|
September 13-14, Hollister CA: The 5th Annual Bob Whitacre Memorial Pattern Contest was attended by 35 pilots! That makes this the largest contest in D7 to date! In these times of high gas prices my sincere thanks go out to all of the pilots who attended. When you have a contest with this many pilots the CD can use all of the help that he can get! Special thanks to Dennis Kanemura who came out both days and judged; also special thanks to two of our local IMAC flyers, Maurice Culverwell and Tony Wilson who came out and judged on Saturday. (I owe you guys!) As usual at all contests, thanks to all of the contestant judges who got in the chair when I asked! As always, a very special thank you to my wife, Deborah who helped in every aspect of preparing for and running the contest.
We had great weather all weekend. There was a little low clouds and overcast both days that slightly delayed our start but the afternoons were sunny and clear with almost no wind and temperatures in the upper 70’s. The Intermediate and Sportsman classes probably had the best “battles”. I think that both classes came down to the last round. In Advanced Scott MacAfee flew consistently well and posted a 4000. In Masters Jerry Budd and Chris Fitzsimmons resumed their battle from the Masters finals at the Nats. Jerry flew great and beat Chris out but I know Chris is getting serious as we head towards the District Championships. Troy Newman drove out from Arizona and flew very well with his Euphoria biplane in FAI. Troy also finished with a 4000 point score. Intermediate had quite a battle with all of the top three pilots winning at least one round. In the end, Kevin Sung edged out the competition to take first. Sportsman had a battle with young Jacob Boracca edging out Robert Beaubien to take first place.
As usual this contest presents the Bob Whitacre Memorial trophy to one pilot that meets the winning criteria. For the past two years the trophy has been awarded to the pilot who flies the highest score over his “average” score. Each pilot has a handicap that is based on his flight performance over his three most recent contests. Last year Bill Sheets in Masters won this trophy and this year it was won by Robert Beaubien in the Sportsman class. Lorry Whitacre was on hand to present Robert with the trophy.
We had a turnaround in that there were 11 FAI pilots at the contest! This caused some groaning by us poor Masters pilots who had to judge all of these FAI guys! Seriously though, it was nice to see so many pilots flying FAI.
Scott Covey as always did a great job of rounding up sponsors to support the contest. We received very generous support from the following sponsors: Fliton, Horizon/JR, APC props, Jaccio Products, Budd Engineering, and Adrian Wong wing covers. Alex Shim from Fliton generously donated a $300 gift certificate that was good towards the purchase of the new Fliton Element 170. This prize was “snapped up” by Don Atwood at the auction. I think that there will be an Element 170 in Don’s hangar very soon! The auction raised ~$500 for the San Jose Wavemasters club thanks to all of our sponsors!
The following are the top three results in each class:
FAI
- Troy Newman, 4000
- Scott Covey, 3871
- Jim Kimbro, 3824
Masters
- Jerry Budd, 3987
- Chris Fitzsimmons, 3951
- Jon Carter, 3780
Advanced
- Scott Mac Afee, 4000
- Bob Gillespie, 3756
- Steve Kaneshiro, 3704
Intermediate
- Kevin Sung, 3961
- Dave Wick, 3913
- Mike Greear, 3886
Sportsman
- Jacob Boracca, 3956
- Robert Beaubien, 3898
- Tak Takayama, 3726
Jon Carter
|
Whittier Results... It was close, waiting for the last round, in a few classes.
Chris F won the Raffle, a new Inspire 90, then his 'number' came up again, and like
a true gentleman, he 'passed' on another pick letting someone else get a prize.
Doing the gas pool at Whittier was a cooperative effort. Hyde Mounts sent $50, Adian
Wong contributed, CD Lynn and Ralph DePalma matched each others contribution, Fliton
contributed an airplane and Bob Smith glues sent in a box of CA. Bob G, and his
ZQ, had a wing tube fail in a snap, it went in hard. **** There seems to be a trend
developing over the definition of maneuvers and how they should be flown. We need
ONE definition, not two. You would think the rulebook is clear, but interpretation
of some maneuvers are different from pilot to pilot and judge to judge... and there
in lies the problem. It will be interesting as we approach the District Championship
to see how this works out. Also, we need consistent judging or our sport will fail.
We can not continue to have family members judge other family members, and as important,
we must all agree what a maneuver should look like.
|
|
|
FAI
|
Masters
|
Advanced
|
Intermediate
|
Sportsman
|
|
1st Place
|
Troy Neuman
4000
|
Jerry Budd
4000
|
Noah Yaney
4000
|
Mike Greear
4000
|
Tak Takayama
4000
|
|
2nd Place
|
Jim Kimbro
3783
|
Chris Fitzsimmons
3949
|
Jarvis Johnson
3917
|
|
Paul Crittenden
3965
|
|
3rd Place
|
Steve Hanna
3722
|
Jon Carter
3932
|
Bob Gillespie
3846
|
|
Robert Beaubien
3839
|
|
HERE is a servo pot from an electric pattern
plane after 588 flights. It seems to be warn a bit but still good for another 200+
flights based on current wear patterns. Just FYI.
