The Bud Garric Pattern Classic - Sunday

Sorry for the short report for Saturday but I was beat!

Ok here we go.....

Frank wasn't kidding as we pulled out at 05:30 for our now standard breakfast meet and greet. Fred Light and Bob Obregon met us at the local Folsom Gold Miner Cafe.

We arrived at the field along with most all competitors and started setting up . The weather was clear but a thin layer of low cloud developed and slowed the start for half an hour or so.... several attempts were made but the planes kept disappearing:-) . Soon the sun worked it's magic and we had clear skies and light winds for most of the day.

The FAI guys got in a fourth round the previous afternoon so all the other classes started first to get caught up. Things ran smoothly and everyone was enjoying the contest. A hot lunch was provided for the judges and available for pilots and spectators alike. Frank made every effort to sell raffle tickets throughout the day as he had a huge array of prizes. He sold lots of red tickets... and a few yellow ones as well :-)

Our only major loss of the contest was Jon Carter's beautiful Oaxi Azurit that suffered a wing failure during his down line 1-1/2 snap. The recovered airframe was inspected and Jon will be in touch with the manufacturer with his findings.

New Sportsman flyer Jerry Hays cleaned up in the Sportsman class. This was his very first event and I suspect your will see him on the circuit next season. Intermediate was won by Dale Olstinske who has just returned after a lengthy hiatus. He has not lost his touch and flew very well. Dave Wick gave chase but couldn't catch him.

Advanced was won by Gary Fontaine who has been flying pattern for the last five years. He looked pretty happy when he received his award. Masters flyer and K-Factor Editor Chris Fitzsimmons won Masters with Jon Carter and Bill Sneed trailing behind. The FAI class was dominated by Troy Newman with Don Atwood a close second. Both Tom Messer, Craig Blogett and myself had close scores going into the last round but things pretty much stayed the same after the final round.

I packed up my plane as Hartley was heading home right after the contest and would take all my gear home to Sechelt.

The awards were presented and the raffle prizes drawn. The Blogett family once again cleaned up but did leave a few items for the rest of us:-) Everyone said their goodbye's and the flying site was soon deserted.

I had a great time and even met up with fellow flyer Andrew Beranek and his wife Char who are on vacation in the area. Also had a short visit with Dave Sullivan who comes up and flies at my RC club's annual charity event each year.

Everyone made us feel welcome and part of the group. Don Atwood, Bob Obregon, Ron Davies and the rest of the local pattern guys were great ambassadors for their club. Both Kelly and I are especially thankful for the kind hospitality of our hosts Frank & Linda Capone. We look forward to many more contests & visits together.

We head back into San Francisco tomorrow morning for some sightseeing and catch a flight home in the evening. Hope everyone enjoyed the contest reports.

More pictures posted at http://picasaweb.google.com/Dave.Reaville/BudGarricPatternClassic#

The Bud Garric Pattern Classic - Saturday

Up at 5 am for our trip into Folsom for breakfast. Met up with the gang and after stuffing ourselves full, headed to the field for an 8am start... er well we started flying after 9:30 once the BBQ's were set up and the obligatory pilots meeting. A total of 27 competitors arrived for this event and we all enjoyed the spectaular weather... light winds and 70 degrees in the shade.

The lines were kept going steady with every class putting in three rounds with the exception of FAI that managed to squeeze in a forth round. We were treated to an awesome dinner and enjoyed some night flying as well.

We headed home and I am told that the 6a.m. breakfast is on again tomorrow so off to bed!

BTW More pictures posted

Results after Saturdays flying are....
Sportsman

Intermediate:










Advanced:









Masters:









FAI:

The Bud Garric Pattern Classic - Friday

A nice sleep in day for us after a great dinner and evening around the fire last night. This morning we will load up Franks' trailer & truck with a huge load of raffle prizes he has received from various RC suppliers. The garage is full of great stuff!

Hartley will take his rig down as well and set up for the weekend event so we will use it as base camp at the field. Nice to have friends! I will give Frank a hand and get is some practice flights as I have not flown since Mission.

The gals will head off for a trip into Placerville and some wine tasting etc.

