Contest 3 of the
2002 JR
/ Airsail F3B Series,
hosted
by CDSF at Palmerston North,
on July 13-14, 2002.
CD: David James
Summary,
Round
1,
Round
2,
Round
3
Round 3 of the 2002 series and the forecast
was not looking good - the fields were already soggy from weeks of rain and more
was supposed to fall over the weekend. However Wayne Bilham had managed to get
us permission to fly at Ohakea Air Force Base, so at least we had a well drained
flying site. Given the conditions and forecast it was not surprising that
numbers were a down a little. In the end we got 2 rounds in on Saturday and a
third on Sunday - it wasn't rain that stopped us, it was the bitterly cold wind.
Luckily we were flying right next to the Museum, which just happened to have a
cafe... needless to say their coffee machine got a good workout :-)
Conditions were certainly challenging,
with plenty of wind, sink and line-breaks... The lift was good when it was
around, it just wasn't around that often. Probably the most bizzare incidents
occured during a couple of test flights before the contest even got underway -
Gary McArdle lost a decent chunk off the tail of his E2V when he hooked the line
on launch, while Craig Dawson lost an entire tail half off his Scar the same
way. Both models were successfully landed without further damage, and in Craig's
case the stab half was recovered also undamaged and he was able to continue
flying.
An interesting development this time out
was the use of the Lomocovak
Logger, or LOLO, by Dave Larsen and Chris Kaiser. This is a tiny,
self-contained digital altitude logger and looks like being a really useful tool
for optimising model performance.
Thanks to Wayne for arranging the use of
Ohakea, and to David James for pre-arranging the draw (and then having to redo
it all anyway) and CDing the contest. Also great to see Spit and Paul Chisholm
up from Christchurch (we'll try to turn on some warmer weather for ya next
time...).
Fastest speed time was 16.80 by Chris
Kaiser, best distance was 19 legs by Chris Tank.
