I did enjoy myself at the Festival, perfect weather, good flying, good friends, fun toys to look at and buy, and I killed some brain cells at night consuming adult beverages and laughing with my friends.
I also experienced a total loss of my plane in the third round on Saturday either due to receiver failure or being shot down on channel 18. I have had a Sapphire for over four years with the same equipment in it and the same transmitter. I launched and had control on the way up. I zoomed and at the top of the zoom my plane did a wing over and went straight in from the top of the zoom. I nearly bent the stick stirring it around but had no control. When I reached the pile of confetti I checked the on board battery indicator and it was in the green which means there was power to and through the receiver. I had the 1700mAh battery tested and there was 1587 mAh left in it. I will be sending the receiver in for a check up and service and will be seriously pissed if it is OK. My transmitter is good as I flew a friends plane (Thanks Craig) with it for the rest of the contest. I'd also like to express a thank you to the dickheads who take a pin and then sit on it during open flying Friday. This has been a common complaint for years. I'd like to see it mandatory to put a pin with your name on it on the pin board when you take the freq. This way we can hunt you down when you bogart the pin. I know that some pins (channel 11) were out for hours at a time. When people who were flying were asked they did not have the pin so pins were in the pits. Ok, so a person may need to use the pin in the pits to do some work but they should be ready to give it up when someone wants to fly. This could even be done during the contest and would be a double check that the wrong pin was not given out. It hit me that when the F3X guys were taking a picture there was enough money in the picture tied up in airplanes to buy a nice car. If you figure that there were 300 pilots flying three hundred airplanes you get a picture of the dollars involved at the field. I'd like to see a scanner in the impound that could verify radio hits. I know you may not find the guy who shot you down with it but at least a person would know he was shot down and an announcement could be made so if the offender was honest he could come forward. Or if they choose not to come forward they at least know they shot someone down and will know that bad JuJu will be coming to them. I lost a $370 Sapphire, it could just as easily been a $1400 Icon. I'll be back next year fer sure... Tracking #: C1FD835A23334441AC8CB4097D37C049C3F59F80 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.
