On Friday the 17th, my buddy Steve told me "I may just ride my motorcycle to the BASH". I looked out side, saw it was snowing at my place in the Sierras, as it had been all day, and told him he was nuts but wished him luck regardless. Surely it had to be too cold even in the central valley.
Saturday I headed over Donner Pass and into centeral California. I found no snow on the mountain roads and bright sun in the valley. Plus, it was WARM. Wowie Zowie, winter is over! I tossed my winter apparel asside. Sunday dawned clear but again kinda cold. We dealt with it. Most were cold. Only BASHer Tim, a Fresno dude, stayed in shorts! The wind started at 10mph up the left side of the north slope (my favorite). Through out the day it built up to 20mph. But maintained a hint of character. A very Good day! We flew lots of stuff. Naturally, the Boomerang and the Mongo Jr. were the best choices initially. But when the wind picked up a tad, the Boomer became somewhat outgunned by the wind while the Mongo Jr. needed only two clicks of down trim to domminate the sky. Plus the Jr.'s a great target. Another plane that's great to fly with is the J3 Cub. It's a magnet for those combat wings. They just bounce off so it's cool! Seeing those wheels sticking up when it's inverted is sight! The ol' DAW TG-3 is also a perenial favorite. We each have had one but BASHer Mike still has his and it still flies great! Very cool. Friends I'm a staunch wing guy but having a conventional in the furball really adds to the climate and the fun! If your slope has the wind for it, get a conventional. Additionally, we got to see some good glass too. BASHer Tim Cone who "knows" how to fly glass. Showed off a new Aris (sp?). It was the finest crastmanship I've ever seen. If you've got the cash... ;-) BASHer Mike, a huge foam guy (Mongo's, Staggerwing, Cub, etc...) also had a slick glasser called the Phonix (umlaut over the O). It was a slick racer that he maden flighted. It flew very well. Punched up to staggering heights and took some talent to land well on the slope (like Banos is hard) cause it floated a LONG way on landing. Very impressive. Also, present among our gagle of slope trash was AREND BORST! I was amazed that he felt we were worthy of traveling from Canada. But found that he was actually taking his family to Disneyland. He stopped by to check out Banos and possibly our event (don't remember). But we were honored none the less. He chatted with us for some time. While his family waited in their van. I was impressed by their patience. We were also honored to have a pilot from the Denver area! Mr. Bob Peterson joined us. He happened to be in the silicon valley for work and came out for the fun. We loaned him a plane and TX and he proved that a thermal dude (winch weenie) CAN do combat, too! He needs practice on the "trash talking" but flew great. A nice guy to fly with. It had been a long time since most of us had done combat. And we were pretty green in our skills. Lots of the flying was crazy yank/bank and unorganized. But, as the day progressed we began to see more quasi formation & alignment and calculated hits being made. As a founding BASHer it was terrific to see the BASH forming up again before my eyes. I occasionly started misting up at the nostalgic sight but it was always qwuelled by BASHer Tim's trash talking "So Mrs. Swingle, will Mr. Swingle be joining us today?" Ya gotta love Tim. What ever the event, invite Tim. He's a catalyst for fun. Especially if you bring some muffins or cookies... We adjourned from the slope to the honorary BASH diner, "Ryan's" in Los Banos. And ordered the official BASH finale; a chocolate milkshake. They make great shakes at Ryan's. BASHer Steve took some pictures so I ought to have those on the web soon. Bill "slow stall" Swingle Janesville, CA RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
