Los Banos Scale Soaring Event 2003
May 19, 2003, 01:00 AM
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CD Lynsel Miller with his TG 3
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Introduction
This was the tenth anniversary of this event which combines aero-towing with slope flying of scale R/C gliders at Los Banos in North Central California. This event is hosted by South Bay Soaring Society and the event has been run by Lynsel Miller with a cast of supporting people that have made the event an annual success. The event originally included Power Slope Scale (PSS) planes along with gliders but those were discontinued after several years to focus the event on scale gliders. Traditionally, the event informally starts on Friday, Officially starts on Saturday and winds down on Sunday. This year the advance forecast was for iffy weather and that is a factor that can affect turnout. While Friday had some overcast and rain squals people were able to get in some flying on the slope to sort out their planes and controls. Saturday was a beautiful day and started out clear but quickly became partly cloudy. Morning and early afternoon flights were all by aero-tow but later in the afternon at least the lighter scale planes were able to fly on the slope. Sunday morning was again aero-tow. This years event did not simply wind down but rather ended with a bang, a bang caused by an R/C electric plane crash, but I am getting ahead of myself.
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Click on picture to see details!
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The cloud pictured above appeared about noon on Saturday and was very interesting. I am happy that the picture turned out as well as it did. There was some specualtion if the cloud was natural or related to a rocket launch of some sort. I first thought it might be natural but the more I looked at an enlarged copy of the print the less sure I was about it being natural. in any case it was just one of the interesting sights at the event.
Tenth Anniversary
This was the tenth anniversary and every registered pilot got a special CD of photos from the event over the years. This CD contains many pictures of planes from past years and copies of articles reviewing the event in print magazines. The CD was also available to spectators for $5.00. Shown below are just a few of the many pictures from past year's events.
The first four rows of pictures are credited to Mark Foster: row 1, from left to right, 1 and 2 are pictures of a Libelle in 1996 and the third picture is a Grob in 1997. Row two starts with a picture of a Duo Discus in 1998 and the pits that year as well, the third picture shows a water rescue in 1999. Row three shows the launch of a B-4 and Das Trainer in 1999 and the third picture is the pits in 2001. Row 4 shows three shots of gliders flying the slope. The pictures in rows five and six and the first two in row seven are by Sean Sharif. In row five the first picture is a PSS Me-110 with a weight of 40 pounds and 8 foot wingspan. It is from 1994 and it belongs to Tom Overton who is on the left and Lynsel Miller is helping on the right. The second picture in row five is unidentified but the third picture is Randy Banta's DG-500 flown in 96. Row six starts with Brian Chan's ASW-22 being towed by Dick Miller's Waco and picture two is unidentified. Picture 3 is Gary Brokaw's Austria which was nicknamed the Elefant due to the large twin rudders. The bottom row starts with Brian Chan's ASW-22 below the top of the ridge in 96. Picture number 2 is Will Grundler's SG-38 flying in 1998. The final picture is from Lynsel Miller's collection and is Steve Hinderk's Albatross in 1998. These pictures give you a taste of some of the history and some of the planes from this event in the last 10 years.
This Year
This year there were some pre-event problems. On Monday the weather man was predicting rain on Friday and again on Saturday morning with clearing Saturday afternoon and nice on Sunday. Since some people come a very long way to attend this event a bad weather prediction can adversely affect attendance. Thus this weather prediction might have kept some people from traveling to the event. The actual weather was some rain showers on Friday but most people there got in some slope lift flights between the showers and the weather on Saturday and Sunday was very nice for aero-towing but a little light on the slope lift.
While man cannot control the weather a second factor occured this year that might also have affected attendance. Chris Pratt of the Visalia club (a couple hours travel time south) had an "informal" aero-tow event on Friday and Saturday. Being several hours closer to Southern California that might have been an alternative for pilots from down south. It was noticed that many pilots who live down south and normally attend this event were not present this year.
For the 36 pilots who did attend they had a great weekend! South Bay was a good host and the tow planes were getting a real workout. During the weekend there were several times when the cables failed to release from the sailplanes and had to be released from the tow planes but on those occassion the sailplanes all made it back to the field with the wire still attached to the gliders nose but free from the tow plane. A couple planes had trouble on launch and one disconnected from the cable about ten feet into the air and it looked like it might roll down the cliff for a moment but it stopped while still at the top. Another plane was having major control problems on launch and disconnected and flew down to the reservoir where it went for a swim and was rescued as shown in the attached pictures far below.
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Brian Chan's Kirby Kite Vintage winner, picture from Brian Chan.
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Steve Condon's Red Fox, winner of Modern Class, photo by Liftzone member RCheroske.
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I left before the winners of the Pilot's Choice Awards were announced but I learned the winners were Brian Chan in Vintage class with his Kirby Kite and Steve Condon won Modern class with his 3 meter Red Fox. Pictures of winning planes supplied by Liftzone members and posted above. Lift was so good at times on Saturday that pilot's had to deploy spoilers for minutes at a time just to avoid going up even higher. But rather then talk about it take a look at the pictures and videos. The inflight videos were supplied by Wayne Niederjohn and edited for use here by me. The ground based videos are mine. I am very greatful to Wayne for his generous sharing of his videos with me for this article. He uses a Kodak 2.1 megapixel camera to take his inflight videos.
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Arlie Stoner with his new purchase ($150.00, $220.00 including the servos)
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Charles Eaton with his homemade Duster.
