2010 DARTS Altitude Limited Electric
Soaring (ALES) Contest Results
Sunday October 24, 2010
DARTS Field, Fairborn, Ohio
Thank you to Ed Franz for CD/sponsoring this contest
and to Dave Rice on behalf of the DARTS for hosting this event. I thoroughly
enjoyed the trip, you guys have a really great field and provided a warm
welcome to out-of-towners that joined you for the day. Hopefully this event
catches on in the area. I'd love to come back and visit more with guys I've
flown with before as well as the folks I was fortunate to meet for the first
time on this trip.
I always try to learn a few things on trips so:
- We've gotta get the ALES scoring programs to do seeded MOM,
- And every now and then you've absolutely, positively, gotta have .....
BALLAST!
Saturday afternoon the wind was dead calm and 10 minute
air was easy. Sunday the threatened rain never developed but the wind! Wow,
the wind! Thought I was flying hand launch in Dallas again! Before leaving
the field on Sunday I remembered the little wind meter in the field box. It
indicated 15mph steady with gusts over 20. And it felt like it had abated
slightly by ~ 2:30.
The contest seemed to go smoothly with only one launch
mishap that I recall - a power system seemed to be erratic resulting in some
damage to the plane - I think that was early in round 2? Don't know the
details but the cartwheel in the wind was a bit ugly.
Round 1 was moderately flyable with winds maybe in the
10mph range. By the second round the wind was really moving and for all
pilots it was launch high and slowly drift backwards for as long as you
could. By the third round one or two guys were blown back over the north
tree line and houses so we elected to call it a day. In these conditions a 3
minute flight from 200m was a challenge. Same with landings. I think maybe
10 landings were scored the entire day (moral victory here - I got at least
some landing points on all 3 flights!).
By the end of the day Joe Mekina took first with Ed Franz
just 2 point behind for 2nd. That's about as tight as it gets (see results
below).
Apologies for the delay in getting the scores out after
the rounds. Took a little to be able to see the program - bright lights,
wind trying to blow the mouse off the plank, etc., etc. But thanks are due
to Dan Tandberg of Albuquerque for making his program available for scoring.
Thank you also to Randy Brust of Soaring Circuits for loaner CAMS for the
eevnt. And to Don Harban for providing the 'ALES kit' with the landing
tapes, some more loaner-CAMS and his scoring programs. Any club that wants
to run an ALES event can contact Don for the loan of the kit.
Again, thank you to the club and it's members and officers
for hosting this event. Hopefully the weather didn't detract from the
enjoyment of the ALES format.
- Dave Register , chief scorekeeper and furthest traveled
contestant!
2010 DARTS ALES group picture
pictured kneeling are left to right: Dan Meyers, John
Lueke, Terry Toole and Ken Rice.
Standing left to right: Jack Iafret, Gavin Trussell, Joe Mekina,
Ed Franz, Jerry Shape, Dave Register, Don Harris, Skye Malcom,
Dave Rice and Bill Hoelcher.
some more pictures from the meet:
(click on a thumbnail for a full-size picture)
| Dave Register and Ed Franz.
Dave drove in from Oklahoma to fly in the event. Dave served as
chief scorekeeper while Dave was the primary CD. |
John Lueke poses for a launch of his
Radian. John brought about 6 models but chose to fly the
Radian to help promote the event as one that does not require a high
tech costly airframe. He finished 5th while his Vista won the
event when he he loaned it to Joe Mekina who won the event with it.
Point made! |
| Carey Songailo, Dan Meyers and
Gavin Trussell pose around Dan's Electric AVA. Dan finished
4th with some good flying, For many of the contestants, it was there
first formal Altitude Limited Electric Soaring (ALES) event.
|
A typical view down the flight line. Each
group had 5 flyers in them and the planes were launched at the
direction of a flight line coordinator, in this case Dave Rice the
assistant CD for the meet. The launch coordinator made sure everyone
was ready then opened up a 15 sec launch window during which time
all planes had to be launched. Left to right are Dave
Register, Ed Franz, Dave Rice, Jack Iafret, Gavin Trussell(kneeling
back to camera), Dan Meyers, Cary Songailo, Bill Hoelcher (also
kneeling, back to camera), Don Harris (kneeling), Don Fleming and
Skye Malcom |
results:
