mini stick category - I need advice

[Dave Lofthouse]

Okay so I found out there was going to be an indoor duration contest in West Baden IN. Since that is only 2 hours away I decided to go. After roping my friend Bill into going he said "well you might as well enter something" Bill is logical like that. I mentally comitted to the idea but upon follow through I realized I might be quite a way out of my league. Which brings me to my question.......is there anyone out there with experience in Mini Stick competition(or any indoor duration competition flying for that matter) who would be willing to correspond and share advice about my bumbling attempt to compete for the first time? Blessings in advance.

drl

[Dave Lofthouse]

Well thanks for all the advice (tongue in cheek).

In case anyone subscribed to this I thought I would give a brief report.

The cieling was 97 feet the room was round and 200 feet across. A great place to fly especially for a guy who has only flown in a 25 foot gym.

I built two mini sticks. One was the Ploonker by Rob Romash. The other was a Misstick (dont recall the designer). After weigh in and measurement check I was introduced as a rookie to the great Walt VanGorder. He was very busy but took a few minutes to look at my planes and make some suggestions on how to get started. After some adjusting I strung on some .025 tanII and sent it up with about 1200 winds. It cruised okay but alarmingly short. A little more tweaking and I uped the turns with little result. Finally I went to 1/32 rubber and the flying improved. Over the next few flights I got it to go up around 50 feet but I did have a torque roll problem. Several people expressed concern over my props. Namely, they said I had too much camber and too much twist. Not much I could do about this so I flew on. Finally the great Ray Harlan who was seated at the next table over glanced my way and said something like... "Try a lighter rubber, God that 1/32 stuff is like hauling around another airplane." I tried this upping the turns and improved times quite a lot but the motor was knotting stopping the prop and my decent was rapid. Ray said to cut down the motor to more like a 9 or 10 inch loop. He also wound it on his torque meter for me so we could max it out more. My times continued to climb. I was now around the 5 minute mark. The great Rob Romash walked up and introduced himself. I showed him my planes, he asked a few questions and started walking away murmering over his shoulder to follow. He hauled out some August 93 rubber and we did a few tests. The plane continued to torque roll severely on climb out but the ill effects of the roll were not enough to ruin the flight. I finally ended the day at 7:59. Not too shabby for a guy who really does not know what he is doing and for an untested airplane. The high time for the day in Ministick was around 12:30.

I learned a lot and met some good people. I hope to enter again sometime but it would be nice to have a flying site near home to hone the skill a little more.

Anyway, there you have it...thanks for reading.

drl

[TLyttle]

Wow. That is some event, and you were lucky to have all the high-power help there, 8min is good stuff!

I'm familiar with Earl Van Gorder, is Walt related, anyone know?

[glider34]

Romash's model is the Poonker not Ploonker. He's the High Ceiling Record Holder. West Baden sounds great!

Glider34

Romash is Great? I'll have to let him know about that comment!