Well what can I say.  This report seems a bit redundant because it almost felt like everyone in the club was at the field today.  A big thanks to all for showing up and giving us 15 pilots for our 2 Channel Fly What You Brung Contest!!!

Mother Nature really gave us a good one today.  The air was clear, the sun was hot, and the winds were stronger than the predicted 6 mph at times. However, there was also a good bit of lift making its way through the field.  Launches were pretty good and many pilots were popping right into lift off the line.  This also made for a rats nest of high start lines during the second group, so we decided to move them to try to compensate.  It sort of worked…..we still needed vigilant shaggers to catch the lines after release and pull them back in straight away.  Speaking of shaggers, we had a couple of people out there who weren’t even flying.  Thank you very much for you efforts.

Next contest is JULY 12th, 2009! Got a 2-channel (rudder/elevator) plane? Bring it out!

Go check out the final scores for the day or read on for more tantalizing details after the jump!

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Bruce Davidson launching under stormy skies, St. Louis

Our own Bruce Davidson just capped off a few weeks abroad in Europe, competing in the German F3K Open in Dresden - a huge, multi-national handlaunch soaring event. Bruce placed 35th out of a huge field of 94 pilots, and 2nd among all US pilots. Check out more conversation about the German F3K Open on RCGroups.

Bruce and his wife Christine then embarked on a week of sightseeing in Italy, making their way back home just in time for the MVSA’s Gateway Handlaunch Contest! Bruce battled with the ever-stronger St. Louis crew and ended up on top after two days of good flying. Read the MVSA contest report here!

Be sure to read Bruce’s German F3K Open report after the jump!

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Local boy does good! LASS’ own Ben Wilson wins the 2009 MidSouth Soaring Champs! St. Louis’ Michael Johnson takes top overall sportsman!

Check out Gordon Buckland’s Saturday and Sunday reports at RCGroups!

Gordy's 8-Hour LSF V Slope Flight Team (l-to-r: AJ, Gordy, Lee, Bob Summers and Frankfort-slope-discoverer Dave Smith)

Two weekends ago, our own Gordy Stahl did what he said he could never do… the LSF Level V 8-hour slope flight. Not only that, but he did it TWICE in one weekend!  Gordy and a team of hardy individuals flew for 16 hours over two days at the Frankfort, Kentucky Slope, getting Gordy one step closer to his goal of finally becoming a League of Silent Flight Level V pilot - an honor only 124 other pilots have received in the last 30+ years. Gordy tells his epic tale after the jump:

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Dion Dunn writes in with a report of Sunday’s “Two Channel Contest”. You can check out the yearly standings as well as the round-by-round scores on the Club Contests page. Read on for Dion’s report:

The grass was wet, and that was all of the moisture we saw until we were almost packed up.  The air was actually pretty favorable with some lift blowing through the field and nice launches being had by most.  I think I even spotted the sun a couple of times.

We flew in 2 groups of 3 even though we had 5 high starts laid out (see above).  The first group was John O., Lee, and Ed.  Lee brought out his nicely constructed OlyII picked up (or should I say stolen?) at Toledo and proceeded to grab a 15 second flight after a pop off.  Everyone at the field breathed a sigh of relief as we all thought the little master was beatable on this Sunday – stay tuned.  Ed decided to bring out his beautiful Hobie Hawk.  After some shaky trim flights and a determination that it had negative washout, he hooked it up anyway and managed to bring it down in one piece at a 1:28.  That sure is a good looking bird in the air.  John finished up with a clean, but shorter 1:17.  NO landing points for anyone.  OK, well, this could be a really short day.
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After 11 long years, Bruce Davidson finally nabbed “THE BIG ONE” in the handlaunch soaring world - the Torrey Pines Gulls’s International Handlaunch Glider Festival. Bruce beat out 60 of the best handlaunch glider pilots in the world to end up on top. It’s been a long time coming for one of the hobby’s greatest proponents and best pilots, and now he’s got his!

