The 69th SOUTHWEST REGIONALS CONTROL LINE CONTEST
Last March my old hobby and I parted ways, and I needed something new fill my free time. Flying a control-line, Stunt contest has always been on my “to do list”. As I have gotten a little older, maybe I should say a little more experienced, it has been moved to my “bucket list”. It was time to get busy. I had been aware of the event and had enjoyed watching many stunt flights at Mile Square park in Fountain Valley where I grew up. At the time I was flying RC pattern. Control line and free flight were flown on an adjacent runway to the radio control planes. In 1976, my Schwinn 10 speed took me past Bob Whitley’s house, during my daily paper route. Bob’s garage door was often open while he created his aeronautical masterpieces. It is very likely my visits interrupted his progress, but he let me hang out anyway.
Fast forward four decades and it was January 26, 2019.
I arrived in Tucson that Saturday afternoon after the days competition was complete. I did manage one practice flight but the winds were beyond my personal limits; so I stopped. On Sunday morning, the weather was perfect. After the briefing, I prepared my equipment at the northern circle. The only thing between me and my first contest flight was the pull test. “This is going to be tricky”, I thought to myself. “It’s going to take both hands to hold the model. How do I plug my ears?” The bellcrank was still close to centerline when complete and so all is well. I won’t go into too much detail about my first flight, but will admit, in all the excitement, I forgot how to count. This led to my timer getting done a little ahead of me. Right in the middle of my four leaf clover, to be precise. After I landed, I learned about pattern points. I didn’t receive any, but I now know what they are. Someone asked how I was able to run out of time on an electric? I pretended not to hear them. Striving to only make new mistakes, thirty seconds was added to my timer between flights. The second flight went much better. What a great feeling to get through it all. The best part, everyone I met was so helpful and friendly. Why had I waited so long to do this!
After the trophies were handed out, Brett Buck and David Fitzgerald offered a critique session. I, along with four or five others, took advantage of their gracious offer. The group was split in half. Brett drew the short straw and worked with me. As I anxiously awaited my turn, it was fun and insightful to watch the other pilots fly and listen to their debriefs. Then it was my turn. After my flight, Brett broke the maneuvers down and concentrated on the most egregious errors. The gist of the conversation was that the bottoms were too high and the sizes were too small. The hourglass was/is the most frustrating for me. In an event that is won or lost by the smallest of errors, I was off by 40 degrees! Only one and a half points separate first and second place in the expert category. This is going to take some serious work. Okay, fresh battery, fly again. Knowing what I wanted to do is one thing, communicating it to my airplane is another. My airplane is a slow learner; a very slow learner. On the third flight Brett flew my Vector. My airplane had no problem listening to him. How can this be? Allowing him to fly my airplane was a huge error in judgment, so many excuses I can now never use! Brett did recommend a few trim changes between flights. My turn again. This time Brett suggested that I fly each figure like I would draw it on a chalk board. This advice did nothing to improve my hourglass. In Brett’s defense, he had no way of knowing the last time I had tried to draw something, it didn’t even make it up on my mother’s refrigerator. While he was standing seventy feet away, his facial expression told me we still had work to do. Or... maybe it was him telling me to not do any more of those. An obvious disadvantage of electric is you can hear the coach from the center of the circle. I will be upgrading my equipment to something with a pipe to solve that! Out of time, batteries and bandwidth, I left with my hourglass half full but my personal fun meter pegged.
I must again say thank you to all that put on this event. Many were there just volunteering so others could compete. How cool is that? Brett, I am sure your good deed helping a new guy will add at least two points to the karma bank.
Tim
Topic: First impressions from a new guy (Read 1869 times)