Tony Estep, Day 1: The weather was perfect, perfect, fabulous for the first day of the WSM.

I needed good weather, because I got here at 1 a.m. and dragged my sorry carcass to the AMA at 7 a.m., so I was kind of in a fog before it even started. But the adrenalin of the day soon kicked in, and it was a marvelous day as I will try to describe.

The field for this event is unbelievable, the greatest field in soaring. Maybe as good as at the WCs, since many of the WC flyers are here. The whole Turkish team (3 guys), Philip Kolb, David Hobby, Jojo, and just about every top U.S. flyer except DP. Our junior team was well represented with Jeff and Cody, who are near the top of the leader board.

The task was 12 minutes all day long, starting before 9 a.m. and ending after 5 p.m. Soft, weak lift was the order of the day, and you had to just scratch it out in many rounds.

MVSA is represented by Glauco, Brian Molloy and me. Brian has been flying in bad luck all day, suffering from low launches including a pop-off. Glauco hung around the top of the leaders for a long time, making his time plus a couple of 80 point landings (that's the max). I made all my times (6 for 6), but landings averaging below 70 put me around 30th place!

To show you how tough it is, it was very common to stand around when the round scores were posted and hear some guy complain, "Damn, I made 980 points and I dropped down 2 spots." I can attest to that, because it happened to me too.

The top guys have essentially perfect scores (in fact, Kolb has 6000: 6 flights of 12 minutes and an 80 landing, I believe).

The pits are full of two designs: Supras and Pike Perfects. I don't have a count, but I would say that the Supras slightly outnumber the PPs. When you account for the very limited availability of the PP, it seems that it is even more highly desired than a Supra.

There are many Espada RLs this year, as the supply now seems to have loosed up a little. They are all sporting the bigger stab and rudder, which apparently solves the handling complaints some have registered.

Mark Nankivil is a popular CD who is doing a fine job. The event system is essentially the same as that of the Nats, with the same impound and round-calling method. The main difference from the Nats is that the ridiculous safety fence is not here, even though we aren't allowed to use skegs. This makes it much more convenient to get to your landing tape; you can stand right on the spot if you want.

Some of the top flyers took nasty hits in the early dead-air rounds. Tom Kiesling (WC team member) and Larry Jolly (previous WC team member) dropped hundreds of points and are scratching to climb back up the leader board -- but any lost points means a flood of guys rush ahead of you. There are a number of highly-ranked pilots in the bottom fourth of the standings (about 85 pilots in the event).

Launching is a key element in such light air, and at no time did the wind come down the winch line. The prevailing wind was across at nearly 90 degrees, but we also had direct downwind launches a few times (I enjoyed one of those). Since the thermals were weak except in the middle of the day, this made for some anxious moments.

I've enjoyed meeting and talking with lots of guys whose names are familiar but whom I've never met or only had slight contact with. That's part of the beauty of this whole event. The cash prizes ($2500 for first) and the world-wide promotion have stirred a lot of interest, and given all of us a chance to experience this terrific occasion (thanks, JR and other sponsors!).

I'll file more info tomorrow, when the scores have really begun to solidify, but I have to tell you the story of my last flight. As I said, I had made my times but was mired down the list (37th place) because of landings that weren't all that bad, but were worse than a whole lot of other guys were doing. I was hoping to make 1000 in the last round, as the air died almost completely and the sun was low over the tents.

I was lucky to get Jeffery Walter, member of the Junior WC team, for my timer. I got a halfway decent launch (540 feet) and headed to the last warm spot, above the slight incline to the east. But when I got there I had lost an alarming amount of altitude, and was down to maybe 400 feet. Other planes were above me, and were circling in what looked to be good air.

Jeffery pointed this way, then that. "The guys a little deeper have better air." "I think it's moved to your right." "Stretch out that circle on the downwind side." "Just slide straight over to your left." Slowly, slowly I lost my precious altitude. My fingers were trembling on the stick.