Bruce posted a great write-up on the contest over on the IHLGF 2009 thread @ RCGroups, or you can read it after the jump below. But first, don’t forget Bruce’s First-ever, First-Annual Handlaunch contest, dubbed “THE BRUCE” will be taking place August 28th-August 30th 2009 at his homestead right here in sunny Kentucky! Sign up now!

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Dion Dunn writes in with a report on the 3rd (but first “real, points-awarding”) 2-Channel Conent held on Sunday:

First off, a big THANK YOU to all who attended today’s first points paying contest of the 2009 2-Channel “fly what you brung” contest.  We had 8 pilots attend today’s contest, Mother Nature was very good to us, and I think fun was had by all (although Steven may not have had too much fun – see below).

See more photos in the 2009.04.05 - Two Channel gallery!

It was a little iffy going into today’s first round.  The weather looked variable, and not many people responded to the email reminders.  But, the morning looked promising so off to the field I went. I was pleasantly surprised to see 8 people show up with planes and an absolutely beautiful day in the 70’s with around 8 mph breezes coming out of the South.  Rick started the day with a warm-up flight of his Vista while everything was getting setup.  Great, we’ll all see how the air is – 11+ minutes later we had to threaten Rick so we could get the contest started!  Yes, the air was good.

Read on for more - and make sure to check out the scores on our Club Contest page.

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Gordy reports: Our Second Fly what you brought 2 channel contest is in the books! 11 Pilots made it a LSF 3 Contest qualifier and some guys got their LSF2 time flights, some got their LSF1 landings. Great day with a mix of Vistas, BOT’s, Spirit, Sagitta, a Bubble Dancer and an AVA… We allowed an Easy Glider in too, even though its sort of full house, but since its foam, what the heck. Next contest we’ll have a Radian …yep with an electric motor to get it up! We’ll just have the CD tell him when to shut off the motor to match the high start launches.

This was a hoot! And some guys got a chance to see that flying a competition is not embarrassing or pressure, but really fun and that soaring can be done with a purpose, versus just floating around all the time.

PILOT    Place  Points
Lee      1      2756
Rick     2      2585
Ben      3      2450
Brian    4      2393
Steven   5      2368
Ed       6      2258
Hank     7      2246
John O.  8      2155
John H.  9      1982
Dave     10     1372
Dion     11     1171

Check out the standings on the Club Contest page and read more reports after the jump…

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The “new guy” Dion Dunn has written up an excellent report on the first contest of the year - the LASS 2-Channel #1, held yesterday, March 1st! Read Dion’s report below or check out the scores on the 2009 Club Contests page…

As Gordy reported earlier (from the field), the first round is in the books! But first, a little narrative:

When I got up this morning and could ‘hear’ the wind, I had no intention of flying today. Not to mention my throat and head felt like crap. But since I’ve been prodding the email list to get out to the field for today’s first test round, I thought I would at least get out there and see if anyone showed up. Sure enough, folks started filtering in and the general consensus was to go somewhere for lunch, not fly today. But then Gordy shows up and starts heading for the far corner of the field to start launch preparations… read more after the break!

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Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

Sunday, March 1st, we will hold a trial run for our 2009 LASS 2-Channel Club Contest Series at Charlie Vettiner Park.

Let’s dust off those old 2 meters, 3 meters, standards, catapult launchers, whatever you got, and let’s have some low-pressure contest fun as a club. If you’ve never flown a contest, or it’s been a long time, come out anyway.

Below you will find the proposed format:
1) Fly what you got as long as it’s only 2-channel and it’s unpowered
2) 3 rounds of 5, 7, 5 minutes
3) High start launches
4) Tape landing
5) 10am start time!

This will be a non-points event, so let’s get out and have some fun and work all of the kinks, bugs, and cobwebs out of the thumbs. Although the weather outside doesn’t look too conducive to flying today, the weather report for next weekend is looking half way decent (48 – partly cloudy). Tentatively, we would like to target the first Sunday of each month, and we will accumulate points throughout the series. Other rules, format changes, and schedule details are being made up as we go along, but we will have it all worked out before the first points event.