Not much of a story here. I thought that the equipment that was in it was still fine, after all it worked last year... (!) Turned out that the brand X Rx xtal had detuned itself. As I was kinda stupid and didn't do a range check, I found out about the ~100 ft range on the tow. The plane went up the line, the vario started announcing in a cultured voice, "Attention, attention, attent..." splat. The plane had turned around on tow with a 180, and headed down to the ground. It hit at about a 30 degree nose down attitude, totally destroying the fuselage. The wing survived unscathed, which means that at least a part of it can live on. Wiley probably had about 3k road miles on its odometer, so it had certainly performed for far longer than I could ever have expected. As this isn't much of a story, I'll talk about the stuff that transpired afterwards.
After the dark cloud hovering over me moved off to a safe distance, Jim Rolle graciously offered up his backup SBXC plane for my use. The great thing was that it was set up with a JR 10X Tx, and even better, was on Ch 21, which was my primary frequency at this years nats along with the F3J WC. I downloaded his setup onto my tx (transfer cable is a very nice feature), and checked it out. It is based on a setup from the midwest (computer storage and transfer of setups is also a nice feature). Still, after some experimentation, I decided to use a setup based on my Icon, which took about 20 minutes to work out. As I had arrived fairly late, then spent time with Wiley, then more time gathering wreckage, I was seriously late by the time I got things ready to go. Several other teams had gotten on the course by 10:30 AM, and I didn't enter until about noon. The task for the day was longest single flight. They had made GPS measured turnpoints around the valley that we were flying in, the goal being to fly from one to another, to another. The only restriction was that you couldn't just fly back and forth between two waypoints. After some flying, I started regretting that I hadn't figured out how much down elevator trim I could safely use at altitude. This really became an issue in the afternoon when there was a patch of serious lift that was a few miles wide. I had thermalled up to about 5k in altitude, and was cruising on course. But, the air was still great, and the plane kept going up. I queried the vario at one point for altitude and got in response 5463 ft in altitude. It was pretty darned high... and I was scared to push too hard because I was afraid of using too much down elevator. Fortunately, I finally popped out the far side of the lift, and I could start breathing easier. The flight went fairly uneventfully until the late afternoon when my patient spouse (and driver) Jan said that we had to make a pit stop. The next time that we flew by the motel, she hopped out, made a run to the room to powder her nose, while I flew around in sink. Why is there never a thermal where you need it? Finally she got back and we headed down the road. Of course, I was in similar straits by then. We came upon another team that had pulled off to the side of the road to work a thermal. They had a spotter in the back of their pickup truck, so we pull alongside, I tossed him my tranny, pointed in the general direction of the plane, and ran off to a bush... got back a couple minutes later, and realized that I hadn't bothered to drop off the receiver for the vario. Of course, more sink was the order of the moment. It turned out that this was the lowest point of the flight excepting the launch and final glide. Scott Meader had finally hooked up with a thermal about the time that I returned, but the plane was down to about 1500 feet. After climbing back up, we were back in operation. We flew until almost 5 PM when the clouds came over and shut down the thermals. We did about another 15 miles at something close to best L/D speed before landing, finishing up with 112 miles. There is nothing like XC, optimizing your thermal, figuring out how fast to fly based on the expected thermal strength, along with what lift/sink you are flying through, as well as whether it was an upwind or downwind leg that you were flying. Sunday was back to the old style classic XC task. A closed course of 22.7 miles, minimum time wins. The wind was up early, compliments of the upper level low pressure that had transited the previous evening. By the time that it was time to fly, it was blowing about 15 mph on the ground, and about 20 mph in the air. But, there were some very good thermals. I set my goal of having 4000 ft before entering the course, but the thermals just weren't cooperating, so we entered at about 3500 ft. We did the first two mile leg of upwind easily, and cruised nicely on the quartering downwind leg. Got down to about 2500 feet, and hooked a great thermal. Went to above 4k, and got back on course. Jan was a law abiding driver and wouldn't go above the posted 60 mph speed limit, so I had to rein in the plane a bit due to the tailwind. I hooked a superb thermal just before the end of the downwind leg and climbed to nearly 5k in altitude. The 7 mile crosswind leg went easily, and I could do some dolphin soaring in the thermals as we drove along. We hit the turn to the final upwind leg at about 4k in altitude, and only 5.7 miles to go. The headwind was punishing so we drove at only about 30 mph. Did a bit more dolphin soaring on the way, all the while I'm calculating altitude lost versus distance left. Ended up not being much of an issue, as I finished with over a thousand feet of altitude left. The elapsed time was just a little bit under 37 minutes, for an average speed of almost 37 mph. One thing that is really cool about XC, is coming across other teams on course. There is a very strong urge to pull ahead of the other team, and it quickly turns into a race. It is really fun to play leapfrog with another team on course. One team is stopped and thermalling, the other team pulls up into the same thermal. The higher team leaves, and the next team turns to chase. What was amazing was how much difference a little course heading can make. I was on a par with one team leaving a thermal. He went down one side of the road, I was on the other side. After a mile he was at least a thousand feet higher than I. I had chosen badly... but made up for it in the next thermal. I'd like to again express my thanks to Jim for allowing me to fly his airplane for the weekend. I did transfer back the setup to his Tx that I had used for the weekend so he could see what I was doing in mixing on the plane. Jan had a great time driving the convertible Mustang that we rented for the weekend. The last three XCs that I've been in have been with classic vehicles, a C4 and a C5 vette, and I'll toss in the Mustang just because it was fun. Not so sure about packing an XC with a spare wing, suitcases for the two of us, and a full size cooler into the Mustang though. It was a tight fit getting there! Finally, thanks to Mike and Cindy Gervais for organizing the annual event, and Ken Tabb the lodge owner for hosting all of us there. Not a five star hotel, but the hospitality given more than makes up for the rustic location. Joe PS Reminder, the next XC in California Valley will be in late April or early May of next year. It is a must do event for anyone seriously enterested in soaring. PPS On behalf of those of us subscribed via the digest, it is a kindness to edit the attached email that you are responding to. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Rakozy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > "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 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.
