Jason Cole Wins the F3K National Championships!
Jason has competed all over the country but the big win has always alluded him...until now!
Man what a day!!!
If you have flown with Jason Cole you know he is a great pilot no matter what he flies. He has been competing for many years now and he is coming home the winner! Big congrats from the RCG team to Jason and to all the competitors!
From Jason Cole
Muncie delivered some more great/tough conditions for a contest. We flew 5 more prelim rounds and then took the top 6 to the fly offs. The Fly Offs were EPIC!!!
I'll let others tell their side of the story and hopefully Nathan will chime in later with his personal take. The fly offs were 4 brutal rounds. Starting out with Poker with only 3 calls in a 15 minute window. Oleg had one shorter flight he made and then called window and went for it, but ended up landing waaaaay out. Joe got a 2 and then couldn't get his next target the rest of the window. I went for a 2 minute on the first call and then a 4 and got them both and waited a bit to read the air. I called a 3 with about 4 and half to go instead of calling window just in case I felt like it wasn't going to work, I could burn in and launch again to try for the 3. I got the 3 and banked 9 total minutes out of 15 in the round. Nathan banked some time and then called a window at the end, but just barely missed it by 8-10 seconds. Noah bested us all in that round and scored 11 some odd minutes for the K.
Next up was the Huge Ladder with a 3,5 and 7 minute max, sounds fun right. I played this one safe, holding for just a bit to see what the air was like and we had some really great thermals come through. On the 7 minute flight, I hit a boomer and everyone else jumped in too giving most everyone a high 900's score for the round.
Then we flew two 5 minute flights. I blew it here with tired low launches and a land out on my first one and then only got a 3 something on the second flight. Oleg and Joe did great in this round and Ryan Jr hung in there too. Nathan and Noah also had land outs to keep things interesting on the score. I figured things were very close at this stage and the final round would determine the winners.
The last round was one flight only with a 10 minute max. Just about everyone launched on the horn, but I held. They went downwind to a read and hit some air. I didn't like the look of it and waited around for several minutes. Oleg bailed on it and came back for a short flight and Ryan Jr also landed with a fairly short flight. The rest of the guys were working WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY downwind. I launched and hit some air and managed to work a couple of thermals to get 6 minutes and some change, all the while having Jim keep me up to date on the other guys over in the next county. They were so far away, I couldn't even see them. They left the field and went a long way, just to be able to see their planes. People were joking and saying they were going over to fly with the ALES guys. Jim tells me there's no way they are making it back. With that in mind, I knew all I needed to do was not land out so I made certain I would be able to land back on the field. Near the end of my flight, Jim tells me Noah and Joe are down and Nathan is crazy low, but circling. He worked it up and ran back to the field and made a 9 something flight I think. I saw him laid out on his back when he made it, ecstatic. That has to be one his most memorable flights of all time. He got the K and we weren't sure if that was enough to get the win or if I had it in the bag.
Last year Nathan took first and I got second, but this year we swapped. I took first for my playing it smart approach. Thanks goes out to Mickey for the coaching on strategy and it paid off. Nathan took 2nd with that amazing final flight and Oleg took 3rd. We had 5 CX5's in the Fly Offs and 1 Falcon. Oleg totally crushed the prelims and flew extremely well. He's still got it! We had TWO Juniors in the fly offs!! That's awesome! These new fly offs tasks are brutal, but they certainly do get some separation in the points as the scores were all over the place and it sounded like the guys watching the show had a great time seeing it go down. Big thanks to Team Concept, KST Servos, Esprit Model and Jeti! We had a great couple day of soaring. Here's the scores and more photos from today.
See the Event Coverage Here!
Last edited by Jason Cole; Aug 01, 2020 at 03:01 PM..
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Congrats Jason, great job as always! Glad to see your hard work paid off with the grand prize!
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Good job Jason!
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Latest blog entry: Other Hobbies that steal $ from my RC...
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Congrats Jason !!
I remember our Hobby Lobby and Edwin Warner days fondly and enjoy your reviews and posts . Gerry Doubleday aka ElektroCodger |
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Truly well-deserved. Congrats Jason!
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Thanks all!
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Awesome
Congratulation Jason !!!
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Last edited by Thunder50BMG; Jul 31, 2020 at 04:31 PM.
Reason: uydjfgwj
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