Man on Man Results - Parker Mtn, 02/26/2005

 

Sunshine (!) and westerly winds (!) combined to make a fine day for racing.
After some slight delay for trim flights and ballast checks, we started off
with the new, semi-open class Foam races. That is, any foam-based plane
meeting the 60 in. Sportsman rules on ASRO, or smaller, was eligible.

We flew 15 heat races, with 5 flights per pilot, and ended with a flyoff on a
3-way tie for 4th. This last race of the day produced what is widely hailed
as the Best Midair between Woody and Bob, as they tangled in the far turn on the first lap of the race, allowing Rey to cruise to an easy victory.

60" Foamie Scores (lower total points are better)
1 Fred Seaman 8  48" Halfpipe
2 Dave Bates 9  Flying many borrowed planes
3 Bill DelHagen 10  M60
4 Rey Harju 11+ flyoff victory  M60
5 Bob Breaux 11 M60
5 Woody 11  48" Bluto
7 Nathan Woods 16  56" Bluto

Switching to the Composite 60 in. planes, we flew 10 heat races, with 5 flights
per pilot. The occasional strong thermal out in the valley sometimes
sucked the lift for a few laps, making ballast decisions a crapshoot.
Still, no one fell out of the sky because of it, and the only real damage
came to my new Bird, which did a fine simulation of the dread Acacia Flick
at the near turn.

60" Crunchy Scores (lower total points are better)
1 Nathan Woods 7  MiniBlade
2 Bill DelHagen 9  Bird / Dominator
3 Dave Bates 10  Nemesis
4 Daniel Chiudjian 11  Nemesis
5 Woody Rackliffe 12  Banana
6 Rey Harju 14  Banana/Triffik

Nathan won with a well-used Mini Blade that featured variable nose-droop...an
unusual speed secret he tried to keep under wraps by bending the nose back
in place after each landing.

Thanks to everyone who flew and helped. A lot of walking to the lights was
done by all, and without any yelling from the CD. Can't wait for next time.

Editorial: I think the new format of open foam and 60 composite worked
very well and everyone got a lot of racing in. All you plane-waxers from
F3F should come out next time. There are a lot of very competitive 60s and
races were won by Nemesis, Bird, Mini Blade, Avocet, and even the (slightly
illegal) cute Triffik. No more excuses!

Bill DelHagen
delhagen13@hotmail.com

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Comments from Nathan Woods:

Today was fun.  I was disappointed with the performance of my newly finished 56" Bluto.  My maiden flight was about 10 seconds of airtime just prior to Round 1, Heat 1, and I never did get the CG quite sorted out.  This resulted in 3 DNF's, which will really put a damper on your scores!

It was interesting listening to the chatter during the foamie racing.  Most of us had very inelegant landings with our foamies, and there was a lot of concern about landing the moldies without damage.  Several people flat out stated that they were not going to fly their moldies due to potential landing difficulties.  Daniel however, was not intimidated at all and through out his Nemesis (with flaps) and performed a perfect landing after a few minutes of DS'ing.  I took advantage of the short lunch break and got some laptime in with my unballasted MiniBlade and it was doing pretty good on the course.  My landing was right on the money, and everyone must have figured that if a hack like me can do it, they can do it too :-)

That meant that we had full rounds of willing crunchy pilots and we had a blast, with many rounds having three up at a time for fun racing.  It was cool to see the performance of the planes and the pilots so plainly contrasted.  Woody's Banana looked to be the quickest on the straights and definitely on Base A turn, but he always lost a LOT of momentum on Base B due to line he was choosing. 

One of my more memorable flights was head to head with DelHagen.  Just prior to launch I held his plane and it was MUCH heavier than my empty MB, so I loaded up and Bill, Dave and myself all threw out for the 30 second climb out, only we didn't climb.  Camber and rudder was the name of that game! The lift had cycled down, way down, and we were struggling.  Dave was doing better with his lighter Nemesis, but he wasn't finding much love either.  We made it through the 30 second climbout period and started a very careful and technical race, with my MiniBlade slightly pulling ahead of Bill and Dave. On lap 6 or so, the lift came back and we were all starting to really get moving, but Bill couldn't catch me.  His plane may have ended up faster (hard to tell), but I didn't make any mistakes and never gave him a chance.

My landing with the fully ballasted MiniBlade was a bit shorter than I intended, but looked okay, until Woody commented on my tail trim being out of whack.  Turned out that the subnose had pulled loose!  I didn't have time to fix it, so I just reseated it as best I could, taped the nose cone on and tossed it out for two more successful winning rounds!  However, when I would pull hard elevator at the far turn, the inner nose would shift making my trim way off when I exited the turn.  Made for some interesting flying!

Two more fun races to watch was with Rey Harju.  The first one was with his Banana, he blew a start and dropped a lap, but steadily regained ground (on Woody I think?), and finished the line about 2.5 feet behind.  That was some great racing.  Rey's other Round that I watched (as CD), was with his 28" Terrifik.  He got an awesome start and was leading the race up until about Lap 5 or so, and was finally passed up, to come in second by only a few yards.  That was pretty funny to watch :-)

We ended the day with lots of daylight left, and so we all took turns working the DS groove.  I had the pleasure of flying Fred's extremely well built M60 around for some nice orbits.  DelHagen flew his JW around and nearly into our puckerd backsides (!), while Daniel continued to push his Nemesis through the groove farther up the ridge.  Fred then brought out the brand new SteveDrake GV-60 and that is one fast looking plane!  It looked fantastic on the front side, and stiff and smooth on the backside as well, though he has more CG tuning to due.

I sure am curious were all those new 60" crunchy pilots were, and the legions of M60, Gulp, and Moth owners were.  We had great conditions, good weather, but not enough pilots.  Come on Southern California, come on out and race with us!

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