Adam Quennoz: For an event that I didn't flyin I sure had a great time. When I arrived I quickly assembled my sailplane anxious to shoot a few landing. Turned the radio on, then the sailplane.....nothing. Hmmm....check voltage. .5 volts. Something is wrong!! I hooked up the charger and saw the same result. After many attempts to get some milliamps in the battery I decided not to risk flying. Apparently I have a bad cell in the pack that is pulling the rest of the cells down. After every charge, the voltage meter reads 6.5 volts. That's good for a 4 cell pack but not a 5 cell. I want to thank those who offered me a plane to fly or a battery pack. You guys are the greatest! As a personal rule I don't fly other peoples competition planes. Especially in contests. I won't take a chance. The day was not a loss. I got to time in every group in every round. I timed for Steve Goulet in 2m and Unlimited. He usually flew in first group of Unlimited so I was able to time for someone else in group 2.. I got to time for Chris in the last 3 or 4 rounds. It was a good experience for me as I got to learn quite a bit.

I can't wait until Octobers TD contest. I should be fully charged with extra packs in the flight box just in case. See you then....

Adam Q

Robert Samuels: Hi Flyers:  As forecast the weather was really beautiful.  Cool and light winds.  Sky was clear and the field was solid.  We set up along Peruque Ck. Rd. due to the wind direction.  Which meant that landings were over the power lines, cars, parked airplanes and winches. 

I got there at about 8:00 expecting to be the first to the field.  But I was one of the last.  Chris had been there since dawn practicing but what is new about that?  There was already a canopy set up and the scoring system up and running.  Team MILLER soon had the 42 winches, turnarounds and landing tapes set up with a little help from other club guys.  Pete Eaton was out practicing shagging the chutes, bless his heart.  Pete shagged chutes the entire contest almost by himself.  He now has a system worked out that he likes but it requires the chutes be tapped down so they are lined up, more or less.  Pete ... we will do better next time, I promise!

2M which normally does not create a high level of excitement was pretty entertaining this time.  Steve Goulet had his new Sprite out and was looking to take over the 2M class.  In the first round I managed to find lift and buried the next best by over 4 minutes.  But then I had a short flight and Steve and Mark M were back in the hunt.  But then they had bad flights and I managed to regain the lead.  I had a couple of low level saves to max out and managed to stay in front ... but just barely.  Whew!!

Unlimited was hotly contested and the good lift conditions made landings rather important.  I think that Chris' 57,623 practice landings may have paid off as he once again won unlimited.  But things are looking a lot different this year in unlimited.  I don't know if you, the reader, has noticed but we now have a significant crop of young studs making like difficult for us old timers.  Chris, Glauco, Paul, Brendan, Steve Goulet, Adam and now .... Brody.   By now I should be used to be beaten by kids who are strong and skilled.  Been happening to me for many years ... several times a week ... on the ice rink.  Now it's at the field .... Darn!

HIGHLIGHTS

MOST IMPROVED FLIER:  Harold Weaver gets this award.  Harold is trying to break into the soaring scene with a 2M Vista that is not exactly a high performance ship.  During one flight while I was desperately trying to find lift at about 5 minutes into the flight my timer told me that far away the entire rest of the field was skying out ... including Harold.  Way to go Harold.

WINNER OF THE LIMBO TASK:   Even though I announced that we would not have a limbo task Ed Rau decided he would nevertheless include it in his flights.  Ed was having a great flight in unlimited and was last man up when he decided to show off and do a limbo run under the wires.  He misjudged by a little and ... darn ... hit them.  But the damage to his plane is repairable as is the damage to Brody's father-in-laws' van.  However Ed was not daunted by this little mishap so he attempted it again with his 2M.  Unfortunately the results were the same.  But less car damage.  But since he was the only one who attempted this task he gets the award!!!

CHRIS SAVES MY 2M:  Chris was timing me in 2M and I was waaay up.  I crossed in front of another plane and darn if I didn't lose track of my plane and I started flying someone elses.  Bless the fact that Chris has the ability to track every plane in the sky as well as the direction of the blowing fluff, length of shadows, temperature variations, stock market report, my blood sugar, most everyones date of birth and whatever else is going on in the world at the moment.  He noticed I was happily looking north while my plane was over the Busch property doing loops.  He was able to direct my laser like focus back to my own plane .... Whew!!!   I definitely owe him another whatever.

