Golden State Contest at madara

[Gordan Delaney]

Any one have pictures or Score board pictures?

Gordy

[Shawn Lenci]

...

[Russell Shaffer]

Judging by the weather service, today was not good flying.  I probably wouldn't even have started an engine, but I'm a wimp in the wind.

[Brett Buck]

Any one have pictures or Score board pictures?

Gordy

Expert
Fitzgerald
Walker
Rush
Buck
Cox
Rud

   1st round winds were 15-17 with gusts into the low 20s, and a bit choppy.  Most people passed, usual suspects went ahead. Flight order was Cox, Rud, Buck, Walker, Rush, Fitzgerald. Air backed off a bit about halfway through Paul's flight, not very much, just enough to notice. For a while it looked like it was going to get better for the second round, but then the sun came out and a clearing breeze came up.  It picked up to about 22-23 sustained with gusts to about 28 (2003 NATs but not as turbulent). David drew first, flew, came up 20 points down on his first flight, Paul went second. I was last in the round and was planning to fly, but I needed to pick up 22+ points which didn't seem realistic. So instead of making Howard fly, then passing later, I withdrew right before his flight, and that was more-or-less it.  

        Later it went up to near 30 sustained, which is essentially unflyable.   I was back home and getting rained on at about 1:45.

        It was very unfortunate. It was much more difficult than last year's air due to the direction and a bit more speed, but very uncharacteristic. As most of the long-term attendees know, the problem is more likely to be dead air than too windy.  I mentioned this on Friday, when it was nice/perfect, but stunt seems to have two problems:

    No one flies stunt any more
    There's not enough circles and you have to wait too long

    About the size of the NATs again.

     Brett

[Howard Rush]

I had a lovely time.  Rather than go home from the Salem contest the week before, we moseyed slowly south.  Weather was unusually clear along the northern CA coast, so we did our moseying there, visiting redwood groves along the way and dining at a great hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant we found on a previous trip.  We then took highway 101, a peculiar road that is sometimes Interstate-grade freeway, sometimes forested park path with massive redwoods at the edges of the narrow lanes.  It went through a hippie town with more vagrants per capita than Seattle.  We passed hundreds of wineries on the back roads from 101 to Napa, where we had a lovely dinner with Dave Fitz and his mother-in-law. I discharged all my batteries in interesting conditions at the Napa circle Wednesday morning.  Chris Rud and his wife stopped by the circle (yes, an anatopism), and we went to lunch.  We got to Madera Wednesday evening, and I flew all day Thursday in dandy conditions, flew some more Friday in dandy conditions, but mostly visited with folks.  Saturday was windy, with the usual smooth Madera wind.  The field is wide open in all directions but the southeast, where there are some tall hangars.  I flew one flight in a 16 mph breeze to prove to myself that it could be done, then found excuses not to fly any more that day.  

I expected Dave Fitzgerald to give the traditional Address of the National Champion at the Saturday evening banquet, but he and Jim Aron told of their experiences at the recent Australian world champs with Sharks and kangaroos.  It was a fine presentation.  

Sunday the wind blew from the dreaded southeast.  Rain had been predicted for the last few days, but about the only rain we saw was during Brett's flight, which was a good time for it.  My flight went OK until I got to the high stuff toward the end, where the turbulence from the hangars caused the airplane to follow paths not of my choosing.  Then the wind got worse.  We finished at about noon, and everybody went home in a dust storm.  Too bad, because I hadn't finished socializing.  

[Steve Helmick]

I am reluctant to ask for Howard's recommendation for a Mexican restaurant. Chris and Joan, I'd believe.  Steve

[Brett Buck]

Sunday the wind blew from the dreaded southeast.  Rain had been predicted for the last few days, but about the only rain we saw was during Brett's flight, which was a good time for it.  

  No it wasn't!

    Actually, other than making things rather chilly, it didn't seem to make any difference to me. There was a sudden temperature change around the time Paul got to his square 8, it got much warmer, and it lost a few MPH. That got better and better until about the start of the second round, then the sun came out and it really cranked up  the wind. As demonstrated, it was still flyable, but definitely not "scoring weather" (as Paul put it at the 2015 NATs).

    The sustained wind speed during the second round was about the same as it was when Paul and I flew last year but it was much more demanding after coming over the hangars, tents, and people a little bit. Last year it was no problem even at ~20ish MPH. Everybody got fooled about the ground direction VS direction aloft, at about 20-30 feet it was about 15 degrees further toward the south. Paul saw it bite me a bit, tried to compensate by starting his wingover about 15 degrees earlier, and it still got him. I ended up starting my overhead a bit to the west of south and that was perfect.

