Jeff McKee: If you listened to the weatherman you probably stayed home today. I learned early on in my MVSA membership to always ignore the weather forecast. The field stayed dry all day. It was windy at times but nothing our planes couldn’t take. We had another great full blown MOM club contest. Thanks Mark for organizing the equipment, Tony and Chris for scoring, and Robert for being CD and overall front man today.

Robert stated early on in the week there wasn’t going to be any pop-offs. I didn’t care because I never pop-off in Unlimited and 2 Meter. Both my planes have been dialed in for over a year or longer. I had two pop-offs in a row in unlimited. As I spooled up the winch for my first launch a wing tip dropped from a gust of wind so I stepped off the pedal and walked forward. I had a firm grip on my plane and I believe I could have held on to it but for some dumb reason I let it go after I got the wings level. I thought I could step back to the pedal and continue up on launch. The next thing I remember is everybody yelling at me to pull up! Luckily there was enough energy left in the tension when I let go to get enough altitude to make a landing. I was a little gun shy after that; I let Glauco launch my next flight. On launch I veered hard left and popped-off again. I think I was really close to pulling it off. I might try and put some ridges on my hook now. After reflecting a bit on that launch I’m wondering if the launch technique had a factor. I launch with my hand behind the wing and Glauco uses a grip in front of the wing. I would say my first 3-5 feet from release are pretty flat and builds up speed quick whereas the more common in front of the wing launch starts with the plane in a positive pitch attitude and a more aggressive launch, just a thought since I’ve never had a launch problem before. I was a little frustrated with myself and packed up my G2 thinking it wasn’t meant to be. I had a few club friends encourage me to keep flying. I think if I could redo it I would have flown out the contest. 2 Meter was a different story. The windy conditions are right in the wheelhouse of my old overweight 2 Meter Prism.

Great day today! Thanks all who contributed!

I think I have Chris for a CD in October and Brian in November.

Jeff

I forgot to mention the highlight of the day.  Art absolutely schooling us in unlimited.  Art flew 6 outstanding rounds.

Great Job Art!

MVSA is so organized; color-coded fliers and timers!

Tony Estep: That was a marvelous day, and a lucky one too -- the weather dudes predicted that we'd get rained right off the field, and blown away to boot.

But we didn't. The conditions were tough, but it just made for a really challenging and exciting contest.

The difficult air meant that just about everybody had at least one dreadful flight. In Unlimited, Brian finished second despite a 36 second popoff with a zero landing. Chris finished third even though he got buried twice. Robert, Tony and Mark Miller all chalked up zero flights -- and so on.

Only Art was error free. He won his flight group every time, hit the spot landings, and crushed the competitors, scoring 6413 points while most of the rest of the field was bunched between 4500 and 5000.

In 2M, Jeff ran away from the rest of the small field, even though he had 4 flights (out of 6 rounds) under 3 minutes. The sad fact was that 2M planes were just out of their element today, as the majority of the rounds were won by flights of around 2:30. It was launch, fly around in ugly sink, and scramble back to the spot; not much fun.

Even though my score was pathetic, I actually was pretty happy with my flying. I flew well enough to place better, but my judgment was poor. I ventured too far downwind, threw away what could have been a round win and landed way back in the beans for a zero. This negated an otherwise fairly good performance with a round average just under 1000. I liked the difficult air, because it spread out the field in just about every flight group. Only once did we have a group who all made the 10 minute task time.

Everyone pitched in with a lot of work to make this contest a success and move it along fast. Mark dragged out a wagonload of equipment, everyone shagged chutes industriously, Chris did most of the scorekeeping, and in general it was a great community effort.

Keith's buddy Kevin was a big help, especially to me, as he drove down Peruque Creek Rd to get an eye on my plane as it descended into the beans. A huge thank-you to Kevin (and to Keith for bringing him). I also owe a big thank-you to Brendan, who disassembled my plane and drove it back to the field.

Next weekend is the Soaring Masters, and Glauco and I (and hopefully Brian) are all practiced up and ready to go. The conditions can't be any harder than they were today, and the best flyers there won't be any tougher competition than Art!

Unlimited

Frost, Art             6,413.00    1,000.00

Molloy, Brian        5,015.29    782.05

Lee, Chris            4,975.13    775.79

Samuels, Robert    4,943.60    770.87

Estep, Tony            4,856.88    757.35

Lago, Glauco            4,677.36    729.36

Miller, Mark            4,516.95    704.34

Vinyard, Keith        3,071.35    478.93

McKee, Jeff            250.52    39.06

2 Meter

McKee, Jeff             5,838.69        1,000.00

Estep, Tony           5,472.48       937.28

Miller, Mark            5,242.80        897.94

Samuels, Robert   5,232.95       896.25

Vinyard, Keith        2,714.04        464.84

Mike makes sure Glauco points his Aegea in the right direction before it’s (re-)maidening.

Thanks everyone for helping me out.  I think this plane is going to be some fun...

Mike

Mark Miller:  This years contests have been out of the ordinary. I'm not sure I remember one where I was not concerned with some weather or water issue. But in the end they have all been quite interesting. The wind sure put a spread on the field but not enough to save me in Unlimited. I was doing reasonably in second and third place only to get blown in a position I could not recover from and land out with a zero. Tony was in second and I was in third and we both landed out on that flight. He stayed in second and I dropped to 7th. Shows how far behind I really was with all the landings I missed. I guess even though I was doing ok in the standings it was only because I had a little better luck than the others behind me. From third to 7th. Even a 1095 last round could not bring me up any further. I usually do well in these kind of conditions but for one round.

I flew unballasted all day. I didn't think that the lift was really that strong to warrant it. I'm not sure adding a bar of ballast would have changed things much for me.

What can you say about Art. He showed how to do it as usual.

Thanks to everyone who made it all work. Looks like I'll be restringing some winches. Tony was bitten with some line breaks while others couldn't do it. We were also pulling our big off ground turn arounds quite a lot. We had one that traveled probably 14 inches before I repositioned it. The on ground turn arounds with the dog stakes were rock solid. I may make up some harnesses for the off ground ones to be used with the dog stakes to keep them in place as it looks like we will be having soft ground for awhile.

Mikes Aegea/Mantis looks like it will be a threat. His first flights looked great and his flap elevator compensation looks to be spot on. Why is it that I take months to get it close if at all?

Mark Miller