LAST EDITED ON Jun-01-04 AT 03:53 PM (CDT) As always, the NW Regionals this year served as an excellent answer to the "Why do I do this?" question all of us ask at one time or another.
Terrific contest, neat aeroplanes, some of the very best people it has been my pleasure to meet. Sticking with a theme, no Howard Rush.
Early Friday morning Don, Paul and I went flying, each getting in two full flights, my third attempt resulting in a nice shock and lots of level laps. The weather immediately went from passable to gully-washer status. With some hail thrown in.
After a very long lunch, during which I picked up one really cool trick for tuning turn rate on my Oriental, Paul went to see his parents, Don headed out to Albany. I thought Bruce Hunt, my host for the weekend, might be flying, went back to the circle. No Bruce, but pretty fair conditions, this lasting for no more than two flights with Mr. Zilch.
Another gully-washer. Yes, with more hail.
Down to Albany, lots of back-slapping greetings, friendly faces. Such a diverse grouping of people, the only common thread seeming to be model airplanes.
Found Don, he was helping a fellow unknown to me but who had just about the coolest, neat-as-a-pin 20FP-powered model one could ever hope to see. They were fixin' to put up another flight as I leaned over and told Don something on the order of, "I always know where to find you, helping someone who obviously is not deserving."
The New Guy thought for a moment, "Are you Dan?"
And so it was that I met Derek Moran, a thoroughly interesting and entertaining man who had put quite a lot of thought and effort into coming up to Oregon. Only to be insulted almost immediately. But also to see some serious Stunt flying by serious folk, of which I am not one.
Story of the day seemed to be a nice-sized rock kicked up by a lawn mower, bouncing off Carl Shoup's shoe and into Jim Aron's fabulous Infinity. Pretty much a bad start to the contest for Jim, who on Sunday relied on the sympathy vote to win Concours, done by voting from Stunt contestants. (I voted for PTG's Diva, according to the little-publicized pact made years ago by members of the Jive Combat Team.)
Bruce is doing some teaching, Friday night we cut out 27 HLG kits for his high school physics class. An excellent use for wood which is not Stunt-worthy and Bruce seemed to have nearly unlimited quantities of same. His Lark is in a condition which indicates we won't be seeing it this year...
Saturday morning it is true there was some wind, and truthfully I was not looking forward to horsing an old crock through it all. But two or three maneuvers in it was clear the wind, straight down the runway, had not a single hole in it, nor was there any turbulence.
Quite decent conditions, to be completely honest. And with the cloud cover there was no sun to fly through and/or around.
This continued through Classic and into the evening, there being quite a number of us wanting some practice, being shut down only by darkness.
But before leaving Saturday's happenings, immediately prior to Bruce's first-round flight in Classic I tried to pump him up a little by telling him how much nicer the air was than would seem to be the case from just standing around watching. He appeared to believe me, came out of a maneuver puhlenty low, just let it run.
Hit one of the holes I said wasn't there, screwed up all three blades something fearsome.
I told him later that he had indeed taught me a lesson. From now on, no matter what the conditions, I will be telling him, "Look, it is really treacherous out there; watch the bottoms for God's sake!"
The wind seemed to come through with a little more velocity on Sunday, but the real issue was direction, as on this day those masses of air were slamming into and over a series of hangars before hitting our spheres of flight.
But ya know, one of the real big attractions of a contest like the NW Regionals is to see how the top guys and their models handle the conditions. This only gets a lot more interesting when there is a turbulent wind, some rain for variety, maybe even a little sun poking through at times.
I tried to watch both flights of the guys I figured would be in the top five. It's really quite amazing how a model which is highly tuned can perform to the levels I saw last Sunday.
As to results, seeing as how I am no longer District Dictator I have quit taking notes, haven't a clue when it comes to a complete listing. OTS was taken by a total whack job. Two whack jobs tied for 6th in Classic, one of them using a borrowed model.
Speaking of Carl's Belfrey Bound, this is one bizarre model which also comes off as being kewl, very kewl. Wasn't this model designed well before there was such a thing as LSD? But how else to explain this design?
A great many thanks to one and all, but especially to the core group sponsoring this contest, Mr. Dave Gardner for his good humor and erudite manner in dealing with Stunt Heathens from Hell.
Steve