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!

Round 1 started off hot with 7 out of 10 pilots hitting (or exceeding) the 5 minute task.  As we have pointed out before, having the most expensive ship isn’t always an advantage in a contest like this as Hank can attest to.  Hank managed a 6:42 in a 5 minute round because he couldn’t get that big beautiful AVA down to the ground!

Round 2 kicked everyone’s butt in more ways than one.  Let’s start with condolences – John Forney and Tony Utley tried to obtain the same air space in the landing sequence, and the CF leading edge of Tony’s AVA won the battle.  That poor old K-brid couldn’t stand a chance against the AVA….It sort of looked like a hot knife going through butter.  Tony saved it and landed with not much of a scratch, but the K-bird wasn’t so lucky.  John, let’s get her fixed up for next season.  Allen Burnham won the longest flight time of the round with a 4:02 with his Riser, and Dave Flanigan managed a 96 point landing with his Handy hand launch.

Round 3 was once again an active thermal round.  The times were a bit higher and the battle came down to Tony and Gordy flying head to head – a beautiful AVA against a 30+ year old Gentle Lady.  The Gentle Lady won….. John Hoskins also managed a very nice 5:28 with his Vista and also managed to secure a well-deserved 3rd place for the day.

I really think this last round of the contest series summed up what this contest is all about.  New state of the art planes, tried and true classics, ex-contest planes, hand launchers, floaters, hybrid/home-builts, you name it and it was there….but that’s the point – they were all out there flying and having fun together.  I hope everyone has had fun this season with the contest – I know I have and I hope I’m a better pilot for it.  Some thanks are in order as well:  thanks again to Gordy for coming up with the idea and getting us all out there, thanks to everyone who brought a high start out to the field and for letting other people abuse the crap out of them, thanks to Ed Wilson for donating prizes in the middle of the season, thanks to Dave Flanigan for making the balancing units for the top 5 points leaders, and thanks to Grody once again for the Easyglider prize to the points leader.  A special thanks goes out to Ben Wilson for posting scores and pics on the webpage every month, and a final thanks to Allen Burnham for taking over as CD for next year’s 2-Channel contest series!

The top 3 scores for today:
Gordy Stahl – Gentle Lady         1098
Tony Utley – AVA                      948
John Hoskins – Vista                 732

Top 5 Series placeholders:
Dion Dunn – Vista / Sagitta 900  (consistently showing up pays off)
Dave Flanigan – Handy / Sagitta 600
Allen Burnham – Riser
Steven Spratt – Bird of Time / Thermik
Ed Wilson – Hobie Hawk

Until next year,

Dion

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!
But wait, the biggest isn’t always the best.  Coming in a close second was Gordy and the venerable Gentle Lady.  After a shaky start at the field, the Lady was hooked up and nailing thermals and crashing the landing tape like it was a new high performance 2-meter or something.  The nerve of some old women…..

Harold Jackson made the long trek up once again and put on a pretty good show with the Vista.  Thanks for making the drive Harold.  Speaking of Vista’s, we had another show up.  Sean (sp?) brought his out and got some hands on flight training with a high start and the winch.  All at the best field and best club in the Country.  How’s that for an introduction to the hobby?!

Allen tried to fulfill his LSF Level 1 requirements all in one day (and I think he did it).  Lee was treating the Monarch like a rocket ship on launches and brought in a heck of a flight at the end.  And once again, the purple people eater could be found floating around the sky.

The Renaud Brothers would be proud as there were 2 Sagitta 600’s and one 900 on the field today (Ed, Dave and myself).  And at one point or another, they all flew pretty darn well.  But the key to today was landing points.  In the first round, 5 out of 9 pilots hit the tape for points.  However, after that the magic repellent of the tape kicked in, only 4 more pilots hit the tape in the next 2 rounds combined.  When they did, they hit it strong.  Gordy had 3 landings in the points; 78, 99, and 70.  Tony had 2 in the points: 88 and 97.  Ed also had 2 in the points at 89 and 91.  Strong landing scores for not having any landing control, although I don’t think the Gentle Lady was designed for “crashing screen door” landings.

So, all in all it was a pretty good day and best of all, the planes went home in one piece.  To top it all off, Dave Flanigan was nice enough to make up some home made CG balancing rigs to be handed out to the season points leaders next month.  These are beautiful units, and Dave did a fine job putting them together.  Thanks much Dave!

The next contest date is Sunday, October 4th at Noon.  This will be the LAST 2-channel event of the season, so come on out and have some laid back contest fun for the last time this year.

