Sept 12th T28 Races.
We had a good turnout with 13 pilots entering the September 12th T28 races. The first races of the preliminary round got going a little after 10am. We had preliminary rounds with the cumulative results determining the groupings for the Bronze, Silver and Gold cup races. There were a few causalities from CFIT(Controlled Fight Into Terrain) for various reasons—the good news was that in nearly all cases the planes were easily repaired and some were able to fly in later rounds.
After a number of close and hard fought laps around the pylons the matchups for the finals were as follows:
Bronze:
Brad
Quan
Silver:
SteveN
Alex
Gold:
Otto
Frank
SteveM
Quan took first place in the Bronze Cup.
The Silver Cup between Alex And SteveN was likely the closest and most hard fought 10 laps of the day with both planes “cutting the grass” and trading places numerous times. In the end it came down to the last turn before the finish line with yours truly getting ahead of Alex by < 3 feet.
The Gold Cup was anticlimactic after the the Silver Cup drama—Both Otto and Frank put themselves down a lap by jumping the start or cutting a turn—which gifted the Gold Cup win to SteveM who coasted to an easy win by staying out of trouble.
We learned a few things and next time we will revise the audio file so as to make the countdown to the start clearer and easier for pilots to follow so as to avoid some of the late/early crossing of the starting line—also some of the sounds will be toned down a little.
In watching some of the flying during the races it was clear that several pilots had their planes setup for what I would call “sport flying” with way too much control travel for racing 6 feet above the ground—the last thing you need is to snap roll the plane while pulling a hard pylon turn. Go back and read some of the setup advice in the newsletters earlier this year.
We have two races on the schedule for next month with the first on October 12th @ 10am and the second two week later on the 24th at 10am. get in some practice and get your planes trimmed for speed!
Steve Neu
Now for the video from Hobie Sutton Studios (Frank & Alex Sutton). Just click
