rdwoebke
Aug 28, 2006, 11:48 AM
I woke up at 4:00 CST on Sunday Morning to drive to Lexington for the 30th annual Bluegrass Soaring Society Mid-Am. First, I should say a bit about the event. It has been held for 30 consecutive years at this park in Lexington. I can’t imagine what the area must have been like 30 years ago, as it is now all “suburbia” around it. Including a Porsche dealership (stand alone, not combined with other dealers) about 5 miles away. Anyhow, a contest with 30 years of continuous activity has a lot of character to say the least. This is the 3rd consecutive year I have flown this event and I had the best time this year. The BSS guys did a good job running the event.
I arrived in Lexington just as it stopped raining. The forecast was for some late rain in the afternoon and 12ish mph winds during most of the day. As I pulled into town, the roads were wet from a recent early morning (like 6 AM) shower. I hit the field about 8:00 AM and jawed a little with some of the BSS guys as they were waiting on the winch to arrive. Shortly after, a club mate of mine (I belong to the MIST club in Muncie) arrived and he setup his tent and I assembled my Allegro Lite. There was not any rain during the contest itself, although I did drive through some on the way home.
About 8:30 the Lexington club winch arrived. Attached is a picture of the club winch and a few folks fiddling with it. The few of you that read my posts should remember I had a lot of trouble winching at the Nats. I moved my tow hook about 3/32 forward and had been practicing on my high start for about a week before the Mid-Am. I had contacted AJ before the contest about getting a practice launch in if I arrived early enough and he said that would be OK. I made the first launch of the day and no pop off! So I was pretty pleased with that.
The BSS club had some problems with the winch and the contest started off around 9:30 or 10. The tasks for the day was announced at 8:00. Some commented that it would be a landing contest due to the short tasks. It was anything but. We ended up flying 5 rounds. There were 2 classes flown (RES and Unlimited) and if you entered both events (like me) you made 10 flights! That is quite a bit, as you were also likely timing for another pilot. I timed for Phil Gieseking from LOFT and he was just flying unlimited. Had he been flying both events, I don’t think we could have got all the flying in. Anyhow, since I flew 10 flights (11 including the practice launch) I won’t be able to detail every flight. Instead I’ll post some general musings. I did not max any of my 10 flights and Phil only got an 8 minute flight on one round. I did pretty well on the landings though. After missing the first 2 I ended up getting landing points on 7 (or perhaps it was just 6, but at least 6) of the 10 landings. I felt that was OK. The Allegro is actually quite landable for an RES plane.
A bit about the field. This is a nicely mown public park. In the “fixing the winch” picture, you can see behind the winch (the wind was blowing that way, as would make sense) just a bit of a big 40 acre lake! Landing in that would not have been fun. The field (and the geography in general this part of the country) is rolling hills. The field has quite a few of them and this tends to make the air tricky. The landing zone was 3 “runways”. Runway landing is kind of cool.. Rather than a spot you have a 10 foot or so long string on the ground like a little runway and you try to get the nose of your plane as close to the string as possible. The landing zone was about 250 feet off to the left and in front of the winch area. So there was a bit of a hike walking to it after winching. This was nice I thought as us soaring guys can usually use a bit of exercise/physical activity judging by our body shape! ;-) There is a rolling hill right before the LZ and this area seems to reach up to your plane and pull its tail to the ground! You could not just float the plane into the LZ, you had to have plenty of energy coming in and then sort of “brake” right as you were over the runway. For me, with the Allegro I just pushed the plane towards the LZ with plenty of speed and then pulled full spoiler and my setup is such that it sort of “parachutes” with full spoiler having a glide ratio of about 3:1 (but keeping the nose pretty level). Worked OK. I also took a picture from kind of far away of the winch area to give you internet readers a feel for the “lay of the land”. I wish I had also taken a picture of the Landing Zone. This field really is challenging and seems to have some “fake lift” sometimes and some grabby areas. It certainly has a lot of character and I’m glad it is on the OVSS map. It is a contrast to the big flat fields of Muncie and Cinci (and St. Louis, or so I am told, I hope to make that one next year).
A bit about the people. There was about 15 pilots at the contest. I think turn out might have been a bit low due to the F3B team selection event in Muncie the same weekend. There was a good turn out from LASS in Louisville and folks from BSS. Lee from Louisville was at the contest again with his OlyII. I took a picture of them and it is attached. He is 11 years old and a pretty good pilot. I shudder to think how good he will be when he gets old enough to drive! Gordy Stahl from Louisville was the “big time competitor” of the day and his results this weekend certainly backed that up. I parked my stuff with Dave Campbell and his son DJ. They were cool enough to bring a tent. Dave was flying quite good this weekend as well and posted a great showing for our club.
Some flight highlights. At first, I was trying to just work what I expected to be a tree line lift up wind of the field. This did not work out for me, as I always flew up and thought I was in lift then fell hard. Later in the contest I got a bit more confident and actually worked thermals. The thermals were a bit weak and fast moving. My launches were good. No pop offs and a decent height. I did not zoom crazy hard but thought I was getting about 70% of the altitude the good launchers were getting. I need to get a how high or something some day to quantify my launch output. My best flight was about 5:30 or perhaps almost 6 minutes with a landing. I worked little bubbles over the left side tree line. Another fun flight was the last flight of the day. It was a RES round for me, and Gordy had launched about 2 minutes before and was working a thermal to the right. Of course, the wind was blowing hard cross winch towards Gordy’s thermal. I asked the guy behind me if he wanted to go (given my winch troubles the past few months) but I was encouraged to launch and did so (with no problems) and turned HARD after launch towards Gordy’s thermal. But then it had moved to over the lake. I worked it a few turns and bailed. For about a minute I was afraid I would be in the lake, but I worked my way back on field. Even worked some small lift again. At this point I was running backwards with Phil as my timer towards the landing zone. Worked some more lift and the flight ended at about 4:00 and a 50ish landing. It was a fun flight and had I had a bigger plane I might have been able to work the lift longer. Gordy got a 8 minute on that flight with his Super Ava, a testament to his skills as he was very far away (he was standing about 300 feet further away than I when I was actually in the lift as he was at the LZ the entire time). I had two kind of close calls. Twice I was flying down wind or over the left side trees and had to land about 400 feet away from me (but on the area defined as “the flying field”). Once I had to sort of navigate my way through some trees that could have ended in certain disaster! But luckily I was OK. On one landing I sort of got to the side too much and ended up doing a bit of a ground loop/cartwheel to get the nose to about 78. This is a testament to how the light yet strong Allegro can take some “mishandling” in the LZ and not break.
When the contest was over, I helped a bit with putting the winch away and then the awards were handed out. I was a bit shocked to have placed 2nd in RES in the Sportsman class (there was a sportsman and expert class). I registered for Sportsman in both classes. I’m not real sure I am a sportsman in RES, but given how I had been flying (and especially launching) recently and that I had a significantly smaller plane than the other pilots I thought Sportsman was appropriate. I’ll probably register in Expert in RES next time. I’m not sure I flew great in RES, but all of my flights were at least 3 minutes (except one) and I had landings on I think 4 of the 5. My best flight of the day was in RES and I had at least two 4 minute+ flights in that class. I really felt I did about as well as I could considering the conditions and what I had to work with. So I am pretty happy there. Since I flew the same plane in both classes, and it was an open winch contest, it just sort of worked out interesting that my best flights came when making RES attempts. Anyhow, the trophies are pretty cool. Attached is a picture of the “loot” I came home with. The trophies are personalized as they have a guy taking pictures of all the pilots. They also give you a copy of the picture even if you don’t win a trophy (that is very cool). I’m not sure why, but every pilot got a little “soaring” patch and a mug as well. The mug came in handy as I gave it to my father who is a coffee drinking person as a thank you for letting me take his truck (as my car does not have AC) to the contest. The patch might make its way to a wing bag I am thinking of making. Lee took 2nd in RES Sportsman and Tony Utley took 1st in RES sportsman. He was flying his Ava very well and probably would have taken a trophy in Expert RES. Phil who I was timing for ended up 2nd in Sportsman Unlimited. Gordy won Expert Unlimited and Dave Campbell took 2nd in Expert Unlimited. Neither had 8 minute flights on all of their rounds, although I think they each ended up having 4 8 minute flights and one flight in the 5-6 minute range. So like I said, it was not just a landing contest.
I'd like to send a big shout out to the BSS guys for running a great contest. The scoring went quickly and we got a lot of flying in.