The scores will be sent to Ben to post on the website, and here are the top three for today:

1)  Tony Utley                AVA
2)  Gordy Stahl              Gentle Lady
3)  Dave Flanigan          Sagitta 600

Dion

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!
Round 1 (5 minute round) got off to a good start with everyone putting in pretty good times.  We had 3 highstarts running at a time and 7 pilots went up and came back down in one piece.  John Forney looked like he was going to take us all to school again with the K-bird, but Allen had his Riser flying nicely again right out of the gate and took an early lead.  It must be all of that control-line flying, although I can’t figure out how that help’s Allen’s thermal flying….  The landing zone was tricky today, and the multiple currents and draws were making it tough too, but 3 out of 7 pilots managed to score some landing points.  Remember for all of you readers out there, we aren’t using any landing control.  And this month we didn’t have to see Ed Wilson trying to murder his Hobie Hawk.  Ed put up a good time with a borrowed Spirit.

A big thanks to Ed Wilson and the LSF organization for supplying 3 polo shirts to the top 3 pilots today.  That was a great touch, and totally unexpected.

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

Ed Wilson flying the Hobie Hawk and Allen Burnham flying the Riser were up next, and although Ed used the crappy hi-start and only got about 25 ft off the launch, he managed to play around with a bunch of low level lift until his control horn decided to break and end his day. Luckily, the plane seemed to survive the spiral landing. Allen showed us all how to fly in the first round by posting a 5:07 (in a 5 minute round) and just out of the landing points. After fighting with trim issues during my first flight, I managed to capture some landing points (49) after a fairly short flight.

Round 2 was a 7 minute round with John and Dave both showing the way at a 7:29 and 7:25 but no landing points. I’m sitting there talking to Ed and we hear this loud screaming coming from the field – It was the Sagitta diving to the deck with Dave trying to get that thing DOWN to make his time. On those two flights, John and Dave could have stayed up all day. Since Ed was out of the competition, Allen and I fly the next set but neither of us fair too well. After a crappy launch, I overshot the landing area and tried to get fancy with a down-wind turn. Please remind me not to do that again as I managed to spiral it in and break the rudder. My day was done.

The final round was fairly uneventful, with John Forney managing 3 landing points, and Allen staying up for a 5:11. Only 2 landings in the points today, so we still need practice at those landings. But in that final round, John managed to pull out a second place by 1 second over Allen! Congrats to Dave today for taking home the imaginary wood. The final standings are as follows:

Dave Flanigan – 1st place with 836 points
John Forney – 2nd place with 728 points
Allen Burnham – 3rd place with 727 points
Dion Dunn – 4th place with 242 points (2 rounds)
Ed Wilson – 5th place with 107 points (1 round)

The next contest is Sunday, August 2nd.

Dion

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!

Some highlights of the day?  Picture this – Ed brings his beautiful Hobie Hawk back out for another go and proceeds to rip a wing and stab off as he crosses another highstart line just off the ground.  He says it’s fixable, so out of pity I give him another launch….then he settles in for a nice 4:59 flight on a 5 minute task.  I shouldn’t have had pity. The second flight he tries to rip the wingtip off while landing, and it gets taped back on for the third flight. All in all, not bad for a 5th place!  At the other end of the spectrum Tony brought his little Handy hand launch out and has some great flights with a mild toss.  I remember when Dave kicked all of our butts with his Handy, and knowing Tony is a good stick made me a bit worried.  But that little plane just couldn’t figure out how to go up the line on a high start.  Once again, Harold Jackson drove up with his Vista from TN to party with us.  Thanks Harold.  Gordy brought the only foamie to the field with his Easy Glider.  Based on his times, we should have used it to keep my water bottles cool instead.  Just kidding Gordy…..

Landings seemed a little better today with myself, John O., Lee, Gordy, Tony, Rick, Dave F., and Brian all having one or more landings within the tape.  That was no easy task today with wind, lift and no landing controls.  Speaking of landings, Brian tried to nail a 100 pointer with his Photon by diving it straight in from about 150 ft off the ground.  Unfortunately, he missed the tape and his wing needs a tad bit of work.

But today was mostly about flight time.  No big landing points to catapult anyone to the top.  Rick and his Vista mastered the skies with a total score of 792 with only 17 of those points from landings.  Steven and the Purple People Eater were really floating today with a total time of 750 points (seconds), but again, no landing.  I think we were just lucky it actually came down.  Somehow me and the Sagitta 900 managed to come in 3rd with a total score of 643, but I did have 64 landing points pulling me from what would have been a 4th place finish up into the 3rd spot.