OAKDALE 08
You know, if you have flown at the Nats, and you make the finals, everyone
has 2 planes. Here is Derek and Adrian showing us
their backup planes for the uncomming Nats. I was told they flew these in
2 rounds at Oakdale, just to make sure, if the planes are needed at the Nats 08,
they will be ready. Unconfirmed results of that round is that Derek took 1st and
Adrian was 3rd. Seems the planes are flying well!
Still no 'official' results, but this is what I heard. Craig Blodgett had radio
issues on Sunday, he packed up and took his kids to the Zoo! He now has his 2.4G
in the plane, and it's working fine so far. Jim K won FAI, Derek was 2nd and Adrian
was 3rd. In Masters, Chris F won, Matt Kimbro, in what I heard was good flying,
was 2nd, and the Sheriff was 3rd. Kevin Sung won Advanced. Not sure of other results..
but soon I think. Oh, Everyone got in 4 flights except Masters, who settled the
contest on 3 flights, scoring the best two.
A Special thanks to Ralph DePalma for helping with everyone's gas - a large expense
for anyone traveling any distance and Luke Peng handling the scoring. Also, Bill
Sneed came out to Judge, thanks for these efforts! I know Dick Belden, the CD, appreciates
everyone's help. sc
|
Chris and Jon get some gas money!
|
HEMET 08
For you Nor Cal guys, timing on ths trip is right at 6 hours w/o stops.
Jon and I arrived around 11:30am, left at 5am. The wind is howling from R to L -
so reverse flight direction for us. Tomorrow is 'suppose' to be a nice day with
temps in the high 90's with lighter winds and reverse direction. We'll see! The
Hemet field and the
entrance to the field. After a long day of driving, Jon is pooped and need
to catching his beauty sleep rest. He claims
this helps him fly better and is a secret to his upcomming outstanding scores!
Before I get into some details of Saturdays flying,
Harry Gould was acknowledged today for his continuous support of RC activities
throughout the last 40 years (or so). Greg Frohreich presented Harry, along with
Harry's lovely wife, a small award for all Harry's contributions to RC.
Ok, it's Sat, 6am.. we are heading to the field to get the tarp set up and secure
a place in line for the 8am pre-fights. There is no wind, it's about 75 degrees
out - at 6am! Pilots start arriving shortly after we got there. Here are some pictures...
Steve Kaneshiro gets a little help from Tak Takayama,
Noah Yaney and his Father, and faithful mechanic
prepare for a flight, Tak and is plane,
Wayne Lovett and John Contreras get things ready,
Team Kimbro gets ready.. Chuck Hartman
shows off his plane! Alex Shim and is plane.
Taking some note, there are 3 sets of Father . Son teams here today; MacAfee's,
Kimbro's, and Yaney's.. good to see. At the pilots meeting Rusty gave
Chris Fitz got a special award from Rusty Fried - take a look at Chris's
KF column last month.
The contest is over, we are on the way home, but not without incident.. seems our
radiator hose decided to spring a leak just up the Grapevine.. which caused the
transmission to overheat, so we had no power and we were starting to overheat the
engine also! Scott called Chris F, who was a few miles back. We were in the far
right lane with Flashers going, Chris pulled in behind us and followed us to Gorman
near the top. We opened the hood and found the hole. Bought a
Bike patch kit and 2 metal hose clamps.. we were on the road again in 45
min or so.. Chris followed up just in case.. but all was fine. I can say now, we
made it home fine wtih this "McGiver" repair!
|
|
|
FAI
|
Masters
|
Advanced
|
Intermediate
|
Sportsman
|
|
1st Place
|
Steve Hanna
3951
|
Jerry Budd
4000
|
Noah Yaney
4000
|
Mike Greear
4000
|
Tak Takayama
4000
|
|
2nd Place
|
Scott Covey
3934
|
Chris Fitzsimmons
3877
|
Scott MacAfee
3810
|
Chris Johnson
2788
|
Greg Meierhoff
3846
|
|
3rd Place
|
Jim Kimbro
3923
|
Jon Carter
3759
|
Bob Gillespie
3804
|
|
Wayne Lovett
3846
|
|
What is interesting here (to me) is that Jerry Budd was clearly the dominate flyer
given the competition he flew against. All three place winners, and the 4th place
pilot, Rusty Fried, are all preparing for the Nationals in a few months. Jerry seems
to be a well-oiled machine at this time. Also, I believe everyone won at least one
round in FAI - and you can see how close it was. Steve is doing a great job coming
from IMAC and will be a threat at the D7 Championships. We all better bring our
"A" game, it will be a great battle for sure.