On a less happy note, when I arrived at the field Sunday Morning AJ and a few other BSS guys had mentioned the commuter jet that had crashed in Lexington only hours before. Later in the day when leaving the field I learned that there were 49 fatalities. My heart goes out to the friends and families that lost so much that day. In comparison to such tragedy, it seems a bit silly for us to worry about contest flight times and our little toy planes.
Ryan
I arrived in Lexington just as it stopped raining. The forecast was for some late rain in the afternoon and 12ish mph winds during most of the day. As I pulled into town, the roads were wet from a recent early morning (like 6 AM) shower. I hit the field about 8:00 AM and jawed a little with some of the BSS guys as they were waiting on the winch to arrive. Shortly after, a club mate of mine (I belong to the MIST club in Muncie) arrived and he setup his tent and I assembled my Allegro Lite. There was not any rain during the contest itself, although I did drive through some on the way home.
About 8:30 the Lexington club winch arrived. Attached is a picture of the club winch and a few folks fiddling with it. The few of you that read my posts should remember I had a lot of trouble winching at the Nats. I moved my tow hook about 3/32 forward and had been practicing on my high start for about a week before the Mid-Am. I had contacted AJ before the contest about getting a practice launch in if I arrived early enough and he said that would be OK. I made the first launch of the day and no pop off! So I was pretty pleased with that.
The BSS club had some problems with the winch and the contest started off around 9:30 or 10. The tasks for the day was announced at 8:00. Some commented that it would be a landing contest due to the short tasks. It was anything but. We ended up flying 5 rounds. There were 2 classes flown (RES and Unlimited) and if you entered both events (like me) you made 10 flights! That is quite a bit, as you were also likely timing for another pilot. I timed for Phil Gieseking from LOFT and he was just flying unlimited. Had he been flying both events, I don’t think we could have got all the flying in. Anyhow, since I flew 10 flights (11 including the practice launch) I won’t be able to detail every flight. Instead I’ll post some general musings. I did not max any of my 10 flights and Phil only got an 8 minute flight on one round. I did pretty well on the landings though. After missing the first 2 I ended up getting landing points on 7 (or perhaps it was just 6, but at least 6) of the 10 landings. I felt that was OK. The Allegro is actually quite landable for an RES plane.
A bit about the field. This is a nicely mown public park. In the “fixing the winch” picture, you can see behind the winch (the wind was blowing that way, as would make sense) just a bit of a big 40 acre lake! Landing in that would not have been fun. The field (and the geography in general this part of the country) is rolling hills. The field has quite a few of them and this tends to make the air tricky. The landing zone was 3 “runways”. Runway landing is kind of cool.. Rather than a spot you have a 10 foot or so long string on the ground like a little runway and you try to get the nose of your plane as close to the string as possible. The landing zone was about 250 feet off to the left and in front of the winch area. So there was a bit of a hike walking to it after winching. This was nice I thought as us soaring guys can usually use a bit of exercise/physical activity judging by our body shape! ;-) There is a rolling hill right before the LZ and this area seems to reach up to your plane and pull its tail to the ground! You could not just float the plane into the LZ, you had to have plenty of energy coming in and then sort of “brake” right as you were over the runway. For me, with the Allegro I just pushed the plane towards the LZ with plenty of speed and then pulled full spoiler and my setup is such that it sort of “parachutes” with full spoiler having a glide ratio of about 3:1 (but keeping the nose pretty level). Worked OK. I also took a picture from kind of far away of the winch area to give you internet readers a feel for the “lay of the land”. I wish I had also taken a picture of the Landing Zone. This field really is challenging and seems to have some “fake lift” sometimes and some grabby areas. It certainly has a lot of character and I’m glad it is on the OVSS map. It is a contrast to the big flat fields of Muncie and Cinci (and St. Louis, or so I am told, I hope to make that one next year).
A bit about the people. There was about 15 pilots at the contest. I think turn out might have been a bit low due to the F3B team selection event in Muncie the same weekend. There was a good turn out from LASS in Louisville and folks from BSS. Lee from Louisville was at the contest again with his OlyII. I took a picture of them and it is attached. He is 11 years old and a pretty good pilot. I shudder to think how good he will be when he gets old enough to drive! Gordy Stahl from Louisville was the “big time competitor” of the day and his results this weekend certainly backed that up. I parked my stuff with Dave Campbell and his son DJ. They were cool enough to bring a tent. Dave was flying quite good this weekend as well and posted a great showing for our club.