Here is the top 5:
1) Rick  792
2) Steven  750
3) Dion  643
4) Dave F.  621
5) Ed  620

Full scores for the day and the ongoing series are up on the Club Contest page!

Again, a big thank you for all who participated in today’s contest.  Just a reminder as voted on during the scores readout (by all who were standing there), we will be moving the July contest to Sunday, July 12th instead of July 5th.  Yours truly and a number of others would be out of town for the Holiday, so our turnout might be better moving it a week out.  Besides, without me there who would write these exciting, Pulitzer prize quality reports?

Dion

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

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.

The first group launched closer to Noon on this day, so we were off to a better start.  Rick, John O. and Allen started the day off in fine fashion with the first round being a 5 minute task.  I was timing for Allen when he lamented that he had never done this before, but hopefully I made him feel better by telling him that this was only my 3rd contest myself.  Allen ended up looking like he had done this many times.  The first group struggled with the sun as it was in direct line with our hi-starts.  After Allen got the nervous twitches out of his thumbs, and John showed us the way with the Aspire, the first round was in the books (Rick forgot where the lift was when the points mattered….).   Unfortunately, my launch in the second group didn’t go so smoothly.  I completely lost the plane in the sun about half way up the line for about 15-20 seconds.  I did a couple of turns to try to get it back in view with no luck.  Even worse, no one around me could see it either.  Then all of a sudden Allen’s Wife (sorry, didn’t get your name – but thanks!) says, “Hey, is that your plane over there?”  At this point the plane was already off the line about 100 yards downwind behind us over my right shoulder.  Luckily, it was still at about 350 ft. and I still managed to get my best flight of the day.  To finish off the first round, John F. and Dave showed us all where the landing ribbons were and ended up with the two best flights of the round.

The second round (7 minute task) was fairly uneventful.  Rick managed to grab a 7:38 flight, but missed the tapes (come on Rick, there was 3 of them out there!).  Once again John F. showed us how to land but had a low time.  By this time, variable cloud cover had started to move in and it made the launches and flying much more enjoyable.  Remember rookie Allen back in the first round?  Yep, he comes in strong with a second place flight in this round.

The Third round (7 minute task) had its moments.  John O. once again came alive after a bad second round and manages a 5:29, but missed the landing.  Landings were tough today.  I think we were all over-estimating the landing pattern and falling short of the tapes.  The Vistas just hung there and dropped straight down when they were anywhere below 30 feet.  Steven gets up in the second group with his big Bird of Time, and just like a few weeks back, the ping got him.  Up the line she went for a nice launch.  Just as Steven pinged it, the right wing snapped and down she came.  At least this time the plane came down in a more gentle fashion and it appeared the fuselage was fixable, if not the whole plane with some work.  Allen once again put in a respectable time of 4:08, but missed the tapes.  The Vista contingent (Rick, Dion, John H.) struggled in the third round with low times and no landings.  John F threw up a big time of 7:20, and even with that he was racing the thing to get it down to the ground.  What was that you said John, “where are my spoilers?”…..  J   And finally, in the smallest plane in the field and surely the lightest, Dave and his Handy handlaunch puts up a 7:18 and 51 landing points!

All in all, it was another great day of flying.  We obviously all have work to do on our landings, but hopefully we all got a little better this time.

I’ll paste the scores below and also send them off to Ben for posting on the website.  You will notice we did not normalize the scores.  We are keeping it simple and just doing total time and landing points.  That way, it’s easier to see how you have improved throughout the year.  Also, I’ll send Ben some photos and send some with this email.  Please post any other photos taken as well.

Dave – 1st place
John F. – 2nd place
Rick  – 3rd Place

PILOT	Place	Points	Plane
Dave	1	863	Handy (HLG)
John F.	2	843	K-Bird
Rick	3	729	Vista
John O.	4	665	Aspire
Allen	5	562	Riser
John H.	6	451	Vista
Dion	7	422	Vista
Steven	8	193	Bird of Time

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…

Walking the quarter mile to the landing tapes was a shocker for most (okay it was only about 100′ but I’m sure they felt it was a lot farther.

One plane of particular beauty was an original member’s home brew! I called it the Genie-gon…a scratch built Genie looking fuse with a Paragon wing. Very attractive with its droop nose and it flew well, but the wing got kind of sketchy after a particularily energetic tow when a thermal came thru the launch area, so he retired it . He’s building a Houston Hawk wing for it, so no worries on tow in the near future I guess that will make it a Genie-Hawk .

