Another year of fun n games in Visalia has gone by. It is the largest sailplane social event in the world, with some people arriving almost a week ahead of the actual contest to hang out with like minded folk, and occasionally even fly. Every year I see at least one amazing thing. The most amazing thing that I saw this year was Paul Anderson flying his little 3D electric plane at night under the shade structure. I was having trouble keeping up with what he was doing, I have no idea how his brain was staying ahead of the plane. An awesome display of flying skills.
The contest itself was typical Visalia. Most of the time there was good lift somewhere on the field, at least in the tasks that were longer than four minutes. Of course, there were the occasional slots where it just wasn't working very well. The late morning air was sometimes quite fickle, which cost some people when the thermal would seemingly instantly transmute from lift to sink. And trying to hunt down where it used to be would just seal your fate. Saw a few go down this way. I had to do a couple of eyesight check flights out in the distance when there was only sink near the winches. Congratulations to Edgar Vera and Larry Jolly for winning the 2M and Open classes respectively. Larry in particular was nailing his landings, and he locked up the contest before his last flight as long as he didn't land early. I'd like to thank Hank Shorz for loaning me his backup RES plane, and CVRC for letting me change my 2m entry to RES on short notice. I found out Saturday morning that I had left my 2M wings at home, so I decided to use my 2nd entry to fly RES as I didn't want to waste the entry. It is a very different experience flying an RES compared to the now standard full house equipped airplane. It does make one think a little bit more on the landing. Of course, my RES score beat my Icon score... not sure what that means other than the blind pig found the acorn! It was a fun diversion from the traditional pull the flaps and aim at the target type of landing. Joe Wurts 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.
