadvantage and many people carried ballast on top of this. There was a large number of built up poly DLG's, mainly Photons and on the whole they were impressive. They seem to be plenty strong enough to handle big launches though by their nature lose a little to a straight wing airplane. On the whole pilot skill seems to have noticeably inproved, I only have last year to judge this from but in every heat there were several people to look out for. I have to say a huge thanks to Denny Maize at Polecat Aero who got me a couple of great airplanes to fly, also to Mark Drela and Phil Barnes who had no small part in their creation. And of course to my Team Polecat partner Bruce Davidson (reigning National Champ for those that don't know..... :-), for great timing and calling throughout the weekend. Because Bruce made the flyoff also I asked Tim Cone to call for me in the finals and he did a superb job, thanks a million Tim. Looking forward to next year, CG. RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