BTW: Pictures will be posted at http://picasaweb.google.com/Dave.Reaville/BudGarricPatternClassic# or click on the link on the right side of the page.

More later.......

Ok it's later :-) I drove out with Frank as he towed his trailer full of planes and RC stuff. Hartley followed with his RV and we arrived at the field around 11:30. We set up and joined the lineup for practice rounds. I had not flown in a month so it was nice to get the fingers moving again.









We got reacquainted with some old friends and met some new ones as well. The weather was great with a nice steady blow in to keep the guys honest. The flying I witnessed was very smooth and it will make for a great contest for all those in attendance. Looks like a good crowd for the event. Some of us got registered early and received the highly coveted, commemorative Bud Garric Pattern Classic Peter Grimm Gambler Hat... Frank and I model this years edition below.









We manage to get in three good flights and then started to pack up our gear as the sun was swinging into the box. We flew the last flight offset to make things easy.

After the practice session I joined Hartley and we headed to the local RC store to check things out. Frank was on a mission to get a certain "Kielbasa Sausage" so he left early for a specific Costco outlet in the next county :-)

After buying some small RC items we headed back to Frank's place and met up with the gals and exchanged the days stories & events. Frank says I have to get up early tomorrow (05:25 departure!!!) as we are going for breakfast with some of the regulars in Folsom (near the prison I think :-)


More pictures posted as well.

The Bud Garric Pattern Classic - Thursday

Up around 8 and headed down for a free breakfast in the hotel. It was surprisingly good! Showered up and now heading back to the airport and the rental car pickup. Should be on the road by 11ish or so. ETA Placerville is ???

Managed to get out of the car rental area at 1050 local with our Nissan Altima. Nice smooth little car with lots of power. Anyway we managed to easily move through SFO via Hwy 101 and on to the Bay Bridge. The east bound lanes are on the bottom so the view was rather limited. Anyway onto Hwy 80 and within an hour I was parked in the Premium Outlet at Vacaville mall (at exit 505 ;-) ) Coach, Tommy Bahamas etc., etc. Kelly was in her glory! I blogged :-)

We arrived at around three at the Capone “estate”… simply beautiful place nestled in the outskirts of Placerville. We had a little social with both the Hughson’s and Capone’s then started putting the plane together.

Even found a nice place to store it:-)

Off to practice tomorrow.

Our Trip to the Bud Garric Pattern Classic

We are now awaiting the departure of our SFO flight from YVR. We will arrive late tonight and grab a hotel close by the airport & rental car pickup. The plan is to pick the car up after our breakfast in the morning and head towards Sacramento.... with stops in SFO etc. then travel up to Placerville where we will stay with the Capone's. Hartley & Pat Hughson departed Sechelt last Friday and have camped thier way down from BC. If everything works out we should be meeting up with them at Frank & Linda's place. Also enroute to the event will be the Beranek's. This will be Andrew's only event of the season and I am looking forward to seeing him back on the flightline again.










Dave blogs away.

Hartley is bringing my plane & packs down so I just needed my TX for the trip. I have to admit it nice to travel so "light" compared to the Muncie trips:-)

Epilogue>>>

Had a nice flight down and only had to wait 30 minutes for the shuttle :-( Anyway all good as our room is pretty nice for the price. That's it for now... will try to update in the am.

Pattern In the Valley 2009

Hi folks

I am unable to update my shaw server south of the border so this will have to do until I get home. I have uploaded the pictures I took of the PITV event this past weekend. Go here to view them. http://picasaweb.google.com/Dave.Reaville/PatternInTheValley2009#

Special thanks to Ron Kennedy for sharing some of his pics for everyone to enjoy.

We had a great turnout with 24 total flyers including 8 in FAI. The weather was hot and then wet :-) Saturday but we managed 6 rounds after dodging some low clouds on Sunday morning.

Also Xavier sent this link for pictures of the Oakville Contest. Go here to view them.
http://picasaweb.google.com/xavier.mouraux/OakvilleContest2009#

Many rain delays but still 2 flights on each day, thanks to a good organization.
Thanks Xavier!