“They came out of the woodwork for this one…” Which means we had members who we hadn’t see flying in years come out..and guess what…they flew great!

Vistas are very good ships, but like all Tower ARF sailplanes with fixed stabs, you have to get the 3/16″ positive incidence out of the stab, and yes that means chopping under the stab to drop the rear end! We’ve been shimming the back of the wing but it makes the fuse fly tail down, very weird to see them zooming up in a thermal with the tail hanging down and of course you need to then pull a bunch of lead to get it to balance at 45% of root chord. Once they are tuned up they become some pretty serious flying ships.

The AVA pilot found out that while he has a huge soaring advantage, getting them down with out spoilers can take an extra minute, slow them down too much into the wind and end up short. 100points just laying out there to pick up but few managed 75!

In the end, who was big dog? The little dog of course, our little Lee flying his trusty and rusty Sagitta 2m.

When all the rounds were done and the scores in, I asked the top 4 finishers to fly a all up last down fly off. No timers, no landing points…..just do your best. The interesting thing? The pilots landed in the same order they finished the contest in! Good piloting over comes luck every time. All the pilots flew well but I think that they all want to fly….better now.

Gordy

From Dion Dunn:

First off, a BIG thank you to everyone for coming out and having fun today.  It was a little hectic, but we will smooth things out as the year progresses.  Most importantly, everyone took their planes home in one piece and as far as I could tell, we all had fun.  Ben, thanks for working the scores all day and getting them posted on the website so quickly.

For those of you that missed it, highlights for the day:
1)       Let’s here it for Mother Nature – nice Spring day, lift floating through the field, and my first sunburn on the back of the neck.
2)       I may be the only person that gets hit by his own sailplane in the landing zone
3)       Ben agrees to switch planes with Lee, then gets beat by his own plane (and a better, younger pilot) – J
4)       Hank gets a very respectable 7 minute flight on a 7 minute task, even with 5 people telling him how to fly his plane
5)       Bruce has a couple of launches higher than some of our hi-start launches (of course he had a DLG)
6)       4 hi-starts in a pseudo MOM format made for some great looking launches
7)       Dave skips the last round and still finishes higher than me
8)       Ben’s 100 point landing with no landing control
9)       Lee showing us all how it’s done……

Let’s get 3-4 more people out for the contest on the Sunday of April 5th.  As the CD, I may even bring drinks.

And a BIG thank you for all of the help at the field today, and patience with me as the rookie pilot and rookie CD.

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!

OK, I’ll go along. I’ve never flown anything in winds greater than 8-10 mph, but if Gordy wants to be a test pilot, so be it. Heck, I probably have less thumb time under my belt on sailplanes than most of you have in one good Summer weekend. But maybe this weekend I could watch and learn. So out we went setting up the full size high start and getting Gordy’s Marauder setup. What a beautiful big bird. After a test toss Gordy hooked her to the line and away she went. Straight up and at times pulling the line backward over our heads. Yes, the winds were making launches fun! Launch height looked like it was getting to about 500’.

So Gordy puts up a nice first flight, then a second and a third. He could have stayed up a lot longer on #2, but I guess we were running all 5 minute rounds. Lots of lift running fast through the field today, and lots of corresponding sink too with some very weird turbulence just for entertainment. The best air seemed to be over the valley where the big Marauder would just hang. A couple of times Gordy had it hovering about 15 ft. off the deck and it didn’t seem to want to come down.

By now, Gordy and the Marauder had my blood warmed up so it’s time to get out the Vista. After a trim test or two, we hooked her up to the line and away she went. I won’t bother you with the reasons for the ‘z-shaped’ run up the first launch, but at least I made it up the line. However, as soon as I did my best zoom off the line (my first one ever attempted by the way), the Vista immediately turned into a canard plane and start flying backwards. Not enough down trim to stay out in front. The poor little thing was getting blown every which way, but after putting in a little down trim and correcting the wing incidence (again) I managed to get in 3 good flights (good to my standards) and brought her home without a scratch. My right thumb still has a nervous twitch…..