When he announced, "Four minutes to go," I was at 200 feet. No chance to scratch it out. Even though I was probably too far away to get back, I made one more probe downwind -- and the plane bubbled up, climbing slowly but definitively. Enough for two circles, then it was over; but now I was still at 200 feet, and now there was only about 2:45 to go.

Then the question was whether or not I could get home. The wind was very light, but still it was against my progress, and I inched home, afraid to introduce down trim.

And then there I was, about 40 feet high, and he was saying, "Thirty...twenty-nine...twenty-eight..." With the last erg of energy, the plane scraped to the spot for 71. And thus ended a glorious day of soaring.

Glauco, Mark, Brian, and I met with Gene Trevino and Gene's buddy Tom at a local steak eatery, drank beer, laughed, told stories, and generally whooped it up. Now I'm exhausted, ready to flop into the sack for another day tomorrow. No matter how good it is it probably can't match today. Anyway, good night to MVSA from the WSM 2008.

Tony Estep, Day 2:  On the surface, today seemed similar to yesterday, but the conditions were actually quite different.

Yesterday the sun warmed the field progressively through the day, and there was abundant lift for anyone who searched downwind. Today, the first rounds were flown in nearly-dead air from downwind launches, and many groups had little or no lift, resulting in a number of burials (including one in which I participated, the bad way). Then the winches were re-oriented and the sun came out, and thermals popped. But at day's end, the air went limp and once again there were short flights and guys getting buried.

As a result, the standings got shaken up a little. Brian climbed, I sank, and Glauco jumped up to 15th! He probably can't get to the fly-offs (top 10), but if he can hold on to his place it will be a magnificent result for our flying buddy and his hand-built Supra.

The highlight (or low-light) of the event so far was a protest from a flyer representing some of the international pilots. It seems that in FAI events, the landing points are awarded based on the position of the nose of the plane, irrespective of whether or not the plane shed parts or landed upside down. Yep, you read it right -- you can come bouncing in, have your canopy and stab fly off, and flip upside down, but if your nose is on the spot when the dust settles, you get the full landing score.

Anyway, CD Mark Nankivil convened an anonymous jury of experienced flyers, and their decision was to go by the FAI rule. As a result, some guys who had been given zero landings now got some points.

The actual effect on the standings may or may not have been significant, but it gave everybody in the pits plenty to chatter about while waiting for their group to be called.

The cream continues to rise to the top. Philip Kolb finally had a round of less than 1000 (he scored a 997 in one round), but remains on top. Cody Remington has crept into second place, passing Joe Wurts. Arend Borst, Jon Padilla, Skip Miller, Jim Thomas, and Mike Lachowski are other names at the top.

To give you another illustration of the crowd at the top yesterday, JoJo scored 1000, 1000, 1000, 1000, 1000, and 941. Sounds good? Twenty-second place! However, Jo has continued to fly steadily and with the hits taken by many flyers today, he has crept up to be in or near the flyoff list.

In today's six rounds, I scored around 900 for most flights, with one near 1000; but unfortunately I suffered a hideous disaster flight that scored less than 400 points, and plummeted from 32nd place (my all-time high) to somewhere in the 50s.

At the end of the day I was exhausted and woozy, and had the misfortune to be drawn at random to fly in a little contest they were holding with electric foamies. I didn't make my time, and to make it worse I flew right over the landing spot and scored a miserable zero, embarrassing the hell out of me in front of the beer-sodden, jeering spectators.

Brian had a much better day today, scoring at least one 1000 point round and maybe two. Rich Rennecamp showed up to spectate and served as an excellent timer for Brian and me. It's great to see Rich here, and I think he's having an excellent time.

Glauco has represented MVSA wonderfully with outstanding flying and his usual good-will ambassador demeanor. It would be an unbelievable coup if he could somehow make the flyoff, but even if not, he's had a great weekend. And so has everyone else, whether they flew well or not. I'll try for one more post tomorrow when I get home, with final results and adventure tales.

