Hi all,
Now that the IHLGF is history and things have settled down in the Joy
household, I thought I would share some of my thoughts.
I chose not to be part of the organizing committee for the first time
since it's inception, due to my business situation, not having enough time
to devote to it, and I wanted the opportunity to concentrate on being
competitive.
Those who did take on the tasks that Jo & I relinquished, did a very
good job, as did the entire committee. Thank you for the great job you did
to make it run so smoothly.
I saw the writing on the wall very early this year at our (TPG's)
first HLG contest of the year. Tom Clarkson, the brains behind the scoring
and audio software, Kicked my butt soundly, for the first time ever with, I
think, An Uplink. I had now lost my athletic advantage. I made some frantic
calls to locate a good DLG plane. The wait was fairly long to my dismay,
but I put myself on the list for a pair of Raptors from Brian Buass.
I kept pestering him, but he said it would get here in time for the
contest.
The first one arrived about a month ago. I assembled it as quick as I
could. Finished it on Friday night, Midnight before our last local contest
before the IHLGF.
7am Sat morning I arrive at our field to test fly it. It appeared to
fly well for a poly. I didn't have much of an idea how to launch it and the
first session was pathetic to say the least. Tom Clarkson approached me and
gave me a lot of instruction, Thank you Tom. As I remember it I still
wasn't getting real good height about half way through the contest. At this
time John Erickson came over and gave me another piece of advice on
throwing technique. by the end of the day I heard John say to someone,
something to the effect " Why did I tell him that?" :-) Thank You John.
After bugging Brian Buass enough I finally got the aileron/flap
version of the Raptor 5 days before the IHLGF. I managed to get it
assembled then test flown on Thursday afternoon before the contest.
I was not entirely comfortable with it, so I decided to fly my
modified Feather XL for the first ladder event. It was doing very well
until I had a fuse failure (my fault). I finished the round with the Raptor
Poly version that I had about a month of flying on.I survived that round
better than I expected due to the poor lift conditions on Saturday.
Now I had to make a decision to fly the Poly version or the Aileron
version. I actually made a right decision this time. I choose the aileron
one. After the first competition round flying it, I was convinced of its
capability.
As far as the rest of the contest is concerned, it was very
challenging all day Saturday with no sunshine whatsoever. Sunday had
better lift conditions but they did cycle a lot. Some heats everyone was up
and out, others, no one found a thermal. The wind did become a factor
around 2pm, following a thermal moving downwind fast made decision making
vital to getting back to the field. There were a number of off field
landings. The slope at the extreme southeast end of the field was not as
much of a factor as in previous years because of the very different weather
conditions this year. But Paul Anderson did make a beautiful save there in
one of the fly off rounds.
Most of you have already seen the results, Joe did it again, but Oleg
Golovidov from the east coast gave him a real battle. I had the pleasure of
hosting Oleg and Paul & Rickie Clark (Sky Pilot) at my home and they are
all great people.
Enough rambling, nor for the good stuff.
The Raptor designed by Joe Wurtz and skillfully produced by Brian
Buass, is a great plane. I built the Poly version first. I used a Berg6
receiver, 2 Hitec HS-55 servos and a 720 mAh 4 cell NiMH battery pack. I
cut a number of lightening holes in the horiz. and vert. stabs, against
recommendations to the contrary. But luckily it never broke. The plane came
out to weigh 9 oz.
I then built the aileron version, but I did not want to use 4 servos
in the wing, I prefer flaperons. Again against Brians wishes because of the
chance of fluttering the flaperons. Those who watched me throw the plane
know I didn't have any flutter problems.
I used essentially the same setup as the poly version. A berg6
Receiver, 4 Hitec HS-55 servos, a 720 mAh 4 cell NiMH battery pack, and a
GWS single channel rate gyro for the rudder. No lightning holes in the tail
this time. This plane came out weighting 10.8 oz.
There are my thoughts and some technical info on my planes. Hope the
info helps.
Congratulations to Joe and the rest of the top ten finishers
George
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