Next up was Steven with his Bird of Time. Did I hear Steven say something like “for all I know, there could be a cracked spar under that covering”, or something like that? Well, the hand toss proved the ship to be trimmed nicely, so she got hooked up to the line. First launch was a beauty, straight up the line and arcing nicely. Boy those BoT wings look pretty. Time for the zoom – down, up – then BANG. The right wing tip landed in the field behind us, and the rest of it spiraled straight down into the ground sounding like a ducted fan engine towards the end. Best estimate is the nose made a 5-6” impact. There may have been a cracked spar underneath that covering after all…….

But all is not lost! Gordy hooks his Marauder back up and hands it over to Steven. With some launch and landing help, Steven managed to pull off 3 very respectable flights in the big ship, and in doing so takes the first WIN!

So all in all, it was cold, it was windy, and it was an absolute blast. I never thought my first contest would be with 3 people on a sunny, 18-20 mph wind-filled March day, but I will take it. Too bad we couldn’t have had more people brave the day, but this is one I won’t soon forget. The goal of any day is to become a better pilot, and I know I did after today’s rounds. You should have been there….

So the official contest results are as follows. Scores today figured in total seconds only.

Dion Vista 2m (I should have had another meter today)
1min 23
1min 42
1min 46
291 total

Gordy Marauder 3m
3min 41
5min 43
3min 43
787 total

Steven Bird of Time/Marauder 3m
4min 52
4min 30
3min
862 total

Let’s target the next round on Sunday, April 5th at Noon. That will be the first official points round. And if you can, try to make the last club meeting of the season next weekend! Ed, please have my LSF paperwork ready for me……..

Dion

2008 World Soaring Masters Final Scores
1 Bob McGowan 5983.1 – $2500
2 Arend Borst 5982.0 – $1250
3 Cody Remington 5978.8 – $750
4 Mike Smith 5974 – $500
5 Murat Esibatir 5967 – $250
6 Joe Wurts 5900?
7 Ben Clerx 5719
8 Jo Grini 5695
9 Jim Frickey 5094
10 Jeffrey Walters 4558

The 2008 World Soaring Masters is in the bag! Congratulations to Bob McGowan for winning the contest and the $2500 prize.

Our own Lee Atchison won the JR/Parkzone Radian electric sailplane contest – he beat out the likes of Mike Fox, Joe Wurts, F5J guy Bob Burson and WSM finalist Jim Frickey in an exciting final. He took home a Parkzone Radian sailplane signed by a bunch of folks…

Joe Nave of RCSoaring.com has the Qualifying Scores and the Final Scores. Check out photos on Flickr, or read the World Soaring Groups thread @ RCGroups. And my… my inspiration, the one and only Jo “Jojo” Grini from Norway has his own take on the 2008 World Soaring Masters here: http://www.f3x.no/wsm/2008/. Jojo shot some video of the Parkzone Challenge, so keep an eye out for that. The St. Louis guys have their own recap of the WSM2008 here.

The LIVE UPDATES have been archives and you can read em’ “after the jump”.

SUNDAY
update 1432:
World Soaring Masters Final Scores!ii
1 Bob McGowan 5983.1 – $2500
2 Arend Borst 5982.0 – $1250
3 Cody 5978.8 – $750
4 Smith 5974 – $500
5 Murat 5967 – $250
6 Joe Wurts 5900?
7 Ben Clerx 5719
8 Jo Grini 5695
9 Frickey 5094
10 Walters 4558

update 1420: No flyoff! Results about to be read.
update 1412: possible flyoff announced! It’s apparently a very tight race. Dont know who yet.

update 1405: Round 5 overwith! McGowan bobbles on the approach but kills the final landing for an 80! Cody says “not good” about his performance. Arend high fived after his landing… might be close!

update 1355: Round 5, Final Round. Big thermal still on field. Favorites to win now are McGowan? Borst? Possibly Murat or Cody. All others had gaffs of some sort, or started with a lower score to begin with. Landing contest now.

update 1350: Frickey shorts his landing near the 60s, Walters slides through. Arend nails another landing.

update 1337: Rd 4 Launch almost downwind due to bird indicated thermal on left/west side. All are skied out.

update 1333: Rd 3 Arend bounces back with a landing that hit the nail for an 80. Bob landed 74. Joe Wurts nearly hits himself…

update 1325: Rd 3 Joe Wurts peeled straight back on launch back towards control line pits in the SW… winds out of NE. Good call as birds appeared near power lines indicating thermal. Jeffrey Walters lands early and 0 landing. Frickey made a low save to burn the clock. Landing contest now…

update 1312: Rd 2 Ben Clerx lands a few mins short and no landing after battling with Bob Mcgowan for a small thermal out front that Wurts capitalized on. Everyone else skied out. Arend and Walters shorted their landings. Mcgowan makes his time with a great flight and a 79 landing.

