The extended after hours session was well worth the time and money. At one point, there were four F1Ds in the air (Kagan, Bennett, two of the Tysons). Four lone F1Ds *floating* in the KSU field house in hushed silence -- I loved the atmosphere.
I'll report some of the things I observed. Later, I'll post a few videos I took. Not many were taken, as I was always busy trimming and flying my models.
Mark Bennett deserves grand kudos for setting a new Cat II F1D record. This happened late into the night, after Mark had destroyed his main F1D wing on a previous flight when the steering balloon burst during a steer. He tried a couple of back-up wings, found one that he liked, and was able to muster the patience and nerves to get a new model flying to set the record. After a quick bite to eat where we grilled him about his record flight, he was on the road back to Omaha. Well done, Mark.
John Kagan was also hunting to break his own Cat II F1D record. His model flew beautifully. On one flight where he was near the record, his model suffered an unexpected tail slide at 30'. For this beginner, it was great to witness the great flying put on by John and Mark. Don't be surprised if the record is broken again soon by one of these gents. Buy your tickets now for Kent 2012, if not just to witness the great F1D flying.
The air during the contest wasn't very good, especially for the guys flying the ultra light EZBs. Jim Richmond came in first, and I was a not-too-distant second. Jim's time was about 19:30 and mine was 18:50. Later in the evening when the air was a little better, I was able to clock a 20:45 flight. Jim had put away his EZB by then, so we didn't see his usual 23+ flights.
Leo Pilachowski flew a very odd looking but great performing F1L. It has no wing dihedral and only vertical wing plates. It flew very slowly with slow prop RPM. Leo took first place in F1L.
It was great to see the three Tysons all flying F1Ds.
John Kagan's CLG was incredible. I wish someone has a video of it flying. He gets a really high launch and a really slow glide. I guess that's how you set a new CLG record.
Some of you may have heard that I came close to breaking the F1L record. Well, I didn't break it. I had a great flight of 16:23, which betters the current record of 16:06. But when we processed the model after the flight, it weighed only 1.17g. (F1L has a minimum weight requirement of 1.2g.) It was a costly rookie mistake (yet another one) that hopefully never happens again. Still, it was a great flight -- what can I say!
Kent was a really fun contest. It seemed like we had plenty of time to fly, and we did not need to hurry. The KSU fieldhouse is a great site to fly in, although it was not easy to judge the model's climb. And the hanging lights and the beam will get you if you fly too aggressively.
--- In Indoor_Construction_at_yahoogroups.com, "John Kagan" <john_kagan@...> wrote:
>
> Despite dicey air, Cat II records fell like rain today.
>
> - Mark Bennett drove 16 hours, arrived this morning, and then broke the F1D record with just under 30 minutes
> - I broke the Std. Cat record with 1:55.7 (58.2 + 57.5)
> - Bill Gowen set the F1M record at 15:14
> - Parker Tyson set the Jr. F1L record
>
> Don Slusarczyk came sooo close to the Cabin record with 19+
>
> Kang Lee came sooo close to the F1L record
>
> The Float crew "hired" an interviewer and collected some more fascinating footage
>
> Lots of other cool stuff, but that's what comes to my exhausted mind at the moment (apologies in advance for any reporting errors)
>
Received on Tue Apr 19 2011 - 17:55:50 CEST
This archive was generated by Yannick on Sat Dec 14 2019 - 19:13:46 CET