Philip Kolb actually had a pop off, worked really hard doing things no one thought a Perfect could do but landed really short and with no landing points, which dropped him from a perfect score to 19th.

Ben Wilson posted some updates, pictures and the whole actual scores at

 http://louisvillesoaring.org/

It doesn't take much to drop you from the top. Marc Gellart was in the top 10 but at one of the last rounds today got a 40 landing (max is 80) and it is now in the bubble.

 

We had a barbecue at the field tonight and the combination of beer plus power foamie planes made 3 of them to try limbo under a canopy. It was amazing seeing the pieces of foam flying after they hit the poles but the planes were back flying soon. The first to make it through was actually Arendt Borst, past F3J world champion, flying a hand launch. A couple of the pilots finaly made it after many bottles of CA.

 

Tony did great at the electric glider contest. He had Arendt as timer and did well even if he doesn't agree.

 

Tomorrow we have 2 more rounds and then the fly-offs which I know it is going to be awesome like 2 years ago.

As Tony said I'm not going to make it but to me it is already amazing to be close. There are two more rounds but won't depend on me. Even with two 1000  a few guys ahead of me will have to do badly and if they didn't do in 12 rounds they won't do it tomorrow.

 

Glauco

Robert Samuels: Hi Flyers:  I just checked the results of the contest and it was astonishing.  Our boys did great.  Especially Glauco!  What was amazing is how out of 14 rounds if you did superduper for 12 rounds and had a couple of just ok rounds you were waaaaay down.  No room for error with that group. 

The thought of flying with that group makes sweat bead up on my forehead!!!!!!   That must have been thrilling.

El Roberto

Tony Estep, Day 3: Today's grand finale of the WSM was grand indeed. Rain was forecast, or at least overcast, but instead we got a great day with nearly dead air in the morning and breezy thermals a little later.

We started by flying the final two rounds leading up to the flyoffs, and the main thing on the minds of the MVSA contingent was whether or not Glauco could hang on to his terrific 15th place standing, or even improve on it. I was also rooting hard for Jim Frickey, who was standing 9th as the day began, to make it into the flyoffs. And of course Brian and I were both hoping to improve our lowly status, although we had only modest hopes of that.

The first, dead-air, round did not go all that great for any of us. Glauco flew well and hung out for over 9 minutes, but Ben Clerx was in his flight group and made the 12 minute time. Brian and I met similar fates, flying for around 10 minutes only to get pounded by one of the big boys. I think in my case it was Cody who made the 12.

The second round was a good one for Glauco, who made the 12 minutes and a good landing. I again missed the time, but at least finished the contest with my best landing of the weekend. I ended in 48th place. Sounds pretty dreadful, but actually I was delighted with my flying. I had one round of 356 which killed me, but the other rounds averaged above 900 and I really did only a couple of really stupid things. Brian had all sorts of bad luck, including popoffs and other launch problems, that plagued him throughout. Glauco, on the other hand, danced between the raindrops and flew magnificently. Of all the guys there with scratch-built planes (and there were quite a few), he finished second only to Mike Lachowski (who was 11th, just out of the flyoffs). Glauco scored over 980 points in 12 out of 14 rounds!

Meanwhile, Jim Frickey did indeed make the flyoffs with two excellent flights of 997 and 1000, proving that the road to the big leagues is via the Gateway Open Championship. Jim is now flying a Perfect. Throughout the contest he was limping and in some pain as a result of injuries he suffered in a work-related accident. He's working hard on his recovery and is doing very well, and was flying in his top form.

I was an official timer for the flyoffs, as I had been in 2006, and once again had a front row seat for the excitement. And as always, there was some excitement. It started, unfortunately, right on the first launch, with Frickey popping off the towline -- he said it was the first one he'd had in years. It was sad to see indeed, after fighting so hard for so long to get into the top group. Not long after Jim landed, it became apparent that guys were having a hard time making the time. Ben Clerx, Jo Grini, and Jeff Walter were all down low, far away, and scratching after just a few minutes.

