Club #1698

District VIII

Houston Hawks
F5J Type Club Contest Results
August 2, 2008

Place        Pilot                Points        Sailplane
> 
> 1        Walter Higgins          3924         Ava-EF
> 2        Bill Estill             3784         Omega II 2M
> 3        Boby Fussell            3682         Wind Dancer
> 4        Tommy Lamnek            3657         Ava-EF
> 5        Keith Blair             2345         Optima
> 6        Dick Roddy              dnf          Falcon 600

Saturday, August 2nd, was a great day for our contest with light variable winds, blue sky and puffy clouds. There was lift in several places over the field with associated sink.

We flew four rounds of seeded man-on-man format. Our goal was to launch to approximate winch launch height, cut off the motors and then thermal for ten minutes counting one point per second and then normalize to the highest raw score. There was a landing bonus of 15 extra points if you landed within an eight foot diameter circle.

Four out of the six planes could climb pretty fast so we limited their motor run to 10 seconds which yielded somewhere between 300-400 feet. Two of the planes needed extra time to reach that height so when their timer advised them they cut off their motors. Their launch times were about 20-30 seconds long. This system worked out pretty good with the number of pilots entered in the contest. With my Ava, the 400 foot launch was way less than half of what I normally get with a normal 25 second launch to spec height. This presented all of us with the challenge of flying a 10 minute task starting at 400 feet with a heavier than normal sailplane. EXACTLY what was intended with these rules. Out of 21 total flights, only two flights made the 10 minute task and only 9 other flights extended past 5 minutes. The remaining 10 flights were less than 4 minutes each. Like I said, there was associated sink around the field. We need to practice more at this guys. The breeze was blowing from the West and the lone pine tree threatened several planes on landing approach. All the pilots had fun and so did the spectators.

I believe we have enough interest and investment to do this on a more regular basis. Let me know what you think.

Tommy Lamnek, CD