update 1257: Rd 1 Arend in few secs early and slid his landing. Kai Yang sez McGowan win the round 1 sec over and a 79 landing. Mike Smith on time, but dropped a few on landing.

update 1255: Rd1 news… Frickey w/ popoff no save… Jeffrey Walters landed waaaay out by control line pits. Jojo landed with about three mins to go in this 12 min round after going waaaaay out and catch lit and crawling back home.

update 1235: Pilots and planes in the finals
Walters – Supra
Wurts – Supra
Kolb – Pike Perfect
Borst – Supra
Murat – Pike Perfect
Mike Smith – Sharon
Bob McGowan – Supra
Frickey – Pike Perfect
Ben Clerx – Aspire
Cody – Espada RL

update 1225: Golf carts are motoring out to the turnarounds now… pilots meeting taking place. Scores are being normalized to 1000 as a base for each pilot. Plane tally soon. They are going to double launch, meaning 1 & 6, the 2 & 7, etc.

update 1155: JR sponsored raffle now… flyoffs at the end of it, i’m assuming 30 minutes…

update 1135: Top 10 from prelims:
1. Borst 13967
2. Cody 13964
3. Murat 13948
4. McGowan 13926
5. Mike Smith 13925
6. Jim Frickey 13917
7. Wurts 13914
8. Clerx 13910
9. Jojo 13804
10. Jeffrey Walters 13797
Just out…
11. Lachowski 13790
12. Tom Cooke 13788
13. Verzuh 13727
14. Gellart 13697
15. GLAUCO LAGO!! 13654

David Hobby (34th 12872) had a zero flight in the last round… something about a battery connection on the zoom. A 1000 would have put him in the flyoffs.

update 1100: Into the last group of Round 14 now! Dr. Dan had a midair and lost his plane… and in good news, Blaine Chastain tells me the plane that spun in from 200-300′ miraculously had no damage! Amazing. Clerx and Borst for sure in the flyoffs… preliminary scores soon.

SATURDAY
update 2314: sitting in the campsite now watching a beautiful forey moonrise off the northeast side of the field after capping the night with SOAR club members Karl Miller and Pat Crosby kick out guitar jams late into the evening. Couple more rounds in the AM and then the flyoffs. Stay tuned!

Update 1920: BBQ now, but here are the scores as of Round 12 (end of day Saturday): http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=paIcz8lKzh9IZtSv85sTXBw
update 1825: Round 12 Scores are up, Top 10… Remington, Borst, Wurts, Murat, Mike Smith, Mike Lachowski, Bob McGowan, Frickey, Jo Grini, Ben Clerx. Junior Jeffrey Walters on the cusp at 11th. Gellart 12th, Hobby 13th, Kolb 19th.

update 1819: Lee won the Parkzone Radian Challenge over Jim Frickey 1000 to 996!!! Lee had a 77 landing…

update 1814: Larry Jolly threw for Lee and Lee’s currently on the top of the group! Kai down 2nd, then Karl.

update 1801: Finalists – Kai, Jim Thomas, Karl Miller, Jim Frickey, Mike Fox, Lee Atchison. Top 2 get to keep the planes.

update 1750: and… I landed first. Lee had a good time and a 77 landing… but Mike Fox beat out Joe Wurts with Joe landing out of the circle and Mike with a 74. Second round now… Lex Mierop, Bob Burson, Kai, Tony Estep. Bob landed out! Tony landed out! Lex landed waaay off and Kai lands last with a 60 landing!

update 1740: Radian Foamie fly off… and i’m in it. Joe Wurts, Bob Burson, Kai Yang, Etc.
update 1630: We’re in Round 12 right now… our last round for the day. Two more rounds in the AM and then 5? round flyoff for the finals.

update 1605: Round 10 top 10 – Remington, Wurts, Borst, Smith, Murat, Gellrt, Lachowski, McGowan, Clerx, Frickey. Phil Kolb got a 579 and dropped to 25th. Cody Remington has 9993 points… only 7 points dropped over two days.

update 1505: Phil Kolb lost his landing in Round 10. Larry Jolly landed near the beans, but inbounds jut now. Tom Kiesling stretched his flight at 20′ behind the tent to the west for at least two minutes, wingtips sometimes just a few feet from ground. Some carnage!