I was the timer for Ben's flight, and he just kept pushing downwind, circling occasionally but getting nowhere. There's a paved control-line circle about a quarter mile downwind, and he finally wound up just on the far side of it, just above treetop height, and started circling.

The amazing thing to me was that even though his circles were so far away and the danger was so pressing, he flew with perfect smoothness and minimal control inputs. The plane stopped sinking, but it sure didn't seem to be climbing. His caller, Aussie Thomas Cooke, was coaching him: "..better on that side...push back a little...it's coming toward us and out to the right..."

Just next to us, I saw Jeff Walter set his transmitter on the ground. He stood up and announced, "Well, that sucked." Then he went off to find a golf cart to retrieve his plane, which had landed off-field.

When I looked back, I couldn't see Ben's plane at all. I checked to see where he and Thomas were looking -- way up, back toward us and to the side. The thermal had popped, and the wind up there was actually in the opposite direction from what it was where we were standing. Ben climbed to the sky, then zipped back with a cloud of other planes to stab the spot at 12:00.

So it went. The lift got better, and it became a landing test. The launches were set up so that everyone was up within about a 20 second interval, so the landing zone was a mass of fast-flying planes. A mid-air seemed certain, but none ever happened.

Joe Wurts avoided mid-airs by using a landing pattern I had never seen before. He set up upwind and flew in tight, high-speed circles until there was only 15 seconds to go. Then he would dive hard toward himself, but with flaps partly extended; going only a little past the far end of the tape, he'd wheel on a wingtip, pull the flaps all the way down, and come in about from about 8 feet of altitude with the nose steeply pitched down while his caller intoned 6...5...4...3...2...1... At the spot: Wham!

Throughout the contest, everyone was stabbing the landings. Skegs weren't allowed and the ground was hard, so the landings were spear jobs. The trick was to get the energy and altitude so you could dive steeply for a short distance, not building up enough speed to damage the plane. Most of the landings sounded like a slamming screen door. There were lots of jokes about the brilliant idea broached on RC Groups of having 30 landing judges, 3 for each flyer, handing out style points.

The flyoff field included four non-U.S. flyers: JoJo Grini (Norway), Arendt Borst (Canada), Murat Esibatir (Turkey), and Joe Wurts, who now flies with his new nationality of New Zealand. Certainly JR and the other sponsors had to be delighted at the tremendous overseas support of this event. I had the great pleasure of meeting Philip Kolb, one of the great guys of this sport, designer of the Pike Perfect and multiple Eurotour champ. With Philip came Murat and two other members of the Turkish F3J team, and there were other Canadians and Australians as well, including WC David Hobby and Canadian WC team member Doug Pike. Philip and David both were bitten by disastrous flights in the late rounds that bounced them out of the flyoffs.

The planes that made the flyoff were 3 Perfects, 4 Supras, 2 Apires and Cody's well-worn Espada RL. With the new bigger tail surfaces, the Espada looks as if it is deadlier than ever. Running between thermals, the plane moves as if it had a jet in the tail, without seeming to lose any altitude.

One of the pleasures, of course, is getting to chat with some internet buddies and other friends new and old. I got to meet master craftsman David Hauch, got to talk a bit to Arendt Borst and meet some of the other international guys, got to see our old flying buddy Marc G, swapped stories with Arizona's John Erickson, and so on. Tom Broeski, Jack Strother, Jeff Walter, and Gene Trevino all were kind enough to time for me, and all four helped me a lot (three 12s and an 11:30 -- I should get those guys to coach me more often!).

What more can I say? You'll have another chance in two years, so start planning now. Fly in it, be a helper, be a spectator, or just go for the hot-dog cart at lunchtime. It's worth it.

