SEN 1581

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Category: Archive 2011

Hits: 942

1. Bob Tymchek
2. Gunder Future
3. Outrageous October
4. USA Jnr Team BarB Q
5. Joe doesn't have the 7 footer, so who does?
6. Neither does Mark.
7. Slovenian Update... FOR SEN
8. Folder/Flapper/Lower Dragger Note

Dear Free Flight Friends,

It is with very mixed emotions that I write this to you all. For the last couple of years I have been contemplating the decision to join the Military. This decision was made much more difficult by the great opportunities that I have been granted in my life, and the amazing friendships that I have, especially in the model and full scale airplane communities. Nonetheless, I have been bitten by the need to be part of something much bigger than myself, and feel that the Military is the best combination for me to realize this. I have spent the last couple of years testing the waters of post college civilian life to see if this need would dissipate. Although I admittedly live a very privileged life, I too often find myself unsatisfied at the end of the day. It has become obvious to me throughout this time that in order for me to be satisfied, I have to fulfill my duty to serve.

 I have recently been accepted into the Naval Special Warfare Officer program. Sometime in the next couple of months, I will enter Navy Officer Candidacy School in Newport, RI, where I will spend 12 weeks becoming an Officer in the US Navy. From there, I will report directly to Coronado, CA where I will spend six months in BUD/s (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL), and another 8 months in SQT (SEAL Qualification Training) with the end goal of becoming a Navy SEAL. This training is widely acknowledged to be the most grueling in the world, and has greater than an 80% failure rate. The reward, however, for completing this training is to be a member of the United States’ elite fighting force and not only work side by side with, but lead the toughest, smartest, and most dedicated men in the world. This is the part that appeals to me more than anything; the people that you get to work with. I have multiple friends who have followed down this path, and I have been given quite a bit of insight into the community that they have become part of. The quality of people, their professionalism, and their dedication are nothing short of inspiring. It is with this group that I aspire to spend the next several years of my career.

 Unfortunately, along with a career like this comes serious sacrifices, and one of the largest is time for personal hobbies. It is very unlikely that I will be able to do much modeling in the next several years. This greatly saddens me, as I truly love free flight and some of my greatest memories and most cherished friendships are built around it. Although it is simply too big a part of my life for me to completely disappear from the sport, I do feel that it is smart to sell a lot of the airplanes and equipment that I have gathered. My reasoning behind this is that with the rate that technology is changing in FAI, it takes very little time for equipment to become obsolete. I would much prefer somebody to get use out of it while it is still reasonably modern. That being said, I will be following this post with a list of airplanes, support equipment, etc. that I would like to part ways with. I also plan to be at the Sierra Cup for at least one of the days in order to spend time with friends and facilitate the selling of these items.

I am very sorry to those of you that I did not tell earlier. It has been a long road to make the decision to pursue this path, and then a very long and difficult road to get accepted into the program. (The Navy selected only 20 civilian candidates from the entire country this year.) Throughout the process I purposefully remained very quiet about it, as I was unsure of the outcome until just recently. The deeper that I have gotten into the process, the more I have realized that this is absolutely the right thing for me to be doing. Although it may seem unusual for someone with my background to do, I hope that the decision will be met with support. Please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss further. I would be happy to hear from you. I hope to see many of you at the Sierra Cup.

Thermals,

Austin

Editor's note

Subject: Chuck Broadhurst Memorial Trophy from the USFFC

 Randy

 I am sending this here because I seen you were looking for the
 Chuck Broadhurst Memorial Trophy on Facebook. I don't post on Facebook,
 long story, sum it up by saying I don't like the way info gets
 shown to the public and the fact that they are constantly changing
 things in that area. There is a bit more to my reasoning, but that
 is it in a nutshell.

 Anyways I wanted to respond to your quest for the trophy 

The short story is that I can add a bit of fact to your quest,
though I am pretty sure it is lost forever, I think the giant
7 foot trophy you seek is called the Chuck Broadhurst Memorial
Trophy. I believe I was the last one to win that trophy, it was 
sometime in the early 1980's (I can let you know exactly 
when later). I never took it home, being from Ohio and had 
flown out there for work taking models. I had a good meet 
and the regulars dropped a few key flights, etc, and I somehow 
managed to win the thing. Taking it back to Ohio was just NOT 
practical. 

I did have some thoughts about having another 
workmate whom I knew well who traveled out to SoCal monthly 
and have him bring it back in sections, then send it back 
the same way. This would have involved Bill Bogart as 
my workmate was doing his travel to visit Bill Bogart But, 
I decided before I left the field that day that this 
scheme was NOT practical, and Bill Bogart did NOT take the 
trophy home with him. For the record, nor did I. 

I say this because there has been some rumors that I took 
it back to Ohio and never returned it. Those rumors were 
started by the late Jack Moreland and quite frankly were 
just not true. I contacted him at the time and tried 
to dispel these rumors, but in the years to come many a people 
confronted me asking me to return it. This is part of my 
motivation to send you this email, to let you the facts 
of what did NOT happen in case you hear the rumor again 

The fact that I am from Ohio as was Jim Haught also adds to 
the confusion. Jim being a few years older than I won the 
trophy a few years before I did, I believe at the time his 
Dad either lived in SoCal or did business there a lot, 
though I am not sure of this, but it does not matter in 
your quest, because Jim does NOT have the trophy either. 

Jim got a lot of publicity because he had his picture 
taken next to the trophy with a Cincinnati T-shirt on, 
so this also added to the Ohio confusion. As I have 
told others who have at time sought the whereabouts of the 
trophy, I believe it was taken home by someone after 
whatever USFFC I won it at. I don't think that it 
was left there! I do not know who that was, but it would 
have involved the organizer of the meet. I also had heard 
that someone tried to research this route and did not 
turn up the trophy, though I do not recall who this involved. 
In my estimation, it is gone forever, however I wish you 
well in finding it if it still exists. 

