Originally Posted by Fishjunky

You probably didn't notice but there were several "lefty" pilots

I got my Mystress wing in the mail, and am thinking of building it left-handed. Throwing with my right arm aggravates an old shoulder injury. I may not throw as high left-handed, but if I can throw without pain, it might be worth it!

Originally Posted by redgiki

I got my Mystress wing in the mail, and am thinking of building it left-handed. Throwing with my right arm aggravates an old shoulder injury. I may not throw as high left-handed, but if I can throw without pain, it might be worth it!

Would love to take a look at that new wing. I would imagine once you got the coordination down, you'd be able to throw nearly as well left handed. It's not about strength, make it smooth and fast

Originally Posted by Fishjunky

Would love to take a look at that new wing. I would imagine once you got the coordination down, you'd be able to throw nearly as well left handed. It's not about strength, make it smooth and fast

Building it left-handed would have the added benefit of not needing to modify Lovins' XP-3 fuselage. I mean, what's the worst that can happen? I end up with a left-handed DLG I sell or give away. Or crash. There's always that! I've never had a problem throwing anything with my left hand; not as well as my right, but it's not useless, either.

Yeah, this Mystress wing is all fiberglass & carbon. Not all that pretty to look at, actually; The_Builder had a lot of stray carbon hairs that got trapped between the fiberglass and foam. That said, it seems plenty strong, sports a unique planform (straight trailing edge instead of swept forward), and is made of a pretty blue foam. He included a large piece of quite heavy fiberglass with it, apparently to be used as the wing joiner. I still need to find some carbon for a throwing blade, and additional carbon cloth for the throwing blade reinforcement, then I'll be ready to start putting it together.

Originally Posted by JOLOVINS

Labor Day in Denver is usually F3J in the rockies. You will not be able to draw the crossover guys away from it on that weekend. You can use that date, you will just loose some attention. BTW just unpacked a new V2 lefty. What a beauty!!!!

Yeah, I never thought Labor Day weekend would be good for BSOUT anyway. I don't care for the idea of competing with Soar Utah. I was actually thinking the second weekend of September, or even the third. The months of May and June can still be quite wet and blustery here. We also want to avoid conflicts with any other big western F3X events. I know finding the perfect date for everyone is impossible. But we want to attract as many out-of-state participants as possible. Got to get to at least 20 pilots to qualify for USA F3K tour points! So everyone please chime in and let us know what works for you. BSONM will be in July, BSOCO in August, BSOAZ in November.

Cool John! is this your first V2?

Originally Posted by redgiki

I got my Mystress wing in the mail, and am thinking of building it left-handed. Throwing with my right arm aggravates an old shoulder injury. I may not throw as high left-handed, but if I can throw without pain, it might be worth it!

I did this when I started flying DLG (see avatar). I had shoulder and elbow problems with my right arm and a perfectly good left arm. Unfortunately I had surgery on my left elbow, so now I'm throwing right anyway (luckily, no problems).
I wouldn't hesitate to switch hit again if need be.

Shawn

No second.

Originally Posted by shawnc

I did this when I started flying DLG (see avatar). I had shoulder and elbow problems with my right arm and a perfectly good left arm. Unfortunately I had surgery on my left elbow, so now I'm throwing right anyway (luckily, no problems).
I wouldn't hesitate to switch hit again if need be.

Shawn

Sounds like a lot of baseball talk with Fishjunky (Jim) also mentioning those in the video being left handed... Like it is some sort of advantage...

... New DLG task: Someone pitches the DLG straight at you and have to catch it, one turn, and throw it out of the park... 3 strikes you're out.

Originally Posted by like.2.fly

I don't care for the idea of competing with Soar Utah.

Soar Utah is only once ever two years, however. So for 2011, it doesn't matter

Originally Posted by flyingj

Sounds like a lot of baseball talk with Fishjunky (Jim) also mentioning those in the video being left handed... Like it is some sort of advantage...

... New DLG task: Someone pitches the DLG straight at you and have to catch it, one turn, and throw it out of the park... 3 strikes you're out.

Merely and observation, Watson. I like that new task, for our family/fun get together... let's use your plane

I was teasing about the lefty thing...

It could be pretty fun to pitch and swing a beater DLG... Only thing is someone might get their head cut off...

Mike and Jon should remember that day at the sod farm when I was hot roddin around and almost knocked myself out. All I can say is good thing I'm on 2.4. I don't know how I would have reverse summersaulted with a long antenna on my transmitter.

remember that day at the sod farm when I was hot roddin around and almost knocked myself out.

That's when I knew I would fit in with the DLG crowd

September will work very well, but will take some care in setting dates. Far and away, I'd advise not laying over another Utah soaring event. Even if Soar Utah is every other year, it is well established.