Some flight highlights. At first, I was trying to just work what I expected to be a tree line lift up wind of the field. This did not work out for me, as I always flew up and thought I was in lift then fell hard. Later in the contest I got a bit more confident and actually worked thermals. The thermals were a bit weak and fast moving. My launches were good. No pop offs and a decent height. I did not zoom crazy hard but thought I was getting about 70% of the altitude the good launchers were getting. I need to get a how high or something some day to quantify my launch output. My best flight was about 5:30 or perhaps almost 6 minutes with a landing. I worked little bubbles over the left side tree line. Another fun flight was the last flight of the day. It was a RES round for me, and Gordy had launched about 2 minutes before and was working a thermal to the right. Of course, the wind was blowing hard cross winch towards Gordy’s thermal. I asked the guy behind me if he wanted to go (given my winch troubles the past few months) but I was encouraged to launch and did so (with no problems) and turned HARD after launch towards Gordy’s thermal. But then it had moved to over the lake. I worked it a few turns and bailed. For about a minute I was afraid I would be in the lake, but I worked my way back on field. Even worked some small lift again. At this point I was running backwards with Phil as my timer towards the landing zone. Worked some more lift and the flight ended at about 4:00 and a 50ish landing. It was a fun flight and had I had a bigger plane I might have been able to work the lift longer. Gordy got a 8 minute on that flight with his Super Ava, a testament to his skills as he was very far away (he was standing about 300 feet further away than I when I was actually in the lift as he was at the LZ the entire time). I had two kind of close calls. Twice I was flying down wind or over the left side trees and had to land about 400 feet away from me (but on the area defined as “the flying field”). Once I had to sort of navigate my way through some trees that could have ended in certain disaster! But luckily I was OK. On one landing I sort of got to the side too much and ended up doing a bit of a ground loop/cartwheel to get the nose to about 78. This is a testament to how the light yet strong Allegro can take some “mishandling” in the LZ and not break.
When the contest was over, I helped a bit with putting the winch away and then the awards were handed out. I was a bit shocked to have placed 2nd in RES in the Sportsman class (there was a sportsman and expert class). I registered for Sportsman in both classes. I’m not real sure I am a sportsman in RES, but given how I had been flying (and especially launching) recently and that I had a significantly smaller plane than the other pilots I thought Sportsman was appropriate. I’ll probably register in Expert in RES next time. I’m not sure I flew great in RES, but all of my flights were at least 3 minutes (except one) and I had landings on I think 4 of the 5. My best flight of the day was in RES and I had at least two 4 minute+ flights in that class. I really felt I did about as well as I could considering the conditions and what I had to work with. So I am pretty happy there. Since I flew the same plane in both classes, and it was an open winch contest, it just sort of worked out interesting that my best flights came when making RES attempts. Anyhow, the trophies are pretty cool. Attached is a picture of the “loot” I came home with. The trophies are personalized as they have a guy taking pictures of all the pilots. They also give you a copy of the picture even if you don’t win a trophy (that is very cool). I’m not sure why, but every pilot got a little “soaring” patch and a mug as well. The mug came in handy as I gave it to my father who is a coffee drinking person as a thank you for letting me take his truck (as my car does not have AC) to the contest. The patch might make its way to a wing bag I am thinking of making. Lee took 2nd in RES Sportsman and Tony Utley took 1st in RES sportsman. He was flying his Ava very well and probably would have taken a trophy in Expert RES. Phil who I was timing for ended up 2nd in Sportsman Unlimited. Gordy won Expert Unlimited and Dave Campbell took 2nd in Expert Unlimited. Neither had 8 minute flights on all of their rounds, although I think they each ended up having 4 8 minute flights and one flight in the 5-6 minute range. So like I said, it was not just a landing contest.
I'd like to send a big shout out to the BSS guys for running a great contest. The scoring went quickly and we got a lot of flying in.
On a less happy note, when I arrived at the field Sunday Morning AJ and a few other BSS guys had mentioned the commuter jet that had crashed in Lexington only hours before. Later in the day when leaving the field I learned that there were 49 fatalities. My heart goes out to the friends and families that lost so much that day. In comparison to such tragedy, it seems a bit silly for us to worry about contest flight times and our little toy planes.
Ryan