|
NAPA 08
|
|
|
FAI
|
Masters
|
Advanced
|
Intermediate
|
Sportsman
|
|
1st Place
|
Don Atwood
4000
|
Chris Fitzsimmons
4000
|
Scott MacAfee
4000
|
Kevin Sung
4000
|
Michael Fan
4000
|
|
2nd Place
|
Derek Koopowitz
3823
|
Jon Carter
3944
|
Bob Hixson
|
Dave Wick
3897
|
Dave MacAfee
3976
|
|
3rd Place
|
Adrian Wong
3802
|
Luke Peng
3732
|
|
Ron Davies
3544
|
|
|
20 pilots registered, 18 finished the contest. Atwood had some problems with the
ESC - he's now flying Adrian's backup plane and winning. Each 'won' round increases
the rental price by $20 / flight! (Adrian basically flew for free)
Don shows us his 'winning form' which we have to contend with all year! Koop
zero'ed a few maneuvers and had general problems with the brain - but we know he'll
be improving. And, FAI pilot, 'Wings Level Wong',
shows us his landing technique. Weather was excellent. Oh, Roy Speights lost a plane,
seems the wing bolts were not secure, the wing twisted 90 degrees on the 2nd to
the last maneuver and in it went. Sorry Roy! New Flyer Michael Fan came from behind
to win Sportsman in his first contest. Guess he's here to stay! Kevin Sung also
turned in a good performance in Intermediate but must up his game for later in the
year. Like Peng came in 3rd place in Masters, and I happen to know Luke, Kevin and
Michael fly together. Whatever they are doing is working.. but keep the focus on,
we need more points at the D7 Championship. Welcome to FAI Mr. Frank Capone.
|
Hello. My name is Chris Khosravi. I'm a junior right now in high school and I'm
starting to search for a college; thinking of AZ State. I'm a competitive diver,
and as you can see, I like to fly Pattern also. I'm currently in District 6 and
competed in sportsman once (got 1st) then moved up to Intermediate, got 1st again!
I'm going to continue with intermediate for this year then move to Advanced next
year. I checked out the district 7 website and it seems like you guys have a pretty
big team. I would like to join you guys in the future. Hope to see you at a contest
this year. (note: Bill Wallace is in contact with Chris).
ALSO **** Michael Fan, a new flyer in San Jose, and attending his
first contest in Napa this weekend, has just received his US Citizenship! I flew
with Michael on Thursday (sc) and he's trying hard. Kevin and Luke with no doubt
take Michael under their wings and teach him the tricks of the trade. Michael, welcome
to pattern and the US
|
Training Day 1
A success for those who attended. We flew 'wings level', talked about trimming,
and had a nice lunch.
Be sure to attend Training Day 2, coming to a field near you!
And, for anyone interested in working on a YS.. Derek
gives a few tips!
|
Riverside, 4/12
Once again the Pattern gods played with us at Riverside. This time it was the wind,
on Saturday morning as the gusts started right away at 15 - 20 mph. The CD, Lynn
Burks, took a vote, and it was decided to wait until after lunch to see if they
would die down. The wind reached a high of about 28 mph at 1:00pm, and then started
to subside. We finally started about 2:15pm and proceeded to get in 2 1/2 rounds,
only quitting when it got too dark to safely fly. On Sunday, the weather broke and
we were treated to a glorious day with little to no wind, although the temperatures
got into the mid 90's. We wound up flying 5 rounds and everyone seemed to be having
a great time. We welcomed back an old pattern friend Steve Hannah to his first contest
since finding his way back from the dark side (IMAC). He did a great job in FAI
flying a new electric Pinnacle. Another interesting development; Matt Kimbro jumped
from Intermediate, where he was the Dist 7 champion, to Masters. And to make matters
more depressing, he wound up 3rd, beating us old codgers who have been in this class
for a while. That’s sure great for Matt's ego, the rest of just made excuses! Looking
at the scores, Tony and Mike had a lot of fun is Intermediate! Gillespie gave a
clinic to the other Advanced Flyers! Mr. Masters, Rusty, continues to show what
35 hours of practice per week can do, and Kimbro and Greg F looked to have a nail-biter
going on in FAI. Other than that - it was thankfully a very safe and incident free
event. And we did have 21 pilots which is heartening. We had the usual high turnout
in Masters, which made for marathon judging for some of the guys - ask Jerry Budd
sometime about his idea to help this situation, it actually was very interesting.
