[RCSE] Re: Why "I" like contests

[GordySoar]

I started with glow powered planes, well in RC, but did lots of control line stuff as a kid.  For some reason, sailplanes were always a fascination for me and while I was as focus'd and hard core with RC power, I always had some 'gliders' in the basement.

When I say hard core into power, I mean as in writting articles, working with mfgr's and featured on videos like the EAA Museum Osh Kosh "Giant Scale RC Video" :-)

I had built hundreds of powered RC planes.  But I always had some gliders.  I flew some slope which meant floating around in front of Lake Michigan with a Paragon, or Simitar Tailless.  As far as understanding things like trim and balance or reading air, or flying a task, I didn't have a clue (barely do now, the more I learn about the hobby).

I knew about Sailplane contests but never was interested.  When I moved down to Louisville from Milwaukee about 7 years ago, I found that the power clubs were more interested in Roberts Rules than RC Planes.  But the Louisville Area Soaring Society focus'd on flying and were there every thursday and Sunday with winch and retriever.

(Bruce Davidson was still crashing his Genital Lady at the time ;-)  Well fortunately for me Ed Wilson (LSF5) was a avid contester and he convinced some of us to join him at local contests.

It didn't take long for me to realize that while it was fun to sky out on a Sunday, that our sailplanes were really designed for task work and were most fun used in that format.

Its always been about having fun for me so while I loved flying contests, my focus was never on if I could place.  Up until this 2000 season, I would always build a new plane on the way to the contest in motels. Then fly it, review it and move it to someone in the hobby to make room for the next one.  Sure I went thru the "search for the 'silver bullet' " period where I thought having the latest and most expensive model on the market was the way to go.  So I was flavor of the month expert.

I have always done pretty well, and that came from thousands of hours of thumbs on a stick... but never really a contender.  Top 10 in locals, top 50 in large events (cept for Visalia where everyone was soooo good that a small loss of time killed me to the 70's, but inspite of it pretty proud of my efforts:-)

Then in 2000, I got My Addiction mh32.  It was the 'best' way to go foil wize, in fact it was proving to be one of the worst choices I had made, but I made a personal decision to use it for the entire season and work to learn its many outstanding attributes.  I now have maybe 600+ flights on it, all over the country, the poor wings have been broken in halves, once by the Post Office and once by Delta, but since both were uncompressed breaks, I fixed em and they still fly the same as before.  So I am going to stick with them for 2001.

(yeah, I have three more new things on the boards to work on and will fly them some too, haven't changed all that much:-)

But why I fly contests is pretty much the same reasons we all do.  Its the environment our planes were designed to  perform in.  That format challenges the plane, the TXs settings and me.... and that makes for a great day in the hobby.

Gordy