That's a good weather time for Utah, yes? May can be blustery?

There is almost no way to avoid laying over a two-day hand launch event somewhere in the US. But you might talk to Oleg (PM him here on RC Groups) anyway to find out when they are going to schedule ECHLGF (East Coast Hand Launch Glider Festival) in North Carolina. That's their largest event these days.

Check with the ASA (Albuquerque Soaring Association) about the Electric Soaring World Challenge-ABQ. I'm dedicated to supporting that event. The ASA guys have done so much to support Blue Skies, and this is how I give back. I would absolutely despise missing a Blue Skies. We'll see if we can thread the needle.

Notes on Blue Skies Dates, Tentative
Blue Skies over New Mexico is tentatively back to the second weekend of July, 9-10 (corrected).

1st weekend June is gone for NM due to weather pattern changes, at least for the next few years. Visalia is taking that spot, that's the Northern California fliers at work.

probably...
Blue Skies over Colorado is third weekend in August, 6-7 (updated).
Blue Skies over Arizona is first weekend in November, 5-6.

Aradhana Singh Khalsa
Blue Skies Hand Launch Glider Challenge

Once upon a time, when a handful of us in the Southwest wanted to have more hand launch events in our region, some email discussions got the whole thing going. It took a few years, and didn't really happen like this, but fiction sometimes tells the story better...

N: You think we can do two day events?
A, T, C: Why not? How many do you think might attend?

A: Dunno. 10 would be worth it. I'd come. What should we call it?

A: How about The 4 Corners Series?

C: What's that?

A: NM, CO, AZ, and UT all share a corner border.

N: But nobody flies DLG in Utah, least that I know.

T: And that doesn't fit with Texas in the series.

A: Right. Oh well. Let's see if we can think up a name.

And time passed, and Arizona put up the first contest, but it was a 1-day event. They thought maybe it would be better to grow interest slowly and steadily.

New Mexico and Texas got together and began the Blue Skies Hand Launch Glider Challenge. And flying was good. Arizona kept up a steady flow of events, first a couple times a year, then came their imfamous "Beat The Heat." Colorado had yet to happen, was waiting for something, actually a couple someones.

Texas had an interested group of around 10 hand launch pilots. But some "big" glider pilots decided that they didn't care if their TD event was scheduled over the top of the nascent Blue Skies over Texas. These guys didn't fly hand launch, and didn't mind if they could draw pilots away from the HL event by doing their own thing. And they did, a couple years in a row, and BSoTX became small, really fast. And the wonderful organizer, still an enthusiastic DLG pilot, threw in the towel. At least he could come to Blue Skies over New Mexico.

Then came the two J's in Denver. With a lot of great local support and a steady run of 1 day events, they decided that they were ready to add to the Blue Skies series. And Arizona was ready too, and the two-stop series became a three-stop, with two new events.

And all were happy. No one looked to the Northwest. There were a couple pilots there, and they came to hand launch events, including Blue Skies.

Then one day, a fellow says to NM, CO, and AZ: Hey, there are about 10 of us up here, and would you like to join us for a two day event? How about if we make it a Blue Skies event?

And unless I'm telling the future wrong, then this is how Blue Skies over Utah entered the happy fray. And the long-wished-for 4 Corners series is going to happen.

I guess the Utah guys need to fill in their part of the story. If anyone wants to perform hours of research, there are rich and full stories in each of these states, with many dedicated and wonderful pilots creating the fun we're all having now. Those pilots really know how Blue Skies came to be.

If there is a single sentence to cover this history, it might be: Wish for something, build it, get a lot of friends together and nurture it, and you might just see a dream come true.

Aradhana Singh Khalsa
Espanola, New Mexico

Aradhana,

For next year, I understand that ECHLGF is going to be Oct 7-9 with another contest on the east coast (SKSS) the weekend before that in Deleware.

For pilot count, The Bruce is the largest so far. His contest is currently listed as August 26-28 but he mentioned that might shift to avoid a conflict. Information is starting to assemble in the F3K tour thread.

I talked with Ryan about the US F3K League site being a central calendar for the coming year, as that was one of the stated objectives in forming the overall US league. Keep an eye for that to be updated soon as contests start to settle out and coordinate.

Just to share information as I have been watching developments around the country. I am looking to travel some this year, so I am already in planning stages.

As an observer so far, I am really happy to see the growth and support of the BS events. The East is trying to get a little more coordinated this year as well. The hope is that soon, it will be smoother for all the regional groups to coordinate on a national level while still being able to focus on growth and support regionally.

I think we are in for another exciting year!

Jim

I was told by Bruce that his 2011 contest will be Aug 19-21. Based on that, I set the dates of Aug 5-7 for BSOC. They're tentative, as yet, but almost certainly will become firm.

Dave