Updating the group for the team manager Jeff
Hey Jeff – fo some reason my posts are not getting thru to RCSE – can you forward this on…? Thanks - Jim Jim Monaco US F3J Team Manager 2006 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jim Monaco [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 31, 2006 11:52 PM To: 'soaring@airage.com' Cc: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'; 'Cathy Monaco' Subject: It is late on Monday evening here, and I have been very busy with team activities and have not had any time to post status updates for all our great supporters. While there is some wi-fi connectivity at the field, I am always too busy to use it. The hotel has no connectivity, so I am trying to use some public hotspots from the town center, but it is unreliable. I have no idea when I will have a connection that this message will go out on. We had a terrific Martin Cup event. Seven of our 8 pilots finished in the top 26! We put 4 of our 8 pilots into the flyoffs, Phil Barnes was about 1 landing from making the flyoff, Skip probably would have also made the flyoffs if I didn't make a major mistake (I'll describe later). Our Junior Casey was also hampered by some calling mistakes, but all in all it was a terrific performance. Finishing 19 in an event of 175 pilots of this caliber was probably my best personal performance ever. I should describe for you the way that the organizers managed to get 6 rounds in for 175 pilots in about 2 days of flying. We had large flight groups. I think there were 15 ins some groups. During each round at the 2 minute left mark, the organizers started allowed the helpers to go onto the flight line to prepare the lines. Immediately following the round the prep time was started for the next group. This made for a lot of activity on the flight line. The difficult part was when our team was scheduled back to back. There was no time to leave the field and get your stuff, if you were calling for another pilot. We often had helpers bring our stuff out and then leave. It took a lot of organization to keep things straight. Skip and I were on the same channel. After one of my flights I was having a discussion with the timekeeper and turned my plane off and put my radio down. All the while the clock was running for Skip who followed me. Skip hollered for me to drop the conversation and to get ready to launch so I immediately went over the launch corridor. When Joe was tensioning the line in preparation for launching, Skip noticed his plane acting oddly – Joe was just ready to throw the plane at the buzzer and Skip yelled for him to NOT throw… Cocked and loaded, finger on the trigger and Skip managed to stop Joe! He put the model down, and quickly switched to the backup – and it too was acting odd – then we realized that my transmitter was still on!!! I killed mine and Skip reloaded his primary and launched, getting the rest of his time and a good landing. My mistake cost him a flyoff spot! I was (am) upset, but needed to focus on the rest of the flights. Skip went on to have even more bizarre problems. In his next launch, the plane veered sharp left, then back right across the flight line, then back across to the left across the flight line. I have never seen Skip launch like that. He finally popped off at about 1/3 launch height into very light conditions. He hung around in some incredibly light lift, all the while complaining that the model didn't feel quite right. In an incredible display of light air flying, with Joe calling him in and out of 23' circle changes, he managed to land only 6 seconds short of the time with a decent landing. Upon getting the plane he discovered that the rudder servo had deflected full travel in one direction and locked. He flew the entire flight will full rudder!. The rest of the team put in excellent scores in less dramatic fashion. In the end we had 4 pilots in the flyoffs including 2 juniors. We had 2 flyoff flights. Joe flew terrific as usual, with a comment "I finally showed up". Joseph Newcomb (a junior) only got a 90 point landing and that cost him 2nd place. Cody Remington ( a junior) flew 2 great rounds and managed to take 2nd place among the top pilots in the world!!! Joseph wound up in 3rd place. Tom Kiesling had a flight he worked hard to save waaay down wind, by could not get back and had to relight to get a few points, putting him at the bottom of the flyoff. At this point all the hard work by the team was showing and we worked out some kinks that will help us in the championships!! On Sunday nite we had the opening ceremonies and it was quite an event. Ethnic dancers performed along with the local baton squad and a few other acts. We marched into the town square team by team carrying our country flags. I was honored to have been selected to prepare and deliver the athletes oath. After the ceremony, we had a short reception with the mayor of the town and then the serious business of discussing the rules in the team manager meeting. Today (Monday) was a tough time for our team. Our first mishap was a broken tow ring during Tom Kieslings launch. The air was very dead and with a poor launch he was unable to reach what little air was around and it appears this will be his throwout round. Joseph launched into some tough air and never managed to find the air and wound up quite short of time. Cody flew a terrific flight in the light air, but caught a wingtip on landing and it spun into him costing him the landing. Casey Adamczyk our other junior, flew 2 excellent rounds and helping the team greatly. Cody and and Joseph then put in 2 great flights that are keeping them in the hunt. Joe had a disaster on his 2nd flight. With 3 minutes to go and plenty of altitude, he had a midair taking out his primary model – a custom light ICON. He was granted a reflight and was placed in a subsequent round. In that round he had a great launch but never found the lift and milked the flight but came up about a minute short. Skip put in 1 great flight before darkness stopped things. He will fly his 2nd flight first thing in the morning. We are starting earlier tomorrow so I need to get to sleep. I'll update again when I can. Jim Jim Monaco US F3J Team Manager 2006 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. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
