Pattern West News

New Blog Update

2011-07-16T12:29:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks

I have added the Team Canada F3A 2011 blog link to the Pattern Links & Blogs section. Or you can just click on this link http://teamcanadaf3a2011.blogspot.com/

This will be the my main portal for information and updates during our trip to Muncie, IN

Various blogs will be appearing and I will list these on the Team blog site... there already starting to show up.

Test for iPhone updates

2010-10-31T17:11:00.000-07:00

Testing the iPhone :-)

2010-09-24T13:11:00.001-07:00

Hi Folks

Below is a link to allow you to donate to Team Canadian F3A 2011

The Bud Garric Pattern Classic - Sunday

2009-10-11T19:49:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-10T21:51:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-09T08:27:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-27T22:13:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-29T19:48:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-28T22:35:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-27T21:32:00.000-07:00

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.

New link added

2008-10-25T10:13:00.000-07:00

Hi folks

I have added a new link for Mark's website.

Team Trials - Epilogue

2008-09-02T18:10:00.000-07:00

Hi again folks

We slept in today... it was great and a nice change to have a relaxed start to the day . Mark made his special scrambled egg dish with bacon and it was very good. I think Mark should cook for us all the time!

I was busy getting the FedEx package organised while Harry gave the guys a tour of his work shop in the basement. With the planes all packed and the van loaded we said our goodbye's and headed to Pearson Airport.

A quick stop at FedEx then over to Terminal 1 to drop the rental van off. Dinged for $100 each for our plane boxes we checked in and headed to our gate. A quick bite and a beer and we left Toronto.

After a stop in Vancouver we connected to our Victoria flight and Robyn picked us up. She dropped me at home and after a short discussion decided that the European Championships next year would make for a great trip.... stay tuned :-)

I'll finish with a big THANK YOU to the Ells for their hospitality and thanks to all those the did the hard work to run this event. Hope everyone enjoyed the blog.

Mark says he will make some comments on the trip when he recovers :-)

F-09 and Team Canada 2009- (Updated)

2008-09-01T20:09:00.000-07:00

Hi folks

Ok lets bring you all up to speed on the final day of the Team Trials……

After our breakfast we loaded the vehicles up with the awards, freshly charged batteries and headed North West to the flying site. Weather was pretty much perfect with clear skies and a very light breeze. Mark and I traveled along uneventfully on our now familiar route with virtually no traffic to speak of. Hey it’s a holiday.

Both Dan Venables and Harry were also driving up together just behind us when Dan, doing a mental check of airplane parts, realized he had left his wings back at the farm! Harry pulled over and called Rosemary, whom was following all of us, and had her go back home and pick up said wings. Thank heavens for cell phones. Dan’s heart resumed beating.

We all eventually arrived at the field and the competitors started to assemble their planes. There was much discussion on the scores and the carry forward going in to today’s F-09 sequence. There was such a tight race for the last spot that it was really going to be interesting. Further was the fact that both Mark and I had really concentrated on the P-09 sequence and the F-09 had not been flown nearly as much... especially by me. This of course is not the position you want to be in but we would do the best we could.

Ivan has his demo plane sound checked.

Harry had Ivan fly a demo round for the judging panel and I personally was most impressed with Ivan’s flight. In my opinion, had he signed up for the team, he would have made it. Not bad for a guy out of pattern for several years!

The panel was then treated to another demo that they now scored except that Ivan threw in a couple “wrong” maneuvers that I saw. Nice guy! With the demos completed & judges debriefed, the planes were measures for size and the competition flights began.

Ivan briefs the judges following his flight.... all this under the watchful eyes of some competitors.

Chad was up first and put in a very solid round after his noise test. I followed him and put in probably my personal best round of F that I have flown. (This according to Mark) The others followed suite and we all watched the flights progress. We had lost one flyer in Richard Vigneault as he decided he had no chance and headed home so only 8 pilots flew.

After each flight the planes were checked for weight compliance and unfortunately Paul Hepworth was well over so his score was zeroed. He knew he was not going to make weight but flew for the experience anyway.

Marks plane on the scale
.
The second round commenced after a short judges break and panel change. The flight order was also changed and things got going again. You could see the pressure in the flying as everyone had a few rough areas. Once again Chad flew a pretty solid F although not as nice as the first… I suspect the pressure was off him :-)

With the last round completed, we all gathered around and took some photos of the competitors. We also took a couple flights to burn down some packs and took some pictures with the Canadian flag that Paul had brought.

group shot.

The scoring was taking quite a long time as they had to make sure the results were correct. The score was so close for the last spot on the team that they went through all the raw score including P and double checked the math.

I think this process took its toll on Harry and after and hour of scrutinizing the scores simply put the result sheet up on the board for all to see. Ivan jumped in and read aloud the results. Chad, Dezso and Dan were announced as the team with Xavier as alternate. The scoring difference between third and fourth was only .28 of a point so that’s why they did a recheck.

Results

Does it get any closer? Wow!

We all congratulated the winners and then they posed for the traditional group shot. It was time to pack up and head back to the farm