I’m back home in Central Illinois after a 1000-mile drive from Texas. The Ringmaster Roundup was a ball and some of you other electric folks need to electrify an RM and join us next year. I was entered in the beginner stunt and finished sixth – course there were only seven entries and one of them scratched. LOL
As I said above I crashed my original electric RM flying in the rain. I was really reluctant to commit my electric RSM for a second attempt. Anyway Joe Gilbert helped me trim it some and he made a test flight. Joe allowed as how it was competitive and I should do a second flight with it. Later Saturday it cleared up and I put up that second flight. I was on track to score well until I bottomed the outside of the second figure eight. Oops. I now have two Electric RMs to rebuild. The bad part is that the crash snapped the shaft of my Scorpion 3014 – 22 motor. It broke right at the front edge of the collet and I had chopped the shaft flush with the rear of the X mount. A new shaft is necessary but the motor otherwise appears undamaged. I was trying a Master AirScrew 10-5, 3 blade prop and it seemed to be working good. Looked nice too.
Sunday was an event called “Team Stunt.” Teams of 4 or 5 members flew (mostly for bragging rights) in four events. One team member was assigned to fly one of the following (one attempt only) Old Time, AMA pattern or Unknown Pattern. The unknown pattern was handed out shortly before the event and had some tough maneuvers such as Square Overhead 4 Leaf Clover and Vertical Hourglass!! Finally, an event called Pursuit Combat was flown last. In the Pursuit Combat two team members flew RMs each with a streamer. One member flew as the “drone” and was NOT allowed to make any cutting maneuvers. The other member pursued the drone and attempted to cut its streamer. If the drone streamer was completely cut the pursuer could then try to have the drone cut his streamer by maneuvering in front of the drone. I flew the drone (donated by Steve Holt) and Dale Gleason (a combat man from way back) flew pursuit for our team. The score was 50 points a cut and Dale cleaned the drone streamer in two cuts. He then proceeded to have my drone cut his streamer again in two cuts. Dale then went for the knot on the drone and called it a mite close – taking the tail off of the drone and the outboard wing from his plane. Dale’s four cuts were not enough and we finished second. There were four teams and three ended with mangled Ringmasters (one before a single cut was made). Joe Gilbert flew pursuit for his team but they had unequal line lengths so, though he made numerous passes, he only got a couple of “cuts” (with his wing I think). At least their two RMs survived the competition.
For me maybe the best part was prizes awarded at the end. My old electric Ringmaster was voted the “ugliest” and I won 20 bucks (I was insulted but I took the money. LOL) and then I scored another 20 bucks for having the heaviest RM at 44 oz!! The old one again and I think they must have weighed it wrong --- it couldn’t be THAT heavy.
Check out this site to see some photos of the meet:
http://picasaweb.google.com/golfrice1/RoundupFridayAndSunday#Hope to see some of yoall (that’s Texas talk) next year at the Roundup. Dee Rice (organizer and spark plug for the meet) promised longer strings and streamers next year!!
John
PS. Photo # 21 is my old Electric RM --- it is not That ugly is it???
Topic: 3rd Annual Ringmaster Roundup (Read 1247 times)
