[LASS Soaring] "Great On the ECHLGF From Buddy Roos! (DLG Contest Wilson NC)"

[GordySoar at aol.com]

Hi guy,
I snatched this from the NASA (North Alabama Soaring Assoc)  Newsgroup 
postings.  An excellent detailed report on what turned out to be  a most challenging 
contest!
But for those of you who don't realize how alive and well DLG is in  the USA, 
it will definitely open your eyes to the fun they have!
Thanks Buddy!
Gordy
Last weekend, NASA Members A.J.  Wilson, Lou Musgrove and Buddy Roos and a
Friend of NASA, Fred Francis, went  up to Wilson, N.C. to compete in Oleg's
East Coast HLG Festival. This year  the ECHLGF had 54 entrants but there were
44 that actually competed. During  the contest, I talked to flyers from
Brazil, Denmark, New York, Connecticut,  Florida, New Jersey, Maryland, North
Carolina, South Carolina, New Mexico and  California.

A.J. and I arrived at Wilson just before dark on Thursday and  dropped by the
field to set up our canopy in a good spot. "A good spot" being  next to the
official tent where you picked up and turned in your time cards  and where
they served lunch.

Friday morning, Lou and Fred arrived and  we were able to save them a spot
for their canopy right next to our canopy.  At one time or another during the
contest, we shared our canopies with both  Denny Maize and Oleg. Early Friday
morning, Bruce Davidson conducted a DLG  Seminar to pass along many tips on
competing in DLG contests. On Friday  afternoon there was a Pro-Am contest
where they paired up Experts with Novice  and Sportsman flyers. I decided to
not compete as I had learned at the 2004  ECHLGF that if I competed on
Friday, my legs would give out by mid-day on  Sunday. It seems that my legs
can only take 2 days of competition in a  row.

The weather report Friday claimed wind at 11mph with gusts up to 20  mph. The
winds remained strong for all 3 days of the contest and there were a  lot of
planes damaged by the wind and other causes. Denny Maize was having  trouble
with his knees and decided not to fly. He spent the entire weekend  repairing
planes for anyone that had any damage. One of the first planes he  worked on
was Lou's Raptr. Lou had the rudder blow off on a launch and the  resulting
crash broke the boom and delaminated the wing in a couple of  places. Denny
repaired the boom for Lou. Fred also had a crash that broke the  D-Box type
spar on his XP-5. I was sharing channel 11 with another flyer and  decided to
change to channel 39 so I could fly anytime I wanted to. BAD  IDEA!!!...While
flying my Raptr, I began to get a lot of glitches and when I  circled around
behind Phil Barnes, my Raptr went straight in from about 50'  high. I was
amazed to find that the only damage was a crack in the pod. I  also got
glitches with my other planes on channel 39 ( especiaaly when I flew  around
Phil) so I changed back to channel 11 and that seemed to fix my  problem. I
then had a mid-air with my TabooXT that put a pretty big dent in  the leading
edge but the other guy's plane got the worst of it and it was  unflyable. I
had been test flying my Raptr and TabooXT to see if they would  be better in
the strong winds than my TabooGT. Even though the TabooGT is 2  oz. lighter,
it is so clean that it penetrates the wind better than the other  planes.

Friday night, we had a big repair session in my motel room. Both  Lou's and
Fred's planes were unflyable and they didn't have back-up planes.  We fixed
the spar on Fred's plane and the delaminations on the wing and the  rudder on
Lou's plane. They were able to compete on Saturday and Sunday  without any
further problems. Only A.J. was able to retire early Friday night  because he
didn't have any damage to his planes on Friday. He would more than  make up
for it on Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday started out with a  task we had never flown before, "Poker", where
you post 5 times but you have  to call out how long you are going to fly
before you launch. If you don't get  the time you called, you have to keep
trying until you get it. If you call 2  minutes for your first flight and
never get it, you get a zero for the entire  task. One time Lou called out
1:30 and got 1:29.7. Since they weren't  rounding off the times, he had to
fly 1:30 again. Twice during the weekend, I  had "brain fade" on a task where
your last two flights count with a 3 minute  max. Both rounds, I got a 3
minute max on my first throw, and when I didn't  get a good launch on my
second throw, I started diving down to relaunch.  Luckily, both times, my
timer saw me diving down and warned me that if I  relaunched, I would lose my
3 minute max on my first throw. Both times, I was  able to pull back up and
get a fairly decent flight. So...I only lost a few  hundred points instead of
blowing the whole task. I also had one more small  "brain fade" where I was
coming back from downwind. I thought sure I had  enough height to make it
back and just couldn't understand why I landed off  field about 50' out in
the bean patch. When I got to my plane, I found that  it was in thermal mode
with the flaps down 7 degrees. I haved no idea why I  had it in thermal mode.