Also hit the link on the right side of this page for Chad's blog...he actually made updates after the event started!!!! Yes I know...it's shocking!

I have one more week of vacation and then it's back to the grind. I'll update the results page as soon as possible with both of these recent contests.

Dave on vacation.

E-Fest Sunday

First off I'll post the results of the Precision Aerobatics portion from Saturday...

Sportsman

Intermediate

FAI- F3P

Sunday morning started off in usual fashion with a quick stop at Starbucks for java! Robyn then dropped Mark and I off at the flying venue and headed back to the hotel to relax and pack up. Both her and Kelly had a nice breakfast and then came over for the rest of the flying day. We started off with our second round of freestyle aerobatics and it was a a blast. It was in this round that we had the very rare experience of witnessing Chad bury his foamie! He was almost finished a great performance when the push should have been a pull! Ha! (Ya that's never happen to any of us..right?) We all had a good laugh as he set about making repairs.

Chad went on to win the freestyle portion with Mark Byrne coming second and Jon Harwood third! All the participants really enjoyed the competition and it was fun to observe the different flying styles and music interpretations.

Next up was the obstacle course that Mike Allman set up...mmm looked easy enough but in reality no one got through it! Maybe not so hard next time hey Mikey. The small crowd and competitors really got into this event and as much fun as it was it was major carnage as planes tried to maneuver through the course. Steve Lyne had a blast flying in it but his foamy suffered from some "slight" damage.

Chad, Mark and I think it was Mike that came out the winners in this event.

I think it's safe to say everyone that participated came out winners. Going forward, I believe this event will help provide a focus for indoor fliers around the province and hopefully attract more participants next year. It will now be a "must go" event for those involved in the indoor rc scene. A big THANK YOU to the High Country Flyers, Kamloops Model Airplane Society and the Vernon RC Airmodelers Society for putting on this event. Great job by all involved with a special thanks to both Norm Bryson and Mike Allman for making us feel right at home. Also a big thanks to the folks in Kamloops for building this great facility!

I have added more pictures on Picasa so check them out.

E-Fest Saturday

Hi folks

No computer at the the venue so updates were non existent... sorry.


A shot of the venue and the pilots meeting held in the morning. Norm and Mike take the pilots through the rules and the planned program events for Saturday. We were all very excited to get flying as the venue was the biggest one we had ever flown at. According to a fellow pilot, they had over 45 pilots signed up throughout the day.

Mike ran the Precision Aerobatics side and Norm had the slow fliers taking charge of the other end on the venue. We had lots of practice time and enjoyed burning electrons . The three classes of PA flew throughout the day and after three rounds Mike announced the winners. (I'll get some shots of the score sheet tomorrow as my mind is numb right now and I don't trust my memory!) Let's see.... Chad 1st etc etc.. :-)

We finished off the evening with our first round of Free Style and had lots of fun watching the planes do there stuff to a 2 minute music selection. Although there was numerous carnage type incidents everyone had a great time today. This event will become a great motivator for all us indoor type I think! We are all beat now but I've upload some pictures at the picassa site (so check the link to the right of this page.) I will not put captions on right now as I am heading to the rack.

Chad & Nedim pose before the action started.

Thompson Okanagan Electric Festival (E-Fest) Friday the 27th

Hi folks

I will attempt to give some general reports and an overview of the event for those that are unable to attend. As this is a fun event I won't get to serious about the results but focus on the general goings on.

We started with an early rise to catch the first ferry out of Swartz Bay to the Mainland. Mark and Robyn picked us up and then we met up with Jon Harwood and his son Jake as well as Steve Lyne for a visit to the buffet :-)

The trip was quick & easy with a couple Geocaching stops along the way. We arrived at 1400 and unloaded the truck at our hotel on the hill. It's fairly close to the flying facilities so this will work well for us! We met up with Brad Begeint and headed to a local pub for lunch.

Before dinner we had a chance to tour the facilities and I must say it was huge! Looking forward to the size! No walls of low ceilings to hit i this place. Dinner at Ric's Grill with Mike Allman and his dad Al and mom Vicky. Great meal followed by an early bed as we are all tired from the trip.

I'll update when I can and get some pictures posted as well.