update 1415: Round 10 is goin’. Winds and sink are picking up now. Gordy is letting Lee fly his Pike Perfect! Round 9 scores up… Top 10 – Kolb, Remington, Wurts, Arend, Murat, Mike Smith, Gellart, Mike Lachowski, Ben Clerx, Bob McGowan

update 1330: Troy Lawicki was the only one to take the two minute precision option. His landing was 76. Improved by 6, I think.

update 1315: Plane went down into the plane waiting area – broke Lee’s elevator and rudder on his Supra. I got it fixed. The flip over landing thing has been resolved. Flip overs and shed parts landings WILL be counted. If the landing was recorded as a landing, you can keep it. If it was recorded as a zero, you can opt for a 2 minute precision flight w/ landing… and if you land short on time, it will affect your recorded flight time for he round. Karl Miller is protesting the scored flip overs on precedent of the 2006 WSM’s. Also, winches have been changed to face the north winds, hence the break.

update 1155: photo link has been fixed (thanks Bruce) Round 8 scores up. Round 9 flying now. Round 8 Top 10: Kolb, Cody, Wurts, Murat, Mike Smith, Mike L., Jim Frickey, Gellart, Miller, Jeffrey Walter (a junior). Kolb no longer perfect – dropped 3 points.
update 1122: Huge group of birds (20+) marking big thermal on SE end of field in Round 9 Group A.

update 1031: Rd 7 top 10 – Kolb, Wurts, Cody, Murat Esibatir, Mike Smith, Mike Lachowski, Karl Miller, Jim Frickey, Gellart, Jojo. Hobby had an 897 round. JThomas had an 828. Kolb still perfect.

update 1020: plane tally! did a real quick inventory on the flight line. 18 Pike Perfect, 18 Supras, 5 Onyx JWs, 3 Espada RLs, 2 Avas, 2 High Ends, one each of: Extreme, Sharon, Pike Superior, Pike Giant, Starlight 3000, Aspire, Shadow Vtail, Icon 2. Short poem: Blaine Chastain lost his plane. While timing for Lil Lee I saw him spiral in… no word on cause. Carnage has been very light otherwise.

update 1015: bit of controversy over flipped over landings and shedded parts on landing. Int’l rules state flipped landings (and shed parts?) are OK. US rules say no to both. Not explicitly discussed at pilots meeting. Assumptions made? Maybe. Arend and Mike Lachowski had flipped landings and they are being marked as zeroes.

update 0910: launch and hang in Round 1 group B! Speared a perfect landing… on the nail! Bounced off for a 73. Group G of J now. Moving briskly.

update 0805:
Scores after round six: Page 1, Page 2
They just started a line for the WSM2008 T-shirts… first flight at 0830 and I’m in group B. Later!

FRIDAY RECAP
Coming to you (nearly) live from the beautiful, starried-skied AMA flying site in the Muncie, Indiana…

An absolutely perfect day of soaring here in Muncie! So might say TOO perfect. An excellent lift-filled sky with soft, pillowly thermals.
It ran like the Soaring NATS normally does, with few interruptions, no mechanical problems with the winches. Six rounds flown today with little downtime. Many of the pilots wanted to keep flying just to shake up the scores a bit! Many of the names at the top of the scoreboard had an international flavor with Australia’s David Hobby, Germany’s Philip Kolb and recent New Zealand-by-way-of-America transplant Joe Wurts. The US pilots were right in the thick of it, though, with rising F3J star Cody Remington flying very well and LSF veteran Jim Thomas giving it his all. The World Soaring Masters is definitely living up to it’s billing as hard-core competition, despite the insistence of a few of the international pilots’ being here “just for fun”. When it’s your turn to fly at the Masters, the competitive streak in any pilot lights up!

The AMA site here is one of the best places to fly in the world, I think – it’s wide open with nowhere to run to for a safe flight – you better find your lift and work it out. It’s easy to get way, way far away and in trouble over the beanfields that ring the flying site. Just ask me about the soybeans – I know! US F3J team member and past US Soaring Nats champ Tom Kiesling timed for me and gave me an excellent read on a thermal “way way out” (way out for me, but not for Tom!) Suffice it to say that I did not fly as well as my timer would have The good news is that the beans make for a soft landing.

The competition has been extremely tight today – with only a handful of points separating the top 10 pilots. Partially due to the excellent lift all-around today and partially due to the amazing international talent that has invaded the AMA flying site. My chances are already shot – but I don’t really care – because how often am I going to be able to fly with this level of talent? That’s why I actually gave up going to handlaunch contest (my favorite soaring event) to be here this weekend. Those of you out there who didn’t sign up for this year – for shame! But the good news is that the new World Soaring Masters is going to be NEXT year instead of in 2008 – that way it won’t have to compete with the once-every-two-years F3J World Championships.