Speaking of landing out, because of the strong  winds, almost everyone landed
out at one time or another...even Phil Barnes,  Bruce Davidson and Oleg.
Aradhana Khalsa, the guy that makes the Lighthawk  and Lightspeed DLGs,
landed out about a 1/4 mile away. They took a car to go  get his plane. There
were also a lot of planes in the trees around the field.  I saw 3 planes in
trees at one time. Another guy went looking for his plane  and couldn't find
his way back. He called someone at the field on his cell  phone and told them
he was lost. They blew some kind of siren to help him  find his way back to
the field.

In the middle of a task on Saturday,  A.J. had a hard landing and on his next
launch, his TabooGT did a 15'  diameter loop straight into the ground. I've
never seen a HLG hit the ground  going that fast. You could hear the sound of
the impact all over the field.  The boom was broken in half and the wing
delaminated in a few places. He must  have damaged something in the elevator
system on the hard landing. A.J.  switched to his TabooXT and later had a
mid-air that ripped out one of his  aileron control horns and broke the
control rod. We were able to fix all that  before the next round.

After the flying was over on Saturday, most of the  flyers stayed out at the
field to socialize and eat a few hot dogs. Bruce  Davidson and a few other
guys had brought electric Pocket Combat wings and  were soon zipping all over
the place. Someome had brought out a bunch of  boomerangs and soon Phil
Barnes decided it was his job to rid the air of the  pesky flying wings by
knocking them out of the air with a boomerang. And...He  actually knocked one
out of the air!!!

Sunday, we flew five rounds  with the last round being a 5 minute task: 1
throw for a 4 minute max. I got  the max on 1 throw for my only 1000 point
round of the contest. A. J. had  damage to the rudder on his TabooXT in the
3rd round of the day and decided  to watch the 4th and 5th rounds fron under
the canopy. After the five rounds,  there was a fly-off for the top 6 Experts
and the top 4 Sportsman.

The  Winners were:

1st.....Oleg
2nd....Bruce Davidson
3rd.....Phil  Barnes

When the results first came out, Phil Barnes was in 1st place but  Phil saw
where his timer had made a mistake and pointed it out to the  officials. The
mistake knocked him down to 3rd place. Now that's  SPORTSMANSHIP!!

10th.....Buddy Roos   Except for the 3 "brain  fades" I mentioned, I got
through the contest pretty clean and probably flew  the best I ever have in a
DLG contest.

12th.....Bob  Whitney   Yes...Cliff's brother was there and flew great!!! I
went  up to him after the contest and told him "You didn't tell me you  were
good!"

17th.....Fred Francis   Fred was the "Star" of  our little group. He was the
highest placing Novice and First Time Contest  Entrant. For his great
performance he received a new Sidewinder II kit from  Denny. His legs hurt
all weekend and when he gets that fixed, he'll do even  better!

35th.....Lou Musgrove   Lou's Raptr's wing had been  repaired many times and
was quite "lumpy". This created so much drag that he  wasn't able to get a
decent launch the whole weekend. It wasn't his  throwing...after the contest,
I let him throw my TabooGT and he got great  launches!

39th.....A.J. Wilson   A.J.'s contest was plaqued by  crashes, and his score
wasn't helped by the zeros he got by not being able to  fly the last 2
rounds.

The end result...We had a GREAT TIME and are  looking forward to attending
other large contests.

How  about....Denny's Polecat Contest in  2008?

Buddy




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