One more comment, very important: KUDOS to Mark Nankivil, CD for this top-of-the-line event. Everything ran smoothly from beginning to end. This does not happen by accident. Many workers are involved, and all get a vote of thanks, but in the final analysis it doesn't work unless the CD has things in hand. This isn't a club contest, or even a regional event where a guy might try a little cheating just to see if it works. There was money on the line, there were pilots who traveled 13 time zones, there were wind shifts, rules disputes, cantankerous personalities, complicated logistics, commercial sponsors with their own interests to promote, and a lot of guys who are used to being king of their corner of the soaring universe, wherever that may be. The CD is at the focal point of all of it, and our man Mark was everywhere at once, making things work so well that nobody even noticed all the effort involved.

Glauco Lago, Day 3: I had a great time at the WSM, thanks mainly to old and new friends. It was amazing indeed to see so many people from other countries and makes me wonder how nice a world championship is.

 

The level was high and at those conditions a big mistake or two small ones would take you out of the fly offs. I never in my wildest dreams thought of making it and was shocked for hanging in 8th for a little bit and then finishing in 15th. Maybe because of that I was calm in every flight not thinking about results. Also as said before, it didn't matter who was in your flight group, just get your time and a good landing because someone will do it. Actually there was flight groups won by less than 12 minutes. I was surprised once downloaded the flight logger and attached that flight. This was an early Saturday flight which I managed to make a 10:01 and the round was won with a 10:04.

 

My two "bad" flights were late in the day and early in the morning. The first one I think I didn't go deep enough were a couple of other guys were in neutral air. The other was an early morning with Wurts and Clerx and none made the 12. I was a bit higher than Joe at 8 minutes and was another flight of no touching the sticks when my plane seemed to have a radio glitch since it dove and pulled up and as I said I wasn't touching the sticks. It recovered but I lost a few seconds.

 

In the other hand I have plenty of excuses for my good flight too, like too unplanned slides to 80. Wurts was behind me timing for Doug Pike and couldn't stop laughing for my luck. There was also the theory of following good pilots and believe me it was used at the flight offs too. On one round I had Tom Kiesling and Larry Jolly launching by my side. Both did the same going around maneuver and I followed them, it was big sink but you usually have to go through some to get good lift. At one point was so bad that I bailed out and found a small bubble that took me to the end of the round. Jolly landed with a 4 minute flight and Kiesling had a 5 so it proves you have to be careful.

 

At the fly offs I was an official timer like Tony and the same follow the other guy rule applied. I'm not going to mention the name of the pilot since only him, his caller and I know this but his caller said about a dozen times the air was better the opposite direction but the pilot had his mind set to follow one specific guy. He couldn't do it and scrambled hard during the whole flight. Yes he got his time and a good landing but was 12 minutes of intense sweat while all the other guys had and easy round. Talking about easy round, Jo Grini trimmed his plane, put the transmitter on the ground, reached for a cigar in his pocket and after a couple of minutes reached for his transmitter again, then walked to Mike Smith for him to try the cigar. While this David Hobby which was Jo's caller decided to talk to me since he was plain bored.

 

Good part for my good flights other than good callers and luck was my beloved home built Supra. Yes, the weather was perfect for that plane and it is so easy to fly it. It allows me to make bad decisions and still recover from it. Au contraire of what Tony said, it was the highest placing for a home built plane since Lachowski flies with a Vladimir Supra. But other than Kiesling's own home builds I didn't see many more planes like that. Also got two more pods from Mike so expect two more Supras next year since I'll be busy during winter.

 

Our club did great and kudos to Mark Nankivil for handling so well such delicate environment. As the next WSM, this same talk was heard after the first one but the whole idea of having on even years is because the F3J team selects, which is on odd years.

Many in the club can perform at the level of these top pilots.  The difference lies in that they can do so nearly every round, no matter what the conditions.