My one regret is that I did not get my picture taken next 
to it like Jim Haught did 

Joe Mekina 

 Ohio 

Hi:

I understand that Randy Secor is looking for the USFFC Grand Champ Trophy. I won this trophy in 1984 at Taft when the USFFC were held over Memorial Day weekend. I took it back to Iowa with me where I was stationed in the Army at the time. Over the course of the year that I had it, I took it apart completely and restored it. I sanded it down, repainted it, purchased new hardware to replace the broken pieces and had the brass plate replaced with all previous winners engraved on it. This trophy looked new! As I could not attend the contest in 1985, I contacted the previous year's CD to let him know (I believe it was Joe Norcross). I got his address, took the trophy apart and mailed it to him in two boxes. Since I never heard back from him, I naturally assumed that he had received it. This all occurred, of course, before we had computers, email, etc. I don't know if this is when it disappeared or not, just thought I would pass this info to you and maybe it can lead to the recovery of this trophy. 

Take Care

Marc Sisk

[Marc - thanks for the input ..]

Slovenian Update... FOR SEN

Roger,

I am very sorry to those of you that I did not tell earlier. It has been a long road to make the decision to pursue this path, and then a very long and difficult road to get accepted into the program. (The Navy selected only 20 civilian candidates from the entire country this year.) Throughout the process I purposefully remained very quiet about it, as I was unsure of the outcome until just recently. The deeper that I have gotten into the process, the more I have realized that this is absolutely the right thing for me to be doing. Although it may seem unusual for someone with my background to do, I hope that the decision will be met with support. Please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss further. I would be happy to hear from you. I hope to see many of you at the Sierra Cup.

Thermals,

Austin

Editor's note

Subject: Chuck Broadhurst Memorial Trophy from the USFFC

 Randy

 I am sending this here because I seen you were looking for the
 Chuck Broadhurst Memorial Trophy on Facebook. I don't post on Facebook,
 long story, sum it up by saying I don't like the way info gets
 shown to the public and the fact that they are constantly changing
 things in that area. There is a bit more to my reasoning, but that
 is it in a nutshell.

 Anyways I wanted to respond to your quest for the trophy 

The short story is that I can add a bit of fact to your quest,
though I am pretty sure it is lost forever, I think the giant
7 foot trophy you seek is called the Chuck Broadhurst Memorial
Trophy. I believe I was the last one to win that trophy, it was 
sometime in the early 1980's (I can let you know exactly 
when later). I never took it home, being from Ohio and had 
flown out there for work taking models. I had a good meet 
and the regulars dropped a few key flights, etc, and I somehow 
managed to win the thing. Taking it back to Ohio was just NOT 
practical. 

I did have some thoughts about having another 
workmate whom I knew well who traveled out to SoCal monthly 
and have him bring it back in sections, then send it back 
the same way. This would have involved Bill Bogart as 
my workmate was doing his travel to visit Bill Bogart But, 
I decided before I left the field that day that this 
scheme was NOT practical, and Bill Bogart did NOT take the 
trophy home with him. For the record, nor did I. 

I say this because there has been some rumors that I took 
it back to Ohio and never returned it. Those rumors were 
started by the late Jack Moreland and quite frankly were 
just not true. I contacted him at the time and tried 
to dispel these rumors, but in the years to come many a people 
confronted me asking me to return it. This is part of my 
motivation to send you this email, to let you the facts 
of what did NOT happen in case you hear the rumor again 

The fact that I am from Ohio as was Jim Haught also adds to 
the confusion. Jim being a few years older than I won the 
trophy a few years before I did, I believe at the time his 
Dad either lived in SoCal or did business there a lot, 
though I am not sure of this, but it does not matter in 
your quest, because Jim does NOT have the trophy either. 

Jim got a lot of publicity because he had his picture 
taken next to the trophy with a Cincinnati T-shirt on, 
so this also added to the Ohio confusion. As I have 
told others who have at time sought the whereabouts of the 
trophy, I believe it was taken home by someone after 
whatever USFFC I won it at. I don't think that it 
was left there! I do not know who that was, but it would 
have involved the organizer of the meet. I also had heard 
that someone tried to research this route and did not 
turn up the trophy, though I do not recall who this involved. 
In my estimation, it is gone forever, however I wish you 
well in finding it if it still exists. 

My one regret is that I did not get my picture taken next 
to it like Jim Haught did 

Joe Mekina 

 Ohio 

Hi:

I understand that Randy Secor is looking for the USFFC Grand Champ Trophy. I won this trophy in 1984 at Taft when the USFFC were held over Memorial Day weekend. I took it back to Iowa with me where I was stationed in the Army at the time. Over the course of the year that I had it, I took it apart completely and restored it. I sanded it down, repainted it, purchased new hardware to replace the broken pieces and had the brass plate replaced with all previous winners engraved on it. This trophy looked new! As I could not attend the contest in 1985, I contacted the previous year's CD to let him know (I believe it was Joe Norcross). I got his address, took the trophy apart and mailed it to him in two boxes. Since I never heard back from him, I naturally assumed that he had received it. This all occurred, of course, before we had computers, email, etc. I don't know if this is when it disappeared or not, just thought I would pass this info to you and maybe it can lead to the recovery of this trophy. 

Take Care

Marc Sisk

[Marc - thanks for the input ..]

Slovenian Update... FOR SEN

Roger,

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