"Wiley has finally departed to the great thermal in the sky after almost two decades of cross-country soaring."
Joe, is there another "soaring story" that needs to be shared with the group? Hummm? It may help with your grief. ;-) Pastor Bill -----Original Message----- From: Joe Wurts [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, September 27, 2004 10:14 PM To: RCSE Subject: [RCSE] Soaring, TD, Icon, NASCAR... It isn't even GPS season yet. I wish that there was a way to transmute the standard TD contest into a soaring contest, but it just isn't going to happen. Every so often a soaring contest breaks out in the middle of a TD event, but not that often out here in the west. Typically, the thermal portion is just a minor barrier to be stepped over before the real money is made or lost in the landing circle. My view is that I like soaring events. If the precision flying with respect to the ground is what was important to me, I would have taken up pattern flying. In other words, I don't really look at landing proficiency in the same light as I do soaring proficiency. I can say that I've won, and lost, the biggest events in the world due to landings. But what I treasure are the soaring flights in these events, not drilling the plane into the sod accurately. Fortunately, there are some real soaring events out there for the intrepid of heart. A couple of weeks ago I attended what I consider the pinnacle of soaring flying, a cross-country contest. And even better, all of the competitors flew for a large portion of the day, with some for more than seven hours on Saturday. The average distance flown on Saturday was 64 miles per team, with the top three teams getting more than 90 miles. Note, this is in a single flight, not an add-em-up. Yup, conditions were good, although it was shut down early when a layer of mid altitude stratus moved over the area. Lots of people flying a soaring contest, and the landings were measured not with a tape, but an odometer! There are other contests that are all about soaring, and not so much about landing. HLG is a good one. It is all about reading and working the air, with a derived requirement for good control of the airplane both for thermalling, and in the turnaround when the conditions are good. F3B is a pre-eminent example, although it has some other challenges which make it more difficult to learn. BTW, if you can't handle your plane properly, you cannot soar well, so I'm not sure that I totally agree about the airplane handling justification for the emphasis on landings are merited. To paraphrase Bozo, I got the plane that I designed... And I finally figured out how to design the airplane that matches my flying style, which is what it is all about. Find out what floats your boat, and LEARN how to fly it. The plane of the month club members typically don't earn much wood in the winners circle. I also happen to believe that it gives me an advantage, but your mileage may vary. It is just that it is such a good match for how I want an airplane to fly. Of course, this won't stop my search for the next world beater! NASCAR. The rules that they are using are silly for measuring the best team in the season. But, they work well for the advertising. Guess what, NASCAR isn't about the racing, it is about a very large, and very successful, business. If a team has wrapped up the season championship in points well before the last race, fewer people are going to be watching, which means lower advertising revenue. Not exactly an appropriate analogy for soaring, as much fun as it would be... DP did note that it does match up fairly well with F3J. Throwing out the preliminary scores just doesn't make much sense to a lot of people. Back to lurking, Joe Wurts PS A moment of silence is requested for my now deceased XC ship, Wile E.s Revenge. Wiley has finally departed to the great thermal in the sky after almost two decades of cross-country soaring. Time to design the next generation XC ship after a suitable mourning period. 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. 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.
