Louisville Area Soaring Society

Summer 2011 Two Channel Contest Series

The Louisville Area Soaring Society will hold its annual “2 Channel” soaring contest series at our home field, Charlie Vettiner Park in Louisville Kentucky. The concept of the contest is to foster and welcome participation by anyone at any level of soaring capability and to provide a starting point to any soaring pilot who wishes to participate in larger contests or the achievement of League of Silent Flight tasks. Any sailplane may be used, but only TWO functions are allowed. Please come out and join us!

Contests will be Simple Duration, Seeded Man on Man

There will be 3-5 rounds of 7- 12 minutes duration per contest to be determined by weather and the contest director, there will be a minimum of 3 scoring rounds to qualify as an LSF contest.

First round group placement will be by random selection and number of launch stations. Subsequent group placement will be seeded Man on Man by score.

If the pilot succeeds in achieving the maximum time in the round, an additional 2 minutes will be allowed, without further flight score, to land the model. Flight beyond the 2 minute landing allowance voids the flight for flight score. Warm-up and test flights will be allowed before contest and between rounds if the field is clear. Normally start gathering at about 11:00. Pilots meeting will be at 12:00.

Scoring

Scores will be simple duration, 1 point per second, then the landing scores added. The scoring for all rounds will be normalized to 1000 points for each group (i.e. there will be 2 or more flight groups per round, each flight group is normalized by only the pilots scores in their flight group).

Landings

Landings will be scored with the club’s 100 point landing tapes.

If aircraft lands inverted or sheds parts during the landing the pilot receives a zero landing score.

Off field landing voids the flight score.

Launching Equipment

Club will supply launching equipment. Electrics are allowed with launches limited to high start altitude determined by timer or CD or altitude motor cut-off. Any further run of the motor disqualifies the flight.     ONE re-launch per pilot per contest.

Dates

There will be 5 contest dates.  May 1^st, June 5^th, July 3^rd, August 7^th, September 18^th.

Entry Fee

An entry fee of $3.00 per pilot will be collected.

Prizes

Any donations of items will be given out as prizes at the final contest.

Two Channel Contest Director Dion Dunn is back with his final wrap-up:

Well, we finally made it to the end of the 2-channel contest series, and what a great ending it was.  Round 7 had a mix of everything today, and Mother Nature was once again kind to us and provided some good lift and signaling birds as a bonus.  10 pilots came out to enjoy the Fall weather

Let’s cut right to the chase this time – Gordy kicked our butts with the Gentle Lady.  But you know what the difference was besides the fact that he is tuning up for the big Texas contest next week?  Landing points, landing points, landing points.  For example, Tony and Gordy were only separated by 9 seconds of flying time yet Gordy won by 150 points!  7 out of 10 pilots scored landing points today, but it wasn’t consistent, and I was one of the 3 who didn’t score any.  I’ll admit, I haven’t been practicing and it shows!

More after the jump – and make sure to check out the end-of-season scores on the Club Contests page!

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Two-Channel Contest Directory Dion Dunn recaps today’s action! The next Two-Channel contest is OCTOBER 4th at NOON at the Charlie Vettiner field!

Thanks to all who came out and braved Mother Nature for today’s 2 Channel contest.  9 pilots were rewarded with a pretty decent day after a few rain drops before the start.  The lift turned out to be pretty decent, and as usual, I got a good burn on my neck and face.

Hey Gordy, how’s that old saying go?  If you can’t buy a better plane, find a better thermal?  Translated into ‘become a better pilot’?  Well what happens when you take a darn good pilot already, and arm him with one of the best RES planes in the World?  You get today’s winner – Tony and his AVA took home the honors in fine fashion.  Congrats!

Read more after the jump or check out the scores on the Club Contests page! Read the rest of this entry »

The Two Channel Contest Series rolls on with installment #5!

Contest Director Dion Dunn gives his report below:

Well after a pretty crappy week of weather, Mother Nature was kind to us today wasn’t she?  And if you were lucky enough to be at the field, it was a pretty good day too.  Lift was there, although so was a lot of mixed wind, draws, and downdrafts, so it was a tricky day at times.  A big thank you to everyone who came out.

Read on for more exciting details and check out the August 2 scores and series standings here!
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Contest Director Dion writes in with a report for the 4th installment of our ongoing “Two Channel” contest!

We had 5 pilots attend today’s contest with only 2 hi-starts strung out. John Forney and Dave Flanigan led the way with Dave bringing out his old, but still competitive Sagitta 600. Light to moderate lift was working it’s way through the field, and we even had an occasional hawk or two to show us the way. The first flight ended with John trying to land on the tennis courts by flying through the fence. I thought his day was over, but that old K-Bird was OK and ready for the next round.

Read on for more details after the jump, or check out the scores on our Club Contest page!
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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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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!

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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