rdwoebke
Jul 30, 2006, 10:15 PM
My Nats 2006 experience started with RES. RES was Friday July 28 and had a very high turn out. 66 pilots flew the event with about 80 registering. The high turn out is likely because of a number of factors. This year RES was given its own day where in the past it shred a day with Nostalgia. And, ARF models and new designs have really breathed life into the class.
I flew my Allegro Lite. There were quite a few other pilot built models at the event and several other folks flying 2 meters. The variety of models was very cool. I took this shot of the Allegro amongst some models. Avas as expected were very popular and so was the Soprano.
Tasks were set at 10 minutes all day. Conditions were overcast and a bit of wind. Perhaps a 8ish mph wind. Thermals were a bit spotty but were to be found.
First flight I popped off. I’m not sure what exactly my launch problem has been recently and struggled with that all day. I had about a 2 minute flight and no landing.
Second flight I did not pop off and actually had a pretty decent launch. I was not really able to find and work any lift and sort of surfed and eventually took a gamble and tried to take something down wind that did not work out. I landed at a bit short of 5 minutes. No landing points. I got an 800ish in that round so the best flight must not have been a lot more than I was able to manage.
After round 2 Jim Stum, my timer, and I decided to help out by tapping chutes down. For those of you not familiar with contests and winches, after the launch generally the chutes are tapped down to the turn around to prevent line crosses. At the Nats, kids with golf carts retrieve the chutes and bring them back to the winches. This keeps the contest going quickly which is important with a contest of this size. At the Nats this year they did not wait until one flight group was finished before sending out the next flight group so although there were 11 flight groups things moved fast.
Anyhow, as I have mentioned before, when you are flying poorly you don’t get many requests for timing duty. Jim Stum a rocket buddy of mine from the Muncie area contacted me a few days before the Nats and offered his assistance in timing/whatever. He is interested in RC soaring as a stepping stone to getting into RCRGs. So Jim and I did 2 ~90 minute stints tapping chutes when there was a long break in my flight group assignments. For our efforts we each received a cool Nats volunteer T and an ice cream bar courtesy of the LSF! It was absolutely not expected as we were only there for the one day and did not help out the whole day but appreciated. See picture below. As always, the LSF and the CDs did a great job and the soaring Nats are very well executed.
Round 3 I popped off again. No landing.
Round 4 I popped off again. This time I was determined to try to take a thermal out, but it went over the LZ and I got chastised for circling low over the LZ. I did not take the thermal out and missed the landing and was informed even had I made it I would not have gotten landing points due to the low circling.
Round 5 Seib volunteered to throw for me and I took him up on that. I did a tap up launch to about half the height of the other planes (no zoom). Had a 3ish flight. Could not take lift out. At that point I did not see the point in stressing the plane as I needed it the next day for ½ A sailplane. No landing. As it turns out, my Allegro and Steve’s throw made its way into the “Nats News” http://www.modelaircraft.org/events/NatsNews06/0729.pdf See page 3. BTW, Don Richmond and the other folks working the Nats News did a fantastic job.
Several folks commented that I was pre-tensioning too much. Others also thought I was throwing the model too much.
Highlight for me for the contest was seeing Don Blackwell from the MIST club take 5th in RES! Don is a very cool guy and I was happy to see him do well. Action shot of this event is below. It is Greg Prater’s “Big Red” on landing approach.
Lowlight for me for the contest was realizing a young pilot from the LASS club was A) way out flying me and B) had been alive for less years than I have been flying….
I ended up 60th out of 66. But, I did manage to come in ahead of 2 level 5 pilots who had equipment failures.
To cap it off, as I was driving back to Carmel to where I was staying for the Nats I realized I had left my transmitter at the transmitter impound! I drove back and found that several folks had been looking out for me and it went with Bob Burnson. So I was safe for the next day (although I have a backup TX I really needed the mixing functions in the 783 the Allegro in half A sailplane). I was pretty bummed with my performance that day. I’ll go “Gordy” on you all and add that I had Chipoltle for dinner Friday night with Ben Pitchkites (a pilot friend from Carmel I stayed with). I had a chicken burrito, black beans, rice, hot salsa, lettuce, and cheese. That really helped hit the spot and take my mind off the bad flying. After dinner Ben and I went to my old favorite flying field in Carmel and he got some practice in with his new Electron Speed 400 plane (I think you can get it from Kennedy Composites) and I helped him tune in his flap to elevator mix. I flew a flight of the electric Paragon and had my best flight of the day… A bit over 6 minutes with a 45 second “Nats run”.
