No, I'm not trying to embarrass you, I think your a frigging hero the way you approached this carrier endever and placed first in your first contest. I'm thinking you should due an article explaining the reason you thought to try S40 and how you went about preparing the plane and yourself to fly the event plus the result's and have John T put it in the carrier section of his web site. I'm impressed with how you went about this, the good questions that you asked, coming back and asking for more clarification while sending pictures of what you were doing to the plane the whole time.
     Thank goodness you didn't do the damn nose dive thing which is completely wrong. The guy you talked to and told you what he did to land did you a big favor and you played it forward with great results. I have several carrier planes where the tip of the hook sits below the bottom the fuselage and when I fly off of grass the hook is always loaded with grass as I fly the HS (cool or not Cool). The problem with the tail skid hook besides not being cool is you can't fly off of grass very well. On my planes that have that type of hook I just take it off and put a skid on to practice and then put the hook on before flying off a deck.
     I think the trouble your having putting the hook down is you probably aren't giving it enough down which is good and bad. Bad because the hook didn't go down, good because if it did go down would have meant the plane crashed after its high speed stall, or you ended up with the elevator stuck in down with other associated results. I had the same trouble with my first carrier plane and was told, "oh just reach up and jerk the down line" which I did and the bellcrank over rotated into down (locked up). Carrier planes don't need very much down elevator. I've set up my hook to release on about 5 degrees of down elevator which I found to mean that I would release the elevator be mistake on occasions when I was picking up the control handle so then I finally found a way around that. I've attached pictures of how I fixed that problem.
     AND, having said all that with pictures to boot, just think your doing fine just the way you have yours set up now (how bout that). So any way, keep doing what you have been doing.

     No, I'm not trying to embarrass you, I think your a frigging hero the way you approached this carrier endever and placed first in your first contest. I'm thinking you should due an article explaining the reason you thought to try S40 and how you went about preparing the plane and yourself to fly the event plus the result's and have John T put it in the carrier section of his web site.

I blush.  Thank you for your words.  I'll consider writing the article.

I have several carrier planes where the tip of the hook sits below the bottom the fuselage and when I fly off of grass the hook is always loaded with grass as I fly the HS (cool or not Cool).

You saw my S-shaped hook.  That's from a suggestion by Russel Shaffer.  He practices off of grass, and had that same problem.  He put a small rearward-facing hook on the fuselage about six inches in front of the "real" hook.  When he's flying off of grass he stretches a rubber band between that and the tail hook.  The rubber band makes the whole shebang ride over the grass without catching, which gives him smooth takeoffs without inadvertently weeding the field.  Of course, it also won't catch an arresting line -- but that's not the point when you're flying off of grass.

I'm hoping that Russel will see this and post a picture -- should be worth 1000 words, particularly since I haven't seen him fly off of grass.

Well, that's why I wanted you to post a picture!  Actually, it looks like you're doing exactly what I was trying to copy -- Eric's setup looks complicated, though.

Well, the hook idea was Eric's as far as I know and the rubber band trick was Bill Toschic's suggestion.  I do take credit for gluing it to the airplane.

      I'm pretty sure he takes the rubber band off when he fly's the plane off a deck. Puts it back on when flying off grass (practice).

Not to argue with success, but just for fun try a nose-high landing approach, using the throttle to control the sink rate. Diving for the deck is rough on airplanes. Plus, you will carry more power on a nose-high landing, so the engine may be a bit more reliable than at low idle.

Congrat's on your accomplishment!

Bill Bischoff
(Eric Conley fan club, Texas division)

      Its harder than it looks? When I started getting into carrier I knew I had to learn the hang so that was a big part in my practice sessions. I was flying slower and slower and then all of a sudden there I was (25 degrees) with the throttle a little advanced over what it took to fly just slowly. It lasted a couple of laps and then my plane (not me) leveled out a little and picked up speed while I was throttling back and then a lap or so latter I was back into it, throttle up a tiny bit and holding the same altitude. It seemed so easy, after all at the time I didn't know all or any of the dynamic's of the hang. I did learn that the plane couldn't be hose heavy at all if you wanted to keep the plane in one piece for any length of time.
     I took to hart the information that was printed in the NCS news letters every month (many written by Bill B) about how the plane should be balanced to avoid crashes in the LS portion of the event. When the plane is nose heavy you will have to carry more power to keep it in the hang because the nose is "heavy" therefore you are carrying some up elevator at all times, sometimes a lot and other time not so much depending on where your plane is in the circle (up wind/down wind). So if your plane is nose heavy and your plane is flying around in the circle, up wind/down wind and the plane starts to settle and you add a little power and its not quite enough and your now a few feet or closer to the ground you increase the throttle a lot, your carrying up elevator (remember) the plane suddenly turns over inverted or depending on how much up you were carrying it may be stuck nose first in the ground (it happens so fast).
     So the thing to do is move your CG back till the plane becomes unmanageable or difficult to fly in the HS and then move the CG back (forward) till you can fly the HS OK. Now, hopefully you will be able to fly the LS with little or no up elevator and when you throttle up suddenly your plane just goes up and doesn't loop or go inverted.
     I have to hand it to Tim though as S40 is a different breed of carrier (to some what) compared to AMA carrier. The planes are so slow that you have time to adjust your throttle back or just cut the throttle completely and if you know where your plane will land in those conditions it does work OK and Tim knows this about his plane because he has "PRACTICED" this maneuver, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, well it least four times. I hope Tim keeps sharing his thoughts and concerns about this event so we can all take something away that will help us fly NWS40.

     Here is another thing to think about (or not). After the HS portion of the event it is a good idea to lower the hook before you start getting ready for the LS portion. Reason #1, if you cant get the hook to come down at that time you can abort the flight and take an attempt. If you had flown the LS portion before lowering the hook and then found that the hook would not come down it would count as an official flight. Reason #2, if you get the hook down right after the HS portion of the flight it will take some of the pressure off of the rest of the flight. The hook is down, now you can concentrate on slowing the plane down to its slowest speed and then you can signal for the start of the LS portion of the event. Now while you are coming around on the 7th lap (last lap) you will give the landing signal that you will be landing at the end of the 8th lap, isn't it nice that the hook is already down and you are going as slow as you can make the plane fly. "DON'T" speed up after you finish the last lap of the LS potion of the event. You have already flown the last 7 laps as slow as you possibly can and are in great shape to score a good landing, if the plane has not crapped out during those seven LS laps the chances are good that it will fly another lap at the same slow speed.