Our next contest down south is at Hemet on the 17th - 18th of May. Hope to see you
all back for that, and maybe we can get some of you guys from up north to come down
and enjoy our southern hospitality. Hemet is a great location and the club does
a good job for us. See you there.
Here are the results.
Sportsman
1. Greg Meierhoff 3991
2. Wayne Lovett 3866
3. Tak Takayama 3851
Intermediate
1. Tony Watkins 3996
2. Mike Greear 3946
3. Chris Johnson 2360
Advanced
1. Bob Gillespie 4000
2. Jim Bronowski 3805
3. Steve Kaneshiro 3749
4. Jim Brown 2419
5. Jarvis Johnson 971
Masters
1. Rusty Fried 4000
2. Kris Fitzsimmons 3953
3. Matthew Kimbro 3768
4. Bill Sheets 3702
5. Bill Wallace 3697
6. John Contreras 3561
7. Lynn Burks 3401
8. Chuck Hartmann 3314
FAI
1. Jim Kimbro 3977
2. Greg Frohreich 3962
3. Steve Hannah 3845
|
YUMA Contest / Results
For the second annual Yuma Aeromodelers Pattern contest, the weather gods decided
to give us a break from last years heat, so we ended up with 2 days of beautiful
70 - 80 degree weather. Unfortunately, even this was not enough to bring out a crowd
- we only had 12 pilots. This is the same amount as Lancaster - I hope this is not
a long lasting trend. The classes were pretty well represented, with only FAI having
a lone competitor - the ever consistent Greg Froherich. The weekend went very smoothly
with John Contreras and Dave Dehart doing another bang up job running this fun contest.
Even with the unique noon time migration to the opposite side of the runway (due
to the sun), we got 4 rounds in on Saturday and finished by 5:00 running 1 judging
line. On Sunday the final two rounds were completed, scoring finalized, and awards
given out by 11:30. This allowed an early start on the road back home for most competitors.
No major mishaps were reported, but we are all going to have to chip in and buy
Robert Beaubien a pair of off-road tires for his DJ - I think he went off the runway
into the dirt on every landing, but John and Dave appreciated the mowing he gave
the weeds alongside the runway. All in all, a great time was had by all, and we
were happy to hear that in spite of the low turnout, the Yuma club will have this
event again next year. On a final note - the Riverside contest is coming up in a
couple of weeks (April 12-13), so lets try and reverse this low attendance trend,
get out there and support the clubs that give up their fields for the weekend. I
look forward to seeing you there.(Bill Wallace)
Here are the numbers - (Click on the CLASS to see the winners)
Sportsman
1. Tak Takayama 4000
2. Robert Beaubien 3841
Intermediate (this is a great Picture!)
1. Mike Greear 4000
2. Chris Johnson 3546
Advanced
1. Ken Melbye 4000
2. Jim Brown 3697
3. Jarvis Johnson 1154
Masters
1. Jerry Budd 4000
2. Bill Wallace 3562
3. John Contreras 3441
4. Lynn Burks 3297
FAI
1. Greg Froherich 4000
|
|
|
FAI
|
Masters
|
Advanced
|
Intermediate
|
Sportsman
|
|
1st Place
|
Jason Shulman
4000
|
Jerry Budd
4000
|
Ken Melbye
3989
|
Tony Watkins
4000
|
Greg Meierhoff
3990
|
|
2nd Place
|
Troy Newman
3944
|
Rusty Fried
3968
|
Jarvis Johnson
3940
|
Mike Greear
3835
|
Robert Beaubien
3897
|
|
3rd Place
|
Chad Northeast
3817
|
Dennis Suding
3601
|
Brad Schrimsher
3781
|
Ricardo Arcibar
3331
|
Wayne Lovett
3801
|
|
4th Place
|
Greg Frohreich
3679
|
John Contreras
3510
|
Jack Keiser
3712
|
Chris Johnson
2659
|
William McKinley
3414
|
|
5th Place
|
Nedim Bek
3110
|
Bill Sheets
3506
|
James Brown
3157
|
Jerry Plyler
2276
|
Lary Field
3338
|
|
6th Place
|
Robert Venables
3089
|
Bruce Brown
3390
|
|
Mike Miller
957
|
|
|
7th Place
|
|
David De Hart
3347
|
|
|
|
|
8th Place
|
|
John Wisniewski
3289
|
|
|
|
|
9th Place
|
|
Lynn Burks
3250
|
|
|
|
|
10th Place
|
|
Loe Kitila
3089
|
|
|
|
|
11th Place
|
|
Ralph Depalma
2153
|
|
|
|
|
|