At this level, SOMEONE in your flight group WILL make the max in every round; that is a given.  Some perspective . . . Muncie is one hour ahead of us.  The first round began at 8:30 which is 7:30 St. Louis time (that's 7:30 in the Fall not Summer).  Twelve minute maxes where achieved routinely at 7:30!!!!  On day two I was in flight group C in round one.  I watched Joe Wurts fly and get his time in Group A.  I copied his technique/strategy in my flight group and landed at 11 something and a fair landing score . . . Wahoo.  Tony noted that I was getting unhappy looks from the other pilots already walking off field.  Then we noticed Jim Frickey was still up at about 200' . . . jeez . . . not only did he get the time, but he'd need flaps to land.

Also very strange feeling to be walking to the winches and have your timer note, "Hey look, your flight group has Kolb, Wurts, Hobby, and by the wind direction, looks like you launch first . . . don't worry." :^(

I had two poor rounds and two popoffs.  But I did have a couple of bright spots:

1)  I picked better air and way out climbed Joe Wurts . . . who was probably muttering to his timer, "That idiot has absolutely no clue; it's completely unnecessary to climb that high." . . . wahoooooooo I'm beating Joe Wurts, I'm beating Joe Wurts, I'm beating Joe Wurts . . . Uh oh, guess I've got to get a better landing score too (didn't happen).

2)  With two two poor rounds and two popoffs, I was only 20 places behind Larry Jolly.

3)  I beat Gordy.

4)  A Pike Perfect can easily glide 10 minutes without lift (Chris is placing his order for two ships right now).

Many thanks to Tony and Glauco for their patient mentoring . . . after this, the NATS will be child's play . . . unless these guys show up there too :^o.

Brian

 

Tony Estep: On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 8:14 AM Brian Molloy wrote:

... they can do so nearly every round, no matter what the conditions....Somebody will always make the time...

=============

Yep, that's the truth. Philip Kolb had 997 or better in 13 out of 14 rounds, but somehow got himself downwind and low, scored about 600 in round 10, and ended up 17th! Tough crowd!

Last random thoughts:

Skip Miller, long time Airtronics dealer, won the 9303 in the raffle...

Mike Smith made nearly a complete landing approach inverted, just rolling upright in time for the final few seconds countdown...

Many of the top flyers were using 2.4 at tremendous distances...they had multiple remotes in their planes...JoJo had a lockout and near-crash, but got it back and calmly climbed back up to regain the lost altitude...

Some really good flyers on the second page of the scoresheet (worse than 41st): Burson, Glover, Kiesling, Strother, Kallevang, Steve Meyer, Jolly (59th!), Randy McCleave, Scully, Ben Wilson (80th!), Gordy...

Despite crowded air, no mid-airs until the last day when one guy flew too long in the launch area and another zoomed right through him...the wreckage of Dr. Dan's orange Icon was collected on a plastic sheet in the pits for the viewing pleasure of the bloodthirsty mob...

The 12-minute task turned out to be important...I made 4 flights of more than 10 but less than 12 minutes, and I'm sure others did as well...

A bunch of the international guys came in on a jet arranged by Mustafa Koc, who is a prominent businessman back home in Turkey...

In the third round of the flyoffs, at the peak of intensity, Joe Wurts made a pathetically low launch, at least 100 feet below the gaggle...they went left, and he went right...while they were climbing, he walked to the scorer's tent and collapsed into a lawn chair in the shade...once comfortably settled, he flew back to the left and skyed out..."I wanted to let them clear out," he explained...

While holding his plane ready to launch, JoJo took a look down the launch line, decided he had a minute to spare, and rolled a cigarette, and got it lit just in time for his turn to throw...in the middle of a later round he put the transmitter under his arm while he dug out a cigar and lit it...

The languages in the pits were a mixture of German, Turkish and English with a wide variety of accents...as a former New Yorker, it gave me a good feeling...

David Hobby, unused to braided lines, had all sorts of launching problems, but mostly overcame them, twice recovering from a 100' launch to max out...but in the final round, something went wrong, and he wound up off-field trying to save another launch disaster...

Did I mention how deadly those lunchtime chili dogs were....?

