We had a great weekend at Lakehurst. The storms of last week spared
us and there were two days of great air and minimal drift. As usual,
the early hours (up to about 4pm) were best for getting things
trimmed out and prepped. Then, once the sun started filtering golden
through the end doors in the evening, it was time to try for the epic
flights.
On Saturday, Doug Schaefer set a new F1D record of around 38:45,
smashing the old mark by about 45 seconds. Brett Sanborn broke it
again on Sunday with an astounding 39:38. Amazing!
Molly Neering flew her F1D either 30 minutes or close to it, proving
she is no flash-in-the-pan. At one point she exclaimed, "indoor is
so QUIET!" Well, not anymore, Molley :) It's great to have a new
personality around.
Jim Richmond, Max Zaluska, and I all worked on HLS. Jim had a
beautiful, and very light, looking model. He and I both struggled
for a while with a too-far-aft CG and ended up moving the wings back
about an inch. Unfortunately, when Jim was launching his first full
motor flight his motorstick gave out and wrecked the model. Jim was
heard to comment, "I guess I made it a little too light".
Something about my new model is requiring a ton more power to fly,
and that's not good. The best ¼ motor flight I could manage was
13:30. As the weekend was winding down I figured I needed to at
least put something up at the ceiling for fun. The full motor flight
did its predicted 54, but was a pleasure to watch. I guess I've got
some work to do for next time.
Max was probably in the best shape w/ his HLS, doing a 14:45 ¼
motor. His full motor flight was lost when the wing folded on a
steer, however.
I saw Nick Ray flying his Ministick a lot, and I think he ended up
with a 13 something. Jeff Hood did around 28 minutes with his EZB.
And there were a couple others whose names unfortunately escape me at
the moment.
One of the base people stopped by to watch and commented that there
were more of us than usual. So I guess our little "contest" worked.
Not huge numbers, but a comfortable and entertaining concentration.
Join us next time!
Received on Mon Aug 13 2007 - 10:45:55 CEST
This archive was generated by Yannick on Sat Dec 14 2019 - 19:13:45 CET