Well I called off our first SVSS ALES event last Saturday, and word from the field was that the weather was bad to awful. Now tomorrow is showing light winds, temps in 70’s, and at worst a minor chance of 0.01 inches of rain…. I think we fly!

The registration desk will open at 9am tomorrow, Saturday, and we’ll have our pilot’s meeting at 9:30. Same rules as last year, but it looks like we have a number of new flyers so we’ll want to have some time for Q&A. My top rule is Safety, and it’s all fun after that.

We will still be serving chili cheese dogs and chiliburgers around noon for $5.

Entry fee is $10, and please bring your AMA card since AMA membership is required.

Scores will be submitted to the ALES League. Our Mr. Jim Thomas came in second last year nationally. Other notable members included Mac Powell in 8th, Steve Henke in 12th, Kirk Stockham in 14th, Scott Tomasello in 15th, and yours truly in 19th. These aren’t just local scores; this was nationally with more than 300 participants in the League.

Let’s get the 2013 season off to a great start! See you there!

For directions, visit SVSS.org

After the postponement last week, I was a bit anxious when the NOAA was reporting a chance of rain yesterday, but we couldn't have asked for a nicer day. Very light winds at the start, mostly cloud cover, but great temps all day. We had 17 contestants, including three who came out for their first SVSS ALES yesterday, Jerry Molner, Chad Lathe, and Steve Bechtold.

We had some rounds with spec'd out planes, and others where everyone seemed to be scrambling. JT was leading the pack through the third round when a broken solder joint took him out. Scott Woodward took the lead spot and I was on his heels, when we had a very tough final 5th round. The wind had picked up and Kipp's plane was the first to leave the runway but it lost a prop and then the motor and Kipp was heroically working to bring it down safely. The rest of the field now faced even more challenges as we kept one eye on our planes and the other watching the rescue. In the end, regular, Mac Powell, pulled out front and newcomer Jerry Molner took second with SBSS' Brian Chan taking third.

Kudos to Ron for our great looking field, and to Sheldon who kept the event moving at a great pace. Special thanks to Kevin who kept the crowd well fed with chili dogs and burgers.

Here are the scores, and these have also been posted to the ALES League for their standings.

--Aric

Aric, nice work to you and the SVSS ALES team for such a smooth event. Awesome thermal conditions and awesome lunch too.

Even though I didn't fly in the contest it was nice to have a winch set up and allow some of us non-E guys to fly. Thanks for allowing it. As far as I could see the winch pilots did a good job staying out of the way of the contest fliers.

Chris B.

What did the top pilots fly?

All the best

Luis

2nd place was a 2 meter Pulsar (I believe).

Originally Posted by SoaringDude

As far as I could see the winch pilots did a good job staying out of the way of the contest fliers.

Curious, were the sport flying gliders "marking thermals" before the ALES group launches?

I didn't see too much thermal marking going on, in fact the TD pilots were very good about avoiding launches during the ALES countdown. One flight I did get really annoyed because I thought a TD plane was doing pirouettes in our landing zone but it turned out to be a 3.7m ALES plane.

Originally Posted by Bob McGowan

Curious, were the sport flying gliders "marking thermals" before the ALES group launches?

During the first 1/2 of the contest a few of us were using a short bungee at the far south end of the field and doing low-alt work; nobody seemed interested in joining us in circles 200' off the ground. Later we did use the winch but the ALES gaggle always seemed to be in a different part of the sky.

Bob, FYI, during our December club (mini)meeting we agreed to allow a single winch for fun fliers contingent on not causing obvious problems. So far it's worked well. This was suggested as an alternative to moving ALES contests to Sundays since we're trying to adapt to everyone's best weekend day for flying (for SVSS it's clearly Saturday; other clubs seem more able to use Sundays).

Chris B.

Wow.. The alternative for us ALES guys would be to move us to Sunday if it didn't work out? Am I reading this correctly?

Originally Posted by NorCal Hobbies

Wow.. The alternative for us ALES guys would be to move us to Sunday if it didn't work out? Am I reading this correctly?

No no no! That wasn't accepted as a valid option so a compromise was suggested by one of our members. Saturdays are still it for ALES contests! We have just added a single fun fly winch for the small number of non-ALES pilots who can only make it to the field on Saturdays.

Chris B.

Originally Posted by NorCal Hobbies

Wow.. The alternative for us ALES guys would be to move us to Sunday if it didn't work out? Am I reading this correctly?

Believe me, after a rather spirited discussion Sunday was a non-starter.

At last saturdays ALES contest the non-E guys set up a winch and I think 4 pilots were using it. I did not witness any conflicts. ALES pilots are pretty good in the crowded flight environment of mass launching and landing so the winch fliers were really not even that noticeable. Also, many times they were too low to be of use for marking when we were launching to 200 meters. At least on that day, there were more birds marking the sky than TD fliers.

SVSS ALES has pretty much settled on a three flight group seeded format for rounds. It really works well. With three flight groups there is never a problem finding a timer, contestants get a break every so often, and the contest still moves along fast enough to allow for five 10 minute rounds plus a lunch between rounds 3 and 4. Also the seeded format makes for some interesting flight group placements as the highest scoring pilots end up flying against each other. After looking at the landing zone and how the winch was set up and figuring the three flight group format SVSS ALES could accomodate at least 30 pilots in a contest before the winch would have to move over to the side of the field. I really dont think there would be any field problems until over 40 pilots and thats not going to happen at monthly contests for a long time. We had 17 pilots last saturday, 15-30 is probably where it will settle out, just like our TD monthly contests.

One new thing we did try last saturday was to allow restart to avoid long walks. But it was too easy to stop the clock right on 10 minutes, power up to get back from way off the field only losing the potential landing points. I'm pretty sure a penalty of some sort is going to be instituted if we allow the restart rule in the future.

Steve

Thanks Steve for the update. Glad it's settled and works for everyone involved. Scott and I can't make Sundays usually so we were a bit worried with what we have been reading and what was put in the newsletter. I just spent a nice bit of change on a E-Supra ALES rig and want to make sure we can fly them.

Originally Posted by NorCal Hobbies

Thanks Steve for the update. Glad it's settled and works for everyone involved. Scott and I can't make Sundays usually so we were a bit worried with what we have been reading and what was put in the newsletter. I just spent a nice bit of change on a E-Supra ALES rig and want to make sure we can fly them.

John,

Missed you and Scott last saturday. A very good day, perfect spring weather but last round was very challenging. We did have three new first time ALES pilots. One of them placed 2nd. Also some excitement when Kip's new E-Sharon threw a prop on launch and then the motor exited as well. It was making a lot of noise on launch so I was watching the whole thing. He saved it in a very tail heavy mode with some cool thinking. minimal damage. Kip sure likes the high power setups but thats about the 3rd prop he's thrown, could be those 5S batterys and big motors? Maybe we'll all pass the hat and get him a RFM prop. Never a dull moment

Steve

Originally Posted by TrekBiker

John,

Missed you and Scott last saturday. A very good day, perfect spring weather but last round was very challenging. We did have three new first time ALES pilots. One of them placed 2nd. Also some excitement when Kip's new E-Sharon threw a prop on launch and then the motor exited as well. It was making a lot of noise on launch so I was watching the whole thing. He saved it in a very tail heavy mode with some cool thinking. minimal damage. Kip sure likes the high power setups but thats about the 3rd prop he's thrown, could be those 5S batterys and big motors? Maybe we'll all pass the hat and get him a RFM prop. Never a dull moment

Steve

5s????

Originally Posted by jaizon

5s????

We love you Kipp! Someone pass the hat.