Tony Estep: Lest we forget, today is March 6. We have no business expecting a clear, sunny day with light winds and temperatures in the 50s, but by golly we got one!

There were 16 flyers registered for unlimited today, including our two distinguished out-of-town guests, Adam and Jeff. We missed Robert, who was outa town, and Chris had to leave after one flight, but otherwise it seemed as if we had all the usual suspects.

The first launch of the season resulted in a broken line, as Nelson's Daedalus way overstressed the light line on Ed Rau's Batwinch. After that was fixed, we set about launching the first RES group, all of whom hit a magnificent thermal and skyed out.

All seemed in order until it came time for the landing -- at which point I made too wide a base leg and planted my plane in a tree along the levee. Chris was beside himself with joy, shooting pictures one after the other of the forlorn Bubble Dancer resting uneasily among the twigs.

Knowing that he was going to come help me out lifted me partially from my depressed state. At first I was going to pack up, go home, and sulk, but Paul talked me out of it and I resolved to fly one round of unlimited. "If I max, I'll stay," I told myself.

After that, the sunshine, good company, and good air restored my good mood. The air was perfect for a contest, not too hard and not easy either. Everybody fell short of the time at least once and maybe more than once, but on the other hand everybody made it sometimes as well.

I don't have the scores or results. Brian was the scorekeeper, and may post the info later. Brian, if you will email me the spreadsheet version of the results (click Print) I would like to have them to add to my nearly-complete archive of club contests.

We didn't have any awards to hand out, but there was much cheering and laughter as the results were read out. Thanks to our stalwart CD Glauco, who carefully laid out the rules so that there were no misunderstandings. Thanks to Brian for keeping score, and condolences to him for a sad and ugly accident that messed up his yellow Perfect. And as always, thanks to our equipment guy Mark and his faithful sidekick Brendan for having an array of winches that did the job all day with little assist from the wind.

I had a great time despite self-induced misfortune, and it was capped off by a spectacular demonstration of 3D flying by Adam Quennoz's buddy Jeff who showed us rolling circles, knife-edge circles, torque rolls, harriers, hovering in many different guises, and a particularly spectacular maneuver in which he parked the airplane motionless into the wind and then did about 20 snap-rolls in a row.

I forgot how much fun this sport can be! For those who admired my plane and would like a paint-job like mine, I will be offering a clinic at the next club meeting.

Unlimited

Glauco Lago     4859.69     917.2

Mike Johnson     4852.63     915.9

Jim Crook     4747.27     896.0

Nelson Itterly     4482.36     846.0

Art Frost     4481.33     845.8

Brendan Miller     4471.19     843.9

Jeff Pfeifer     4246.44     801.5

Paul Luebke     3970.81     749.4

Adam Quennoz     3355.36     633.3

Mark Miller     3046.85     575.01

Brian Molloy     1975.02     372.7

RES

Nelson Itterly    5160.43    1000.0

Mark Miller    4341.38    841.3

Jim Crook    3196.51    619.4

Ed Rau    1719.84    333.3

Rich Rennecamp    1357.96    263.2

Tony Estep    0.00    0.0

Ed Rau surveys the skies before launching in the RES class.

Congratulations to the winners, Nelson did an amazing job which isn't any surprise, to beat all the composite RES planes and congratulations to Tony for winning in unlimited flying his old faithful colorful Perfect.

The equipment ran really well thanks to Mark Miller's fine care of all our winches. We setup a record of 6 winches and were able to squeeze all RES pilots in one group. We could have done the same in unlimited and make two groups of 6 but that would be pushing a bit too much so we settled for 3 groups of 4.

I think the pace was good and we were able to fly 5 rounds of 10 minutes due to the equipment running really well. Brian got the hang of the scoring software really fast and we were moving, thanks Brian for jumping in and taking the scoring duties, much appreciated.

Those guys from the Southwest, Adam and Jeff were super. Both got good scores and some killing landings, it was other day when Adam was using a winch for the first time and it seems he is getting the hang of the thing. Jeff put an amazing show with his electric plane and I was to record some of it with the little key chain camera. Will send to Chris so he can upload. Thanks both of you to make our contest and hope you had enough fun to keep coming.

Thanks to all that showed up and helped today. Special thanks to Joe for bringing many boxes of Krispy Kremes, they were good and kept us going, next time bring an airplane (along the donuts : )

Glauco 

Nelson and Daedalus kick off the 2010 season with the first launch in RES.

Just wanted to say you guys have ruined me.....THANK YOU!!!! Man what a blast!! Not bad for my first soaring contest. Lack of experience played a heavy roll. My decision making killed me. I thought I knew where to go but there was nothing there. I did make time on two rounds out of the five. The highlight for me was the 100 point landing on the last round. Nose against the peg. It was a short flight tho. Three minutes and some change.

Now it's time to practice what I've learned and see if I can move up the scoreboard. Hopefully by next months contest I'll have my new ride up and going and be able to float about the sky like the rest. The NYX is not a floater.

Glauco did a great job keeping things moving and my fellow members of MVSA were very warm and welcoming. It was great to put faces with names.

Now if I can just keep my Blaster together long enough to make the first HL event.

Take care fellas....now it's bedtime.

Adam Q

Mike Johnson had help bringing his equipment to the field.

Mark Miller: On thing about yesterday. It was one of those days where one round you could aimlessly bore holes in the sky while trying different mixes and control throws plus wiping spider webs from your hat brim and talking about stuff with your timer and still get your time with ease. Other rounds a 2:30 with a 44 landing will win the round for you.

Mark

Jim Crook picks up a couple landing points in the first round of RES.

Tony Estep: For all who missed the show, I'm sure that pix will be posted with the contest report. Anyway, yesterday on the first flight of the season I lit my Bubble Dancer in a tree just behind the levee, about 60 feet up. It looked to be undamaged, just perched there among the branches.

As I mentioned before, it's amazing how many of the club members have a tree service on their speed dial. Thanks to Nelson, I got a guy who agreed to meet me this morning at 9 a.m., and sure enough there he was. All by himself, armed with a little handsaw, about 10 feet of rope, and an aluminum ladder. He claimed to have insurance.

He did not climb the tree: no spikes, belt, or any other such gear. He just climbed the ladder, which looked dangerous enough. Eventually he got the plane to fall to a lower branch. He descended and found a busted-off tree branch about 12 feet long. He sawed it until it turned into a long pole with a fork at the end, and headed back up the ladder. A few minutes later I had the plane in my hand. It is now residing safely in its home in my shop, warm and comfortable.

The only damage is a dent about 1/4" deep and about 1" long in one tip panel, and I lost my ballast rod (25 cents worth of steel rod from the hardware store).

Thanks so much to Nelson, Brian, and others who offered tree-climbing numbers. Thanks also to Paul who talked me into sticking around to fly in Unlimited despite my disgust at having done such an idiotic thing.

Next time we land in that direction I'll ask for a special tape 100 yards upwind, plus a flag man at the back to warn me when I'm getting near the trees.

Below, one of our visitors from southwest Missouri, Jeff Pfeifer, flies an electric foamie after the contest.  Video by Glauco.