OVSS Gateway Soaring Open 2011
Photo Gallery (photos by Mark Nankivil and Chris Lee)
That says it all!!!! :)
The biggest heros of the day, in my opinion, were Mark and Bendan Miller and the ever ebullient Bob Keeler. I'll let others tell you how hard they worked.
The bottom line is that the contest was great and MVSA can take great pride in putting on a super quality event.
El Roberto
Robert Samuels, burying his entire flight group in Round 4 on Saturday.
Mark Miller, his timer, helped him cap it off with a 90 landing.
Ed Rau: As some of you already know, we just completed another very successful Gateway Soaring Open. We had 36 pilots on Saturday and 34 on Sunday. Glauco, our famous CD started with a 10 minute round on Saturday then upped the ante to 12 minutes the rest of the day [last round was also 10 min]. It was chilly, windy & overcast all day Saturday with very spotty lift. The task for Sunday was 10 minutes all day. It was a little chilly first thing in the morning but then a little sun broke out & lift was booming. Lots of flyers making their times and lots of great landings.
I heard many times from all of our out of town guests, how great our contests are and how much they look forward to coming here to fly. This is due in large part to the tireless efforts of our equipment manager(s) Mark & Brendan, Rich, who handles the registration, money collection and lunch procurement. 
The out of towners also liked that we had donuts every morning and free water all weekend. Another big thank you to Bob Keeler and everyone else who spent the entire weekend shagging chutes which helped the contest flow smoothly. Another big thank you to Wayne Wimbish, Mike Johnson and Chris Lee for their efforts to get the scores recorded & the rounds moving smoothly. Thanks to Gene Lindsay and Harold Mantz for picking up the lunches each day. Thanks also to Chris for such great pictures of the events and participants.
Last but not least, a special thank you to Glauco for such a great job as CD. He kept the flow going very nicely both days in spite of challenging conditions. He also did a beautiful job on the awards.
As a club, we should all be proud of the great contest we put on and the great time that was had by everyone who was fortunate enough to be there. I'm already looking forward to next year.
Thanks,
Ed
Marc Gellart landing his Tragi 801 with Mike Johnson timing.
Nelson Itterly: One of the smoothest run contest I have attended in a long time. Not one glitch. Congratulations to all. MVSA must be one of the best RC sailplane clubs around. Nelson
Glauco Lago: Guys,
What a great Gateway Open. Everything was perfect, not a single glitch. Equipment was beyond anything I have ever seen, 350 perfect launches. Scoring was smooth, everybody jumped to help setting up the equipment and tearing it down, food was on time and really appreciated by all.
The only problem we have now, we may need more winches for next year : )
Thank you all, great job.
Glauco
I kept hearing all the out of town competitors saying how well things were running and how they were all having such a good time.
It was great to see so many club members showing up early to set up and staying after to help tear down. Lots of those guys were not even flying in the competition.
Its been said over and over but, hats off to the Millers for our outstanding equipment. This was my first OVSS contest but I take it things don’t always go as smoothly as they did this weekend.
Glauco did a great job with everything as CD. Wayne W, Chris, Ed and Mike.. Outstanding job with scoring all weekend.
Thanks to Rich for organizing the food. I am not sure who picked it up each day but thanks to you as well.
Robert, thanks for the porta potty. That was much better standing in the weeds relieving yourself!
If I am missing anyone, my apologies..
Great job MVSA!
Wayne G
There’s a first! Not only did the servo cover pop off on launch, but Art Frost also managed to shake loose his aileron servo, frames and all, right out of his Xplorer wing. If anyone finds it in the grass, please let him know!
36 pilots on Saturday, we flew 3 rounds of 10 minutes and 2 of 12 of pure man on man. It was overcast and it seemed it would start raining at any time but it never did. You needed to be there to understand how challenging was the air, not a given at any time.
On Sunday we had 34 pilots and we flew 5 round of 10 minutes. It started overcast but then the sun broke, meaning a few groups would have boomer air but not always. I can tell you the top finishers had to work hard to finish where they did.
If you missed, plan to come next year, MVSA put a great show. Just as an example, we had 350 launches this weekend without a single equipment malfunction meaning no line breaks and so on.
Congratulations to the Horizon team pilots Wayne Geffon, top sportsman for the week and Marc Gellart, top master.
Glauco
Chris Lee: I had an altogether forgettable weekend (two mid-airs in the first three rounds and all downhill from there) but one flight will stick with me. I was leading the contest, standing at my winch and studying the conditions carefully. Some warm air was trickling by and then the breeze picked up, cooler air. Checked the wind streamer at the end of my transmitter for the direction. Checked one more time, yup, still there, over the left shoulder and close.
I launched and immediately hooked left, prepared to commit everything to my read. As I turned my body to follow my plane across the sky, I finally saw the hawk, nicely established in thermal turns, just a couple hundred feet up and close in, right in the middle of the air I was headed for. The whole group took the same thermal to cloud base.
Afterwards I asked Marc and Bob Burson, the next two planes up, if they had seen the bird before launch. Yes, of course, they both nodded. Easy read. And here I was straining with every skin cell feeling the temperature shifts, sensing the wind direction and trying to formulate a plan: how far, what vector and bailout directions.
Moral of the story: Look before you leap!
Dominic Lewis guides Grandpa Burnoski to the landing tapes after launch.
No, not making fun of Rich’s age, he really is Dominic’s grandfather!
June 12, 2011
Chicago’s Pat Crosby had a leg up on the competition as he landed his Xplorer 4.0m on Sunday with fellow SOAR member Karl Miller timing. Pat won Sunday as Marc Gellart took second. Gellart won Saturday and took home the overall weekend award.