Weather was as predicted, light winds, warm temps...same for pilots, well warm but not so light :) The Orlando Buzzards sent their best, Pompano Flyers too....Tangerine champ Ingo had 147" of Shadow warmed up and Mike Popescu had his extended Pelican fully charged ready for battle. Me? World's Heaviest Carbon Supra Light had to fight for every second of air. It was clearly a day when light weight was going to make a difference, so I showed up to a gun fight with a knife. The no dork rule was in place, which is, no lawn dart endings. And if you weren't very careful, the soft sand was more than willing to capture the plane's noses. Skegs were pretty much voided by the soft sand.
But this one was won in the air. I missed a minute in three of 7 rounds, and picked up a zero landing due to avoiding a pilot in the landing zone, the rest of my landings were near perfect. But it was air time that really made the difference today. The air got really cold and windy, actually switching its direction 180 degrees at one point. Rick Eckel put his Perfect up on a down wind launch and I think didn't get much more than about 200' and upon release, the model refused to begin flying. It looked like it was going to be an up and down flight, but he hooked up almost just above the landing area to work it to a max. My Supra was very friendly even on the downwind launches, but for those three flights, just couldn't do it 'for' me. Often I am asked "how much does it weigh?" The only thing I know is that when its in my pickup and pull into a truck weigh station, if they see the model in the back they wave me off for fear of damaging the scale. I let every one pick it up (after signing a liability release for their backs) to make a guess at the weight.....most offer somewhere in the 80's. All I know is that she did good today. Tomorrow? Its another day :-) Gordy **************Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on AOL Music. (http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?NCID=aolcmp003000000025 48)