Mark Nankivil: Tony, thank you for the kind comments. I really want to place the kudos on Robin Meeks (scoring) and Marna Jeffrey (transmitter impound) as those are the two places that things can go to H&%#@ quicker than you can blink but in all of the years of NATS and these two WSMs, that has not happened. Marna has a process in hand that simply is astounding and makes for an efficient and effective impound - I have never seen them hand out the wrong transmitter or send one out which causes a crash. Simply amazing. And she does it with a smile!

As for me, I was pretty happy with the overall weekend though disappointed by the protest over the landing score on Saturday and its eventual resolution. Having said that, we'll make sure the printed rules address that crystal clear next time around :-) I am proud of those of us in the Midwest who fly as two of the zero flights I had to call were people from the Midwest who owned up to it and took the penalty as a gentleman. Ditto for Australian Dave Hobby - a true gentleman and competitor. Chris Lee's favorite contestant was up to the usual shenanigans but you get to the point you expect it and are not unduly surprised as a result.

Glauco was impressive and beat out some really top notch world class individuals and should be very proud of his efforts. Tony and Brian may not have flown as well as they would have wanted but as individuals at the event, they represented the club to a very high standard. It was great to see Rich Rennecamp there too - glad you made it! I hope that these guys plan on going again in two years (I'm going to be there but as a flier next time around) and that the rest of you choose to come as well. No matter how you feel you may be competitively, this is the
place to watch and learn from some of the best in what I consider to be a tremendous venue - relaxing, fun yet competitive in nature, you really can learn more in three days than you can in flying a decade of club flying.

I have flown with Jim Frickey for years - a couple of decades to be exact - and have never seen him pop off until that first flight of the finals yesterday. I think he would have finished in the top 3 if that had not happened.

Impressive to me was that for the 3 days there were only two crashes (one being a Supra being flown by former MVA member Gene Trevino who took his eyes off of it for a split second and reacquired and "flew" the wrong plane with fatal results), an Onyx JWS which blew up the stab but the model was saved, and one mid-air which an Icon lost. As Glauco, Brad and Tony can attest to, there were some thermals literally packed with gliders and considering the distances involved and the resulting depth perception needed, that is saying something. With 14 rounds and 91 flying entrants, plus the 5 final rounds, we're talking 1300+ launches & flights!

I took tons of photos - an advantage to being out on the flight line and walking around to see everything going on in real time. I will get something together for R/C Soaring Digest and also pass on to Dennis Hoyle of LSF for posting to the LSF site if that is the decision. When that gets sorted out, I'll pass on the info to the club. A slide show at the club's year end bash would be doable too if anyone is interested.

Okay, I better get back to work! Tony, would you care to comment on the models flown and your thoughts on what you see in regards to the whole flying package (models and transmitter)?

Good Health and Good Lift! Mark

Tony Estep: As I mentioned, the competition world at the moment is dominated by Perfects and Supras. There were more Supras here; at the WC there were many more Perfects, the difference being availability. The planes fly differently but are equally competitive; they look different, but aerodynamically there is little difference.

Of course there's a crop of new planes as well, but the performance increments have basically stopped coming; I don't think anybody would claim that a Superstar or Xplorer or Aspire is a big uptick from a Supra or PP.

The trend to the JR 9303 on 2.4 was obvious. The Futaba FG12 is a better radio in my opinion, but more expensive, and the Futaba 2.4 setup has not caught on. There were Futaba radios, but I didn't see any on 2.4. I didn't see the JR 12X, but next time there will be lots of them, and they are surely equal to the FG12. The 2.4 setups flown by the many JR factory team pilots had multiple remotes. As I mentioned, JoJo had a lockout, so it can happen, but it was momentary and could have happened with any radio at the distance he was flying.

It's sort of sad to think, but we seem to be at a flat spot with respect to design changes in planes. There were so many changes, so fast, for a while there, but now everybody is using the same software and the same materials, so when they look for an optimal design they all get pretty much the same answer. This is not the case in dynamic soaring, which is where the big changes are taking place.