BUMMER OF THE DAY:  Adam, one of our newest stars, drives 4 hours up from Bolivar and finds his battery is not working.  Darn!   On the other hand it meant that I finished one level higher than I would have otherwise.  But Adam took it in stride and having him there is always nice.  Better when he can fly but .... oh well.

If you were not there ... you should have been!

El Roberto

Final standings:

Round-By-Round Scores for Unlimited and 2-Meter.

Mark Miller: Satuday's contest was wonderful. Great weather and a new plane to fly. I made wholesale changes to my radio program Wednesday night and planned on getting to the field after work some evening before work. That didn't happen and so Brendan and I arrived at the field before Chris even. We assembled our planed and got out the bungie. I went up and had to add piles of down trim in all flight modes to get it to fly level. I found that somehow my basic center point was way off so I brought that back to where the plane flew with the trims centered. Even the elevator compensation was close. We launched a few more times and I declared things good enough.

As for Team Miller while we do our fair share of work it is really the membership that makes things happen at the field. I think we are so used to getting set up that everyone has a preferred job and it all gets done. It is kind of like if I drove the van to one of the bad parts of the bronx in New York and parked the van and walked away. You come back a half hour later and things are gone. it's like a pack of vultures when I pull up to the field. Thanks guys.

2 meter was fun except that I blew my first flight and dropped back quickly. In 2 meter you best have a good plan or glom onto someone else's plan and do it quickly or you are toast. No time to dawdle if you have nothing. I had a few good rounds but no one else messed up as bad as I did so there was no catching up.

In unlimited the new Zenith flew well. I quickly got comfortable with it and found that between the different flight modes and some extra camber and reflex on a slider it was like having gears in your car. Depending on your needs just put it in the right configuration and it did what you intended. I still have a lot to learn about the plane. I did get a zero flight one round as I did the old working low lift and made one to many a turn.

Brendan stripped a gear on one of his aileron servos so he went back to his Espada and had a good contest with it. We used the new Airtronics 9489 servos for aileron and rudder. They are tiny and a sturdy gear train and good torque. He had kind of a hard landing the flight before and I think it damaged the gear then. We noticed something weird just before the flight where it blew out completely. We will retrofit his plane with 761's if they fit well. Mostly because if one has a problem they can be swapped out quickly with the servo frames. The 809's are glued in. I am going to start importing some CNC cut servo frames soon and have already contacted them about making one for the 809. I will keep the 809's in my plane and see if it may have been damaged from handling while building. We all turn the servo arm to move the servo but it puts great stress in the gear train as it is not designed for that action. usually we get away with it but sometimes not. Daryl Perkins used the 809/761 servo arrangement on his Worlds winning Icon 2 without an issue. I'm not going to count the servo out yet as a good one for ailerons and rudder.

I too had vision problems at this contest as did others. Art, you are not alone. It seems that those of us with white planes flying to the south with the glare of the sun suffered the most. I originally ordered a red Zenith but had been having vision issued with red in a bright blue sky. When the plane came white instead of red I was excited but now I'm not so sure. a few times I left lift that was down wind to go fly up with with the sun at my back so that the white plane showed up better and I felt more confident. I never suffered from landing early as the lift was everywhere anyway except no one left the down wing choice. Watching Brendan's plane, orange is looking like a good choice for me. Looking at Chris's collection of planes he seems to agree. I may have to get another Zenith or two in different colors and sell off the white one.

Mark Miller

Paul Luebke: I also lost sight of my plane for a short period - maybe about 5 seconds.  This was the first time with my yellow Pike S. and the pucker factor was increasing exponentially.  Checking my Zlog data later I saw that I was up to 1800ft on one flight, although I'm not sure if that was the same flight.  It was a very nice day though and I had a great time.  Thanks to the Millers, Pete, Brody and Robert for the work required to make it a great contest.