The Continuing Story of a Guy trying to get back on the Winning Horse
I went home Sunday from Geneseo and left Tuesday for Muncie and Week Two of National Free Flight contests. The weather was very good with mild winds over the large field. We did have to fly from three different locations on the three days, but that wasn’t a difficulty. I will highlight two stories here; one of “oh, so close” and the second of a final flight.
My so-called luck continued and I had extreme difficulties fulfilling official flights. Here is seemed to be more focused: I was able to get two maxes (or similarly good results) but couldn’t get that third, important flight. Specifically, twice, with two different models, I was set up for a possible win, but the third flight was a dud – and both times it was a rare case of the rubber bunching around the prop shaft. Very strange. I started to wonder what I did for Fate to point its Fickle Finger at me.
But let’s not dwell completely on the negative. This part of the story is a tale of how the air can be at Muncie in July – and that is “buoyant”, to say the least.
I wound up for my second flight on my HepCat, flying in FAC old Time Fuselage. This is a pretty dependable model and I would recommend the design to anyone wanting a good flying Fuselage model. Even though we were on the north side of the AMA Site, right near the control line circles, and had plenty of space to the south, I borrowed my friend’s new BMK Tracker. I had tried this at Geneseo the week before and was sold on its capabilities. So sold, in fact, that I ordered one while at home between contests. I strapped it on top of the wing and proceeded to the launch table. Don DeLoach snapped a couple of pics while I launched and I turned to follow the model as it rose up and up.
My HepCat get pretty high if the air is right and this air was good, even though I hadn’t paid particular attention to conditions when I was at the table. The model climbed higher and higher. I had set the BMK Band Burner DT to 2:10. My timer, Pat Murray, later told me it went off right at 2 minutes (I set it to 2 minutes plus 10 seconds just for that – it might take 10 seconds to get the model positioned and released at the table).
I had the hand-held receiver and made a note when the DT went off – it was at a reported 200 meters. I immediately noticed that number was NOT going down; in fact, it was going up! I still followed the model farther and farther south. The reported altitude kept going up. Finally, it peaked at 270 meters and started to decrease. The model finally landed – on the field just short of the grass runway at Site 4 (the southern edge of the AMA flying site).
The tracker was not needed to find the model on this particular flight, but the story it told was rather amazing. 200 meters (at DT) is equal to 656 feet. 270 meters (when it started to descend) is equal to 886 feet. One quarter of its total altitude was gained AFTER the DT went off. The tracker reported the total flight time was 434 seconds – 7 minutes and 14 seconds and it landed on the field.
This is not unusual for Muncie in July. Boomers are everywhere. At certain times on certain days, it is like you cannot avoid a thermal. Just put your model up, get it in cruise and eventually, it will hook one and extend your flight time. Unfortunately, my third HepCat flight was one of those bunched rubber flights and I failed to place in the competition.
The second story, as I said, is of a final flight. I had flown my Peanut BD-4 in Peanut early on the third day. It needed trimming as I had switched from a long loop of 1/16″ rubber to a shorter loop of 3/32″ and then a longer loop of 3/32″. I placed second in Peanut, not being able to max, nor having any bonus points, so Wally Farrell beat me with a max on his 10-bonus-point Pegna (from my short kit, so there’s that). But in the afternoon, I noticed that no one had maxed out in Modern Civilian. This was a surprise, since a) conditions were good and b) Pat Murray and Wally are fully capable of maxing out – they just had failed.
I got out my little BD-4, calculated that I could get 3000 turns on the long motor, and wound it up. It was still a little zoomy and got 91 seconds or so. I got out my calculator and determined that I would need something like 2 flights of about 111 seconds to get first place. This was possible. I wound up again and went old-school and put in a stem of a clover flower of just the right diameter for downthrust to tame that zoom. This is “old school” because this is how I flew long before Gizmo Geezer nose buttons were available; I’d grab a piece of grass or a stem to set the thrust. I had already just about maxed the adjustable nose button, so I needed a touch more.
We were on the east side of the southern field, just south of the cemetery. The winds had been going due west, but they were slowing drifting to the south. Off to the south of the field is a field of deep soybeans. These beans are over waist deep (a fine crop, but rough on planes). South of the bean field is Reese Airport, a small single strip general aviation airport. Of course, that single strip has a wide swath of cut grass surrounding it. As I chased on my bike, it looked like it might make it over the beans and land on the airport. That would be an easy retrieval. I was traveling west along the bean field, trying to keep the model roughly due south of me for a “better” line on the tiny white model. I got a line to a white house on the road south of the airport. I decided to get on the airport, hoping the model was in the clear.
I had to ride WAY around the back of the airport. Unfortunately, there was no access from the south to the strip and I continued around to the east to the airport entrance. Pat had called me and said he had a great line on it and I should come back so we could set up a search. Well, I wanted to check on my line and rode into the airport to where I hoped the model would be. It was not on the airport property.
By this time, Pat was on the edge of the bean field, where I had been riding parallel. I was on the opposite edge of the field – actually two fields – one dense one near the flying site and one struggling field next to the airstrip. Strangely, Pat was saying that I was way, Way, WAY off his line – like hundreds of feet. This didn’t make much sense to me since I was closer to the model when it went down, but we searched his line for a bit of time and I finally called it off – no hope of finding the tiny model in those tall, tall beans. We went back to his RV and I lamented that a victory in Modern Civilian was just not to be. Fate had struck again and I would not win.
Pat, Mike Smith, and I talked about the flight and why we couldn’t find it. It wasn’t a big surprise, given the beans. But I kept insisting that Pat’s line just didn’t make sense. He insisted he had a perfect line as the model was aligned perfectly with the radio tower on the horizon. I said that was crazy since I was closer and had a distinctly different line and our two lines did NOT intersect. All of a sudden, he says “OOPS! There’s a SECOND radio tower and THERE is that bare spot I saw!” That bare spot was the same area I saw and was, in fact, the runway. HAHA! He took off to the edge of the bean field on his new line and I went around, again, to the airport and got on his line, too. I started walking towards him in the struggling beans talking to him on the cell phone. Miracle of miracles, in less than 10 minutes I walked right to the model!
Of course, that second flight was a max. There was 30 minutes left in the contest. All I had to do was get the model and me back to our site, wind up and put up another max. And I did. My final flight of the contest won the Modern Civilian event! Let it be known that when Pat Murray has a line, he HAS A LINE (you just have to make sure his landmarks are accurate!)