Fall FOllies upcoming

[Mark Scarborough]

At the point that the first round was being flown, there wasn't much clue that the second round would turn into such nice weather.  The first round was just survival first, points second (well, except for you and Russel).

Just had an exchange with Paul about what I observed, and felt, his opinion which was first brought up to me by Howard, was water droplets on the wing corrupting the airflow. what I observed fit right in to that notion so I am going with that,,
Moral of the story, when you play the brave card, some times you get burned,, ( or drowned?)
Made my choice, paid the price, learned a lesson,, Still it was a pretty cool slide job,, and very few shards of balsa to clear off the circle, does that mean its overbuilt LOL

[Steve Thompson]

Sorry Mark about your loss.  Onward and upward, the next plane will be better!

I used to live in Port Orchard (until '96) and got caught by rain many times.  It does make the lines "sticky", maybe surface tension of the water?  I got rained on HARD one time and the wood Zinger came off.  Quite startling.  The plane just quit flying and fluttered down.  Oh, and the shaft-run noise made an 049 sound tame - the ultimate FP40 run-away?  I nosed it in (on grass) to make the engine stop.  Engine has had many more good flights since.  Plane too.

Clearly, what people were experiencing in that part of the circle may have been proof of a localized anomaly in the space-time continuum.  

[Steve Helmick]

Was it actually raining during the first round of Expert? I don't recall that, and since I wore sunglasses (was borderline on whether to wear them or clear lenses), pretty sure I would have noticed if there had been raindrops on my lenses.

But maybe Mark got "lucky" and had some rain. At a Eugene Regionals about 10 years ago, I flew a flight in a true downpour...with wind...and didn't have any trouble with airfoil corruption or lines sticking. I was more worried about water being sucked into the engine, but it didn't seem to mind much.   

At Fall Fallies, it was windy and those dag-nabbed trees upwind really louse up the air. That made things exciting, not really the wind itself. And not the rain, IMO. I was there, I flew in it, and it was exciting for me multiple times during my one flight. Some of my "bottoms" were probably lower than most of Mark's...my outside squares, for instance. Yeah, I was a little scared, but I thought they were pretty good. I didn't get my score sheets. Flying in that was a lot like flying at Rice Mill Rd. in Richmond, BC. "Challenging" in a word. Sorry about your plane, Mark.  Steve   

[Mark Scarborough]

Was it actually raining during the first round of Expert? I don't recall that, and since I wore sunglasses (was borderline on whether to wear them or clear lenses), pretty sure I would have noticed if there had been raindrops on my lenses.

But maybe Mark got "lucky" and had some rain. At a Eugene Regionals about 10 years ago, I flew a flight in a true downpour...with wind...and didn't have any trouble with airfoil corruption or lines sticking. I was more worried about water being sucked into the engine, but it didn't seem to mind much.   

At Fall Fallies, it was windy and those dag-nabbed trees upwind really louse up the air. That made things exciting, not really the wind itself. And not the rain, IMO. I was there, I flew in it, and it was exciting for me multiple times during my one flight. Some of my "bottoms" were probably lower than most of Mark's...my outside squares, for instance. Yeah, I was a little scared, but I thought they were pretty good. I didn't get my score sheets. Flying in that was a lot like flying at Rice Mill Rd. in Richmond, BC. "Challenging" in a word. Sorry about your plane, Mark.  Steve   

Thanks, it sucks if we get any decent weather I have nothing to practice with now, alas so be it the new one is already well underway.
as to what transpired, I related what I observed to Paul and he commented he had a similar thing occur and what he attributed it to, add to that immediatly after my flight Howard made a similar comment as well as saying he was going to use my flight as a warning LOL,, I did hear others say they saw, or felt weirdness in the same spot on the circle. Hard to know for sure, I am pretty sure that I placed the airplane where I wanted it coming out on the bottom leg and it dropped from there, it hit very flat so it was post turn, its not like I flew it into the ground or pulled out to low, well I guess given circumstances it was to low, but no lower than on the first bottom... It was weird, same as on the inside loops, the second one was correct then it just dropped two or three feet,, 

I think there could have been a couple factors,, not clear exactly, but the lesson is, when conditions are unreliable, dont be brave,, I have looked the remains over and I think all that is salvagable is the wing. and thats really not clear until i dissect it which may be never,,  The stab is broken right under the vertical so it flaps like a bird,, The fuse has fractures throughout, the rudder, well I think someone stole it, or it became sawdust LOL,,
its the price of progress, chit happens,, I just desperatly want to KNOW what happened but not likely I will ever have 100% clarity,,