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Category: Archive 2011

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1. FF teamwork at the Nats
2. Junior Team Selection event at the Nats
3. Ilbesheim Update

The highlight for me of this year’s Nationals in Muncie was the hand launch glider team event.  I had heard some good stories about this event but had never had the chance to participate and this year I was fortunate to team up with Bruce Kimball and Mark Benns who was visiting from the UK.

The heat and humidity during this week had been brutal and the Thursday morning news weather forecasters were saying that this day would be the hottest day the area had seen for 12 years.  Sure enough temperatures on the field were over 100 F and with the humidity the heat index was reported to be around 110 to 120 F, but still this didn’t slow down the hearty free flighters and didn’t really seem that bad to me as long as I was drinking a bottle of water about every hour.

There seemed to be plenty of thermal activity already around 9:30 or 10 so I started flying right away as this worked good for me in catapult and considering the heat sooner would be better.  However both flights were complete duds with no air despite what I thought were some good indications.  I was also noticing that all the gliders were struggling to stay in the air and the few maxes that I saw were just barely making it.  The conditions were definitely very difficult and strange and since I had already burned two flights with nothing to show for it I put my models away to slow things down and contemplate a new strategy.  Mark and Bruce had also taken one flight each without maxing and so the three of us just sat and watched everyone else for the next couple hours.  The team chemistry was starting to gel as we all agreed that waiting for better conditions was best despite the increasing wind.

After sitting and watching for awhile I started to notice that  whenever a glider was launched into the breeze following the lull or calm build that the results were bad.  I speculated that maybe this normal launch strategy was too late in the thermal cycle and that that a earlier launch during the calm would be better.  We discussed this as a team commenting on how the upwind trees would be changing the normal thermal fill and how the upwind streamers were being distorted by the trees, road, and cars.  I then pulled out my air temperature measuring device that I built for aiding thermal detection while towing gliders.  It produces an audio tone related to small changes in temperature so I then took the next step in analyzing the conditions by standing around the glider pen and watching all the activity.  I could correlate the good and bad glider flights with the temperature pattern.  Sure enough as I was suspecting the best flights seemed to happen when they were launched right about at the temperature peak but before the cool blow.

About this same time Mark and Bruce moved our streamer pole downwind of the glider pen.  Mark pointed out that when flying gliders in windy conditions in the UK the upwind streamers are useless and a downwind streamer gives much more relevant information.  We all agreed that conditions overall were improving and that we had better start flying from our corner of the pen away from the other guys.  Bruce went first.  We waited for a nice lull and I called out the rising temperature while Mark watched the downwind streamer and Bruce watched the trees and corn and stuff upwind.  Just as the temperature peaked the downwind streamer started lifting.  I could see the thermal fill and turbulence upwind so I told Bruce to launch quick before the wind hit us.  MAX!  Then it was Mark’s turn.  MAX again!  Then I flew using the same strategy of temperature peak and downwind streamer action and another MAX!  It took a few more hours but by about 4:30pm both Bruce and I had three maxes and Mark had also had some great flights although was a bit short of a maxout.  The system wasn’t perfect as the location on the field was so bad that the gliders would never really get into the good air until they had worked their way one or two hundred yards downwind, but it was pretty clear that we had a good system as the whole field was watching us.

The feeling of working together as a team and moving from four initial bad flights to the 1^st place team prize was great and we couldn’t stop talking about it.  Free flight is usually a very individual sport but teamwork can really be enjoyable as well.  Maybe the “Killer B’s” (Bruce, Benns, Bauer) will be back next year!

Congratulations to Gina, Logan, Michelle, Peyton, Wes, Sevak, Taron and Brian on their terrific performances during the 2012 Team Selection competitions. You were awesome!
 
Roger Morrell

It is also thanks to those who helped run the event. I would be sure to leave out names if I tried to mention everyone But what power flyer would not to have their flight timed by Gil Morris? People whose family had been through the program, giving back - Shailor, Jones, Simon, Lisa Pacelli, Raduzinas, Cai, Bauer, Barron ....then Jim Parker the CD, Paul Crowley the Chief jurist, George Batiuk who has contributed major effort to the Junior Program, Tom Vaccaro a mentor to many. I'm sure I have forgotten some.

But all their efforts contributed to the success of the event. I felt they provided a challenging event for the young contestants, this was no gimme event but they mentored and encouraged within the scope of the rules so everyone came put with a very positive experience. My grandson Wes had a very good time. I saw that interacting with the different time keepers helped round out his modeling experience from just working with me. Wes's parents are very proud of how he did but as participants in other youth sporting activities know that those who contribute time are key to the success of the event.
           
Roger Morrell -

I have a Junior Contest Album on FB . It has photos of our grandson Wes Murrell 
who flew F1B in the event.  Wes has 2 models, the one he used in all rounds is one of my old, must be about year 2000 single wing wiggler Vivchar fueslages, 1.65m Vivchar wings , fixed pitch Vivchar prop and Micro Magic electronic timer.

My apologies to Gina, Logan, Michelle, Peyton,   Sevak, Taron and Brian for not having pictures of you and your models but we were flat out retrieving which included a 150m visit in to the corn field.

There are comments on this FB page - I have included one here as it talks about how the event went from our perspective.

Tony Mathews  -

Did Wes make the F1B team Roger?
 
Roger Morrell -

Yes he did, unofficially of course as the JTSC has not finished all their paper work.  . The first day [ the regular Nats F1B event] we flew together, he did everything except I helped pick air. His score was up there with the experts Brian and Sevak. On the second day I was not allowed to speak to him. He did perfectly with prepping the plane, winding, loading and launching , but has little experience in picking air so dropped back a bit behind the two experts. I think the second day was windier and the air harder to pick. It was good for him to "work" with the different timekeepers who were not family members - Tom Vaccaro in one of the photos, Evan and Greg Simon and Bill Shailor. I think the timekeepers made that a learning process not a hostile exam like process and thought it was very good for him. He had a great time enjoying the challenge and stepping up to it.
 
the external FB link to the Album is at

  http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2006534321121.2103716.1176540365&l=8fe2a32e2c&type=1
      

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