Well the last SOAR Turkey Shoot of the Millennium is in the books, and for
a November day in Chicagoland we were treated to excellent weather. Low
60's with a mild north breeze and bright blue skies made for a challenging
day of TD competition for 26 pilots from 3 different states, Michigan,
Indiana and Illinois. Don Smith's handicap system was in effect, basically
making it tougher flight time wise and landing wise for pilots with longer
wings, high tech construction, and for pilots that contest more than
others. Everyone starts with a 6 minute round and the same landing and it
deviates for the next two rounds. With my handicaps for larger than 3m
wingspan, molded construction (they wouldn't buy my request that since the
tips of my Agate are built up I should get the built up wing handicap 8-)
), out of state and national contest handicaps I had to fly 10:48 in round
2 and 13:48 for round 3. The landings got increasingly tighter as well, I
couldn't exactly figure out how close I had to get to be awarded any points
so I just aimed for the pin, measured my distance off and asked
Don. 8-) I'm not complaining, some guys had it much tougher than I and I
like long flight tasks anyway.
There were definitely pilots flying different planes to play the
handicap. Our club president Mike York got the most bang for his buck by
getting the negative handicaps for flying a 1.5m or less wing span ship
with built up wing technology and he hasn't ventured out-of-state this
season contesting, so he was histarting a Skeeter instead of flying his
molded ship! His last task time was just 1:18!!! Guys flying standard
class built up bent wings got nice handicaps being under 3m and not getting
nicked for composite or molded technology.
What all this does is makes it pretty tough for the serious contest pilots
if they want to fly their latest hardware, gives the pilots lots of stuff
to talk about, and gives surprising results for contest. With all the
kilobuck molded toys on the field today Wayne Fredette snapped up first
place with a Sagitta! Wayne won the big Turkey. 8-) If my memory serves
me he did very well with the same plane last year.
It is tradition that all the awards are food or drink at the Turkey Shoot,
and the rest of the booty was raffled away at the end including another
turkey, a ham, polish sausage, bacon, a bottle of 100 proof Wild Turkey!
I have to thank the guys from out of town that drove in to join us, Martin
Doney and Dan deVries from Michigan and Jim Deck from Indiana, you guys are
always a blast to fly with. I also have to thank Bill Wingstedt for CD'ing
a fine contest.
After the raffle the fun flying broke out and we had to get back up in the
sky, for we knew that in less than a month snow will be on the ground and
good flying days will be limited. The sky over the sod farm filled with
electrics, HLG's and activity around the winches increased as guys started
putting their planes back up. I winched up and soon as I skied out, (which
seemed to be a problem earlier in the day 8-), I started lazily coasting
around the sky flying one handed... Pat noticed I had a hand free and
promptly shoved a bottle of one of my favorite beverages in it... and I
continued lazily coasting around the sky sharing the air and BS'ing with
the guys. What a great day!
Happy Thanksgiving to all,
Jim
Downers Grove, IL
ICQ 6997780
Visit my R/C Soaring Page at http://www.mcs.net/~bacuslab/soaring.html
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