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Dave Darling with his Habicht.
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Dave Alchin assembling his DG-600.
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Hobby Club's traveling store.
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Wayne Niederjohn & Twin Aster.
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Chris Bilski with his 1/3 scale Wilga.
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Jerry's Fly Baby tow plane.
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Jerry Arana with Fly Baby.
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CD Lynsel Miller.
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Pilot's meeting.
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Pilot's meeting.
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Darren Braun with his Pilatus B-4.
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Doug Kauppi with his SB 9.
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Rich Spicer and his SB 10.
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James Haladus and his DG 800.
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Wilga warming up before towing.
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Rich Spicer's SB 10 flight crew.
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The electrical interior of the glider.
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The pilot who covers the electrical guts on the left.
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Very striking paint job on DG 800
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Rich Spicer flying
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Bruce DeVisser cooking lunch.
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The last five rows of pictures are without captions as one of my pages of notes blew away in a strong thermal with the page being sucked out of my parked van (back was open) when I was at a fun fly for electrics on Sunday up in the Mother Lode Country. I hope you can still enjoy the pictures even if I can't confirm the type of plane or the owner. The last picture was one of many spectators at the event. Rich Spicer's SB 10 flight crew pictured above has a female pilot wearing a Dodger cap. She is a replacement pilot. A Farrah Fawcett doll was his original pilot but she was decapitated in a horrible R/C glider crash a few years ago. If you like the SB 10 Rich was flying you can see if he can sell you a fuselage (not a listed product on their website) or any number of complete fine molded planes as Rich is one of the Rs in RnR products: http://www.rnrproducts.com/www.rnrproducts.com . Check out their website for beautiful gliders and power planes. The 1/3 scale Wilga tow plane pictured above has a scale interior that looks terrific but didn't turn out well in my attempt to photograph it. It is done inside and out to match the appearance of a full scale plane in Poland. Both of the tow plane pilots on Saturday were and are excellent! When Jerry Arana isn't flying around with his Fly Baby he is a hell of an R/C sailplane pilot and a great slope racer. I remember several classic races between he and Rich Spicer at Davenport (north of Santa Cruz)...well a few years ago.
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Saturday's water landing.
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As I mentioned above, one of the planes had control problems in coming off the ground on tow and crash landed in the lake. Now sometimes the force of impact is so strong that the plane is destroyed and all parts sink making the crash a total loss. On other occassions the plane is destroyed but floats and the parts can be saved and since it is fresh water the electronics can usually be saved. Finally, in some cases everything is saved and the plane should fly again. But it is a steep and slippery hill that must be traversed. On this occassion there was a rescue team complete with a rubber raft. The pictures below show aspects of the water rescue. These pictures and the one above were supplied by Brian Chan.
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It Ended with a BANG!
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Picture supplied by Brian Chan
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On Saturday, at the pilot's meeting Lynsel had made note of how dry the grass was and asked everyone to be careful with fire and specifically asked the smokers to only smoke in their cars. About 3:00 on Sunday afternoon the event was winding down and a lot of the pilots and spectators had already left, happy to have participated in a very nice event. The CD was allowing people to do open flying on the site meaning the event was over. It was at this time that a very fast electric plane crashed on the side of the hill. The plane was a Gerasis Sirius, powered with a Phasor 30/3 on 10 cells using a 40-3P controller according to what I have been told. The batteries apparently caught on fire in the crash and the fire spread to the grass and by the time the pilot got down to the plane the fire had spread too far to be stamped out. The pilot spread the warning and 911 was called to summon the fire department. As luck would have it there was a firefighter on picnic on the other side of the lake and he came over and confirmed that everyone should leave. The site was evacuated in about 15 minutes and that included taking down tents and shelters and packing up planes. The fire burned itself out in about 45 minutes and only burned grass on the slope and in the bowl. It did not cross the dirt road at the top of the ridge. The ranger was happy with the way people responded to the situation. At this time it doesn't appear that this will prevent future use of the site but the hill will be even harder to climb and a dirty prospect for the remainder of the year. One of the pilots at the site was from channel 11 NBC in San Jose and I am told he got some video of the fire. A Liftzone member, AirBornOne went up to the site a day or two after the fire and took a picture of the slope from the opposite side of the lake.
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Looking at slope from other side of the lake. Photo supplied by AirBornOne a liftzone member.
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I have taken off my reporters hat for this short editorial. For the sake of completeness I must advise that about 19 years ago I was president of the South Bay Soaring Society. I stopped being a member 17 years ago when I moved from the Bay Area. I consider both Lynsel Miller and Chris Pratt to be my friends. Both were CDs of scale aero-tow events that occurred on the last weekend of April this year. Both are members of excellent clubs, Lynsel with South Bay and Chris now with Visalia. Visalia is famous for their annual Fall Festival the first weekend in October. I am sure that Visalia members wouldn't want another California club to start holding an annual thermal event in competition to theirs on the first weekend in October. Sacramento holds a Spring Fling every year in June and I am sure they wouldn't appreciate Visalia or another club in California holding a big thermal event the same weekend as their Spring Fling. Since the dates of these big events are known months in advance I hope that there will be no repeat of this conflict in the future. With so few scale glider events as it is, it just doesn't make sense to have them on the same weekend or even within a month of each other. There is no need to poach on each others events. It unnecessarily creates hard feelings and in the end hurts the hobby we all love.
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