News May 2010
Page Updated on: Tuesday, July 13, 2010
- 05/11/10
Club 40 Pylon
Recap:
I
hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend with your family. On
Saturday, we conducted our last pylon racing practice and it was a blast.
This time we actually performed several key activities of a real
contest race , including registration, airplane inspection, setting up a
racing matrix, and score keeping. We had six pilots and four volunteer
helpers, a total of ten participants. The weather was perfect in the
morning hours and the wind wasn’t too bad either. I also want to mention
that Bernie Brader and Ron Grigsby from the La Pine club joined the practice
race, which we really appreciated. While three pilots raced per heat, the
remaining pilots and helpers carried out essential racing functions.
Everybody (pilots) got the opportunity to participate in two heats, with
pilots rotating start positions per the predefined heat matrix. With the six
pilots, we decided to do two 3-pilot heats (a total of 4 heats). Kim
Waterhouse did an outstanding job as the starter who kept pilots within the
90 second engine-start-and-ready time window. Signaling the 2-and-1 start
sequence went smoothly using a dedicated checkered flag combined with clear
announcements to the pilots and their helpers (he must have done this
before…). Kim also kept count of the total laps to ensure that everybody
knew when the race was over. Both Tom Schramm and Steve Younger were
meticulous cut judges, keeping the racing results honest. Tony Bass took
some video, which we may post on the club’s Web site. It was great to see
that we can conduct the races with fewer people if necessary without
compromising the overall experience. Below is a summary of the racing
results:
Ranking Pilot Cuts Score
--------------------------------------------
1 Darrell Loveland 1
7
2* Bernie Brader*/ 0
6
2* Rick Burgess*
0 6
4 Waldemar Frank
1 5
5 Ron Grigsby
0 3
6 Bruce Burgess**
0 0
--------------------------------------------
* Bernie
and Rick shared second place.
** Bruce had bad luck and his engine mount came loose during the first race
(that black cat that he saw on his way to Popp’s Field must have put a spell
on him).
Overall, we had a great time as everybody can attest.
We’re hoping to see more of you out there if you can make it. We should see
at least 3-4 additional pilots (from BAM alone) based on the count we did.
So hopefully the remaining pilots will have their planes ready for the first
contest race. Lastly, we are reconsidering the date for the first contest
race and will likely reschedule it. The current date (May 29th)
would interfere with people’s Memorial Day weekend plans, and it is unlikely
that we would have a satisfactory turnout. So please stay tuned for an
updated schedule.
Thanks again to EVERYBODY who made it out there.
See you at the first contest race (new date to be confirmed shortly)!
Regards,
Waldemar Frank, VP
05/11/10
UFO's at the Ridge:
A
few of us wouldn't be too surprised if we made the news Sunday. In
addition to club 40 pylon being run on Saturday, a few of us met at
the ridge to do some good quality night flying. The newest member of
the after dark team is Chris Shaker, way too go Chris! Five of us
were out flying of which three of us flew after the sun was long
gone. We even had a few cars stop on the top of horse ridge flashing
their lights as if telling ET to phone home. Was a blast
talking by the fire and chasing cows with our nitro powered UFO's.
Dave Lawler's Magic (shown below), Rossi powered, really lit up the
area. He has 116 lights in red and white. We plan to do more night
flying in the near future. If you're interested in this facet of the
hobby, drop one of our night guys an email. Flying till about 11pm
were Christopher Shaker, Scott Sautter, Dave Lawler, William and
Christopher Rankin.
- Update 5/16/10 - The After Dark crew met again on Saturday night the 15th to terrorize the ridge. BBQ Burgers and Flying into the night sky were Christopher Shaker, Dave Lawler, Kim Waterhouse and Christopher Rankin. Kim Flew Dave's Night Magic which gave him a good taste for moving to the dark side.
