Sunday - June 08, 2003

Contest Report - LOFT Bob Steele Memorial 2003 - OVSS #2 (Saturday)

I had a long week which I have been finishing up a major software project, the midnight oil had been spent and Friday at 5pm one of my companies servers went haywire, the work week just wouldn't end.  I solved the problem at about midnight and tried to get a few hours sleep.  TK was picking me up at 5am and we were going to do a one day trip to Ft. Wayne, Indiana for some contest flying.  It turned out TK had a tough week too, but nothing was going to stop us from getting a second OVSS series contest in the bag.  The 3.5 hour drive was uneventful and we arrived in plenty of time, the LOFT field is very easy to find.  The weather was just gorgeous, and the prevailing winds allowed them to set up 6 winches in the longest direction on their field, so the lines were long.

Pilots meeting

The contest format was seeded MoM flown on 5 winches with one back up winch, all with a generator backed batteries, so there was no winch fade all day.  The tasks were 10, 12, 12, 12, an 14 on a 100 point landing tape, expert and sportsman classes flying together but scored separately, otherwise normal rules but the LOFT guys just like the SOAR guys allow model changing.  In other words, this is a contest format I really enjoy.

SOAR club members Ben Roberto, Karl Miller and Tom Kallevang chill in the pits between rounds

Round one was fairly routine, although I do remember Ben Roberto working a bit harder than anyone else in that round, he had some nice patience and slowly worked himself out of a bad situation to a max.  Karl Miller flew his new Eraser Xtreme in a somewhat difficult round for himself, but went back to his Victory C for the remainder of the contest, which proved to be a good move for him.  In round two I was in the last group with the big boys, and we got handed some very interesting conditions.  Richard, Ben Roberto, Mike Remus, TK, Don Harris and I flew into absolute smeg air after all the previous flight groups had easily maxed.  The guys in that group all tend to fly their own air, so no one covered anybody at launch and everyone went there own way.  Siebenaler was calling for me, information was coming at me fast... guys in every quadrant of the sky, and everyone was getting hammered, and Sieb had lost sight of Richard.  I don't think Richard had a very good launch, and took a very direct route over the road to the left of the winch lines.  I played a strategy to fly a upwind treeline that paid off for me in round one, only to just get hammered on the way out and back, Ben was working some buoyant air over the field so I floated over to try use some of it, hardly enough to do anything, but better than nothing.  We flew opposing circles in this light air with our big ICON's, I don't think either of us wanted to change direction because of the energy and height loss we would suffer for the effort, so we dealt with it.  I've flown with Ben before, I knew he would fly smooth and we could cooperate.  Mike, TK and Don had landed, and Sieb finally picked up Richard coming back to the field low.  His entire flight must have been at extremely low altitude.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Richard's Space Pro limbo between a stack of power lines that edged the field, successfully.  Couldn't dwell on that, had to concentrate on the air.  I thought I felt the air feed to the back of the field, so I separated from Ben and circled back to the tree line.  That didn't play out for more than 20 or 30 seconds and I bailed and shot a landing.  Ben won that round with a 5:21, but left some on the table because his stretch left him in a bad position to get a landing which he didn't make.  All that happened so fast, and every second is so important...  I wish I had been a little more patient and stuck with Ben.  Needless to say, that scattered the flight groups.

Will Sears launches as Ben Roberto executes the zoom on his launch

Round three sets me back two flight groups, to fly against three of the guys that were just in the top group with me last round.  I am thinking to myself, man is this a tough group of pilots to be two groups back, and I need to get back into this contest with a max and a landing.  And we all did in that flight group, but the group ahead of us got a nasty cycle of air which scattered a bunch of us again for round 4.  In round 5 I moved forward one flight group, but did not max (nor did anyone in my flight group, but I did not win the group either and dropped valuable time), another cycle of smeg air and I did not get up and away.

Marty's X tail Hera alongside Cliff, TK and my ICON

Karl Miller, Marc Gellart, Richard Burnoski, Tom Kallevang and Steve Siebenaler casually chat and watch the current group of models flying

In round 6 I got to fly with the Team JR guys with 14 minutes of all you could eat air, we all specked out, chatted and finished the contest right.  I remember hitting 14:00 straight up with a 95 landing, and I was happy with a strong finish.

Bill Friend and his highly modified Sailaire.  Notice that he flies with a vario.

An inflight picture of Bill's Sailaire

The contest flow was exceptional, Will Sears had the scoring under control and there never seemed to be a pause between rounds.  The LOFT guys brought out a gas grill and a cooler, cooked up hot dogs and provided ice cold beverages for a lunch donation.  Smiles were abundant and everyone was having a real good time.

Martin Doney prepares for his next flight

Bob Steele's son presents Karl Miller with the first place trophy on Saturday

Saturday's winners.  Left to Right, Richard Burnoski 3rd, Marc Gellart 2nd, Karl Miller 1st Expert.  Shannon Uhl 1st, Greg Prater 2nd, and John Gospodarek 3rd in Sportsman.

As I have previously mentioned, the LOFT club was all over the details of this contest, and already have the official results online here.  Impressive, this is just hours after the contest was finished.