That night I lay in bed replaying my crappy flying over in my head. This story will be continued here in the thread on the electric Soaring Nats. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=549734
Ryan
I flew my Allegro Lite. There were quite a few other pilot built models at the event and several other folks flying 2 meters. The variety of models was very cool. I took this shot of the Allegro amongst some models. Avas as expected were very popular and so was the Soprano.
Tasks were set at 10 minutes all day. Conditions were overcast and a bit of wind. Perhaps a 8ish mph wind. Thermals were a bit spotty but were to be found.
First flight I popped off. I’m not sure what exactly my launch problem has been recently and struggled with that all day. I had about a 2 minute flight and no landing.
Second flight I did not pop off and actually had a pretty decent launch. I was not really able to find and work any lift and sort of surfed and eventually took a gamble and tried to take something down wind that did not work out. I landed at a bit short of 5 minutes. No landing points. I got an 800ish in that round so the best flight must not have been a lot more than I was able to manage.
After round 2 Jim Stum, my timer, and I decided to help out by tapping chutes down. For those of you not familiar with contests and winches, after the launch generally the chutes are tapped down to the turn around to prevent line crosses. At the Nats, kids with golf carts retrieve the chutes and bring them back to the winches. This keeps the contest going quickly which is important with a contest of this size. At the Nats this year they did not wait until one flight group was finished before sending out the next flight group so although there were 11 flight groups things moved fast.
Anyhow, as I have mentioned before, when you are flying poorly you don’t get many requests for timing duty. Jim Stum a rocket buddy of mine from the Muncie area contacted me a few days before the Nats and offered his assistance in timing/whatever. He is interested in RC soaring as a stepping stone to getting into RCRGs. So Jim and I did 2 ~90 minute stints tapping chutes when there was a long break in my flight group assignments. For our efforts we each received a cool Nats volunteer T and an ice cream bar courtesy of the LSF! It was absolutely not expected as we were only there for the one day and did not help out the whole day but appreciated. See picture below. As always, the LSF and the CDs did a great job and the soaring Nats are very well executed.
Round 3 I popped off again. No landing.
Round 4 I popped off again. This time I was determined to try to take a thermal out, but it went over the LZ and I got chastised for circling low over the LZ. I did not take the thermal out and missed the landing and was informed even had I made it I would not have gotten landing points due to the low circling.
Round 5 Seib volunteered to throw for me and I took him up on that. I did a tap up launch to about half the height of the other planes (no zoom). Had a 3ish flight. Could not take lift out. At that point I did not see the point in stressing the plane as I needed it the next day for ½ A sailplane. No landing. As it turns out, my Allegro and Steve’s throw made its way into the “Nats News” http://www.modelaircraft.org/events/NatsNews06/0729.pdf See page 3. BTW, Don Richmond and the other folks working the Nats News did a fantastic job.
Several folks commented that I was pre-tensioning too much. Others also thought I was throwing the model too much.
Highlight for me for the contest was seeing Don Blackwell from the MIST club take 5th in RES! Don is a very cool guy and I was happy to see him do well. Action shot of this event is below. It is Greg Prater’s “Big Red” on landing approach.
Lowlight for me for the contest was realizing a young pilot from the LASS club was A) way out flying me and B) had been alive for less years than I have been flying….
I ended up 60th out of 66. But, I did manage to come in ahead of 2 level 5 pilots who had equipment failures.
To cap it off, as I was driving back to Carmel to where I was staying for the Nats I realized I had left my transmitter at the transmitter impound! I drove back and found that several folks had been looking out for me and it went with Bob Burnson. So I was safe for the next day (although I have a backup TX I really needed the mixing functions in the 783 the Allegro in half A sailplane). I was pretty bummed with my performance that day. I’ll go “Gordy” on you all and add that I had Chipoltle for dinner Friday night with Ben Pitchkites (a pilot friend from Carmel I stayed with). I had a chicken burrito, black beans, rice, hot salsa, lettuce, and cheese. That really helped hit the spot and take my mind off the bad flying. After dinner Ben and I went to my old favorite flying field in Carmel and he got some practice in with his new Electron Speed 400 plane (I think you can get it from Kennedy Composites) and I helped him tune in his flap to elevator mix. I flew a flight of the electric Paragon and had my best flight of the day… A bit over 6 minutes with a 45 second “Nats run”.
That night I lay in bed replaying my crappy flying over in my head. This story will be continued here in the thread on the electric Soaring Nats. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=549734
Ryan