Team JR is in full effect here with banners flapping in the breeze and many bright red Team JR shirts all around. They put together an after-hours event with electric foam sailplanes that was as much fun to watch as was to fly – with 10 randomly selected pilots slugging it out in a chance to win a plane. This was also done at the F3J World this year in Turkey.

Speaking of Turkey, the Turkish team headed by Mustafa Koc are having a ball. They are being extended the same warm welcome they gave the world at the F3J World Championships this year. They and anyone else sporting a passport were seen having a good old time at a local Mexican eatery. Rounds of drinks were consumed. Sombreros were worn, songs were sung. Jojo from Norway (a fellow soaring “journalist”) is here as well – make sure and check out his coverage here: http://www.f3x.no/wsm/2008/. This is proving to be a good time in any language.

Speaking of international competition… word around the campfire here is that the AMA Flying Site here in Muncie might be hosting the 2012 F3J World Championships!

Looks like at least 6 more rounds tomorrow in very similar weather conditions and then a couple on Sunday morning… and then the flyoffs! Top ten pilots go to the flyoffs. Much more flying to be done this weekend and anything can happen.

Big BBQ planned for tomorrow night! I’ll get the scores posted in the AM, and I’ll get a tally of the planes and pilots, too.

FRIDAY
update 2142: Sorry, but no Round 6 scores yet. Check back early tomorrow AM. We get started at 8:30 AM EDT tomorrow. Same weather is predicted.
update 2015: Jim fricke beat out JThomas in the second heat of the Foamie Challenge. Flew my litle Apogee DLG w/ Lee Atchison & Jeffrey Walters. Got a frosty beverage from the Turks party van! Currently dining at the finest establishment in Muncie – Carlos O’Kelly’s Mexican Cafe.
update 1755: Karl Miller edges out Luetke in the first of two 5 pilot rounds. Top 5 of the randomly selected 10 pilots today fly against top 5 out of random 10 from tomorrow for champs.
update 1745: Parkzone Radiant foamie contest begins! Karl Miller, JThomas, Jack Wollner, etc. involved. 8 minute tas, 20 sec motor run. standing here w/ Jochen Luetke and timer Gordy. Someone has also launched a fake electric powered hawk
update 1650: Round 5 scores up! Kolb is still perfect. Wurts, Remington, Hobby and Jthomas round out top 5. Round 6 underway, then the Foamie Challenge.
update 1555: Rd 4 scores up. Kolb, Wurts, Hobby, Remingtn, JThomas. Kolb has 4×1000. Jo Grini at 30th w/ 3941
update 1545: weather is just excellent, by the way. lift has developed into huge mild thermals. Landing contest now. Liking the modified 80 point tapes and 12 minute rounds.
update 1525: Round 5 now. Just saw Larry Jolly being interviewed on vid. for what I assume is some sort of JR TV.
update 1440: JR is going to be sponsoring a mini-f5j contest at the end of tofay. ten guys are drawn to fly two rounds with 5 of their Radian 2-meter foamie sailplanes. Top five guys keep the planes!
update 1435: Rd 3 scores are up: Kolb, JThomas, Wurts, Cody, Hobby top 5.
update 1400: just started round 4. unstable lift until now. The usual at the top of scores after 2 rounds… Kolb, JThomas, Wurts, Cody, David Hobby top 5. Me? thpbbbbbbt. Landed in beans Rd 3.
update 0915: beautiful chilly morning in Muncie. An absolute mass of soaring talent here. Wurts, Kolb, Hobby. Typical hour-long pilots meeting now.

THURSDAY
update thurs 2205 at the ama campsite and have my hammock setup. drinkin’ beer with doug pike!
update thurs 1818 edt heading to muncie, ETA 2100
Update Thursday 1350 EDT: WSM2008 Live Blogging capability achieved!

The 2008 World Soaring Masters is being held in Muncie, Indiana at the Academy of Model Aeronautics Flying Site. Held every two years, it’s likely to be one of the largest R/C sailplane contests in the US – and definitely one of the most “International”, with 100+ pilots from all around the US, Norway, Turkey, Australia and beyond.The Louisville Area Soaring Society has a handful of members making the trip up to Muncie (Ed, Gordy, Ben, Lee).