      These were very challenging conditions and I would have flown again had I thought I could gain the necessary 22 points. I certainly didn't fly a particularly good flight in the first round and could have made a better effort. I might could have picked up the 8 points I needed for third but given that David and Paul flew very good flights and came up 20 points down on their first round scores it wasn't worth the effort, given that I wasn't going to win. And I sure wasn't going to hold on just to make Howard fly his flight just to see if he could do it, that would be a real dick move.

   Brett

[proparc]

 
    I might could have picked up the 8 points I needed for third but given that David and Paul flew very good flights and came up 20 points down on their first round scores it wasn't worth the effort, given that I wasn't going to win.
   Brett

Flushing Meadows 1970's, "Don't risk the ship if its not going to pan out".

[Randy Powell]

Remnants of Typhoon Songda. We had wind on Saturday of about 35mph with gusts up to 60 or so. Sunday just sustained winds in the 25mph range with gusts into the 30s. Shockingly, we didn't lose power. But i spent a lot of Saturday with a chainsaw clearing the road.

[Brett Buck]

Flushing Meadows 1970's, "Don't risk the ship if its not going to pan out".

  Madera, CA, 2016 - "Don't risk someone else's ship if it's not going to pan out"

    Brett

[Warren Walker]

First I want to say what a great time we had at golden state. Visiting with friends,
catching up with people we have not seen in some time, the paella feed, all good stuff.
 although I did have some bad luck, between hitting a bump and shattering the prop on the hawker Friday,
 witch led to shaking its self apart. Then flying Fred's shark straight into the ground due to a control failure,
 honest it wasn't my fault.
 Well to put the giant pickle on top of this big crap sandwich, when I hooked up the car
to the back of the motorhome like I have done for the lest 50,000 mi, I checked to make sure it was
in neutral by wiggling the gear shifter, as it turns out, the old shifter had some slop in it and it was in
fact in second gear.
We pulled out slowly and all was fine, when we hit the freeway it was straight into the wind, by the time I
realized it was not the head wind that was holding me back, something was not right. I started to get off at the next exit
 but it was to late, just as I looked at the rear camera, it blew up big-time with fire everywhere.
Luckily we had a fire extinguisher at hand and I was able to put it out.
 In just a few minuets the CHP and a fire truck showed up and everything was ok.
The car was still towable, so off we went with no more problems.

I would love to know your thoughts on what was going on inside that motor, going 40 mph being driven by
the rear wheels in second gear, for it to get so hot, so soon, that it would blow up and catch fire. Total distances driven
about 1 mi.

W.W.

[Randy Cuberly]

My thoughts would be "about 10,000 RPM" or more !  Transmission would likely go first!

Randy Cuberly

[Gordon Tarbell]

If the trans is of a design that has a manual valve in the valve body and the shifter has excessive play, the manual valve is then not fully in one gear or the other but applying pressure to two circuits . One is usually stronger than the other making one engage and the other drag a band or clutch pack. Some times on newer solenoid transmissions a similar situation can occur.  The other situation is trying to accelerate to speed in too tall a gear (like starting in 2nd instead of first) this puts a tremendous amount of heat in the overworked torque converter. The heat gets high enough to start vaporizing the ATF and the vapor ignites and you have a trans fire. Very ugly. There are other scenarios none good. Most transmissions in motorhomes are actually over worked automotive/light truck units. The Allison trans is built for trucks that haul heavy stuff even the small allison that GM uses is better than the rest of the offerings. It is a money thing.

[Warren Walker]

If the trans is of a design that has a manual valve in the valve body and the shifter has excessive play, the manual valve is then not fully in one gear or the other but applying pressure to two circuits . One is usually stronger than the other making one engage and the other drag a band or clutch pack. Some times on newer solenoid transmissions a similar situation can occur.  The other situation is trying to accelerate to speed in too tall a gear (like starting in 2nd instead of first) this puts a tremendous amount of heat in the overworked torque converter. The heat gets high enough to start vaporizing the ATF and the vapor ignites and you have a trans fire. Very ugly. There are other scenarios none good. Most transmissions in motorhomes are actually over worked automotive/light truck units. The Allison trans is built for trucks that haul heavy stuff even the small allison that GM uses is better than the rest of the offerings. It is a money thing.

The car is a Saturn veu with a 5 speed manual trans.

W.W.

[Jim Hoffman]

Hi Warren,

Thanks again for all your hospitality and generosity at GSSC and over the past many years.  Sorry for the mechanical problems you endured the past few days.  Takes an extraordinary man to continue to smile through the many bumps in the road.

Attached is a shot of Warren making and serving paella on Friday night

Jim Hoffman