The 2016 Bent wing event at Visalia’s CVRC club has come to a close. It has been a long time since I have been able to attend an event where no one made all of their flight times. The weather was breezy all weekend. We all flew with ballast for the 2 days in order to get around the field and make out times. Adam Nelson ran a first class event. He allowed us to stand wherever we wanted in the landing zone with a strict reminder if you hit yourself or another in that area you receive a zero for the landing. We will see if he has the same format for the Fall Soaring Festival.

Alex Eremenko and Mike Reagan were in the second and third positions chasing me. It was wonderful to see all of my close friends again for the weekend. It was also a pleasure to see Larry Jolly again after all that he has been through. I truly hope the progress he has made will continue.

It had to have been the Gulfstream hat that Art Chmielewski handed me for the weekend that made all the good luck happen. The hardest flight to watch was where Joe Nave went to the east chasing a thermal for his 8 minute round and it just did not materialize for him causing him to land off field. We have both made that walk back to the CVRC field once before so I knew how he felt.

This event is one of the most challenging events to fly. With open winches and a time window you won’t get much closer to a man on man event. You decide when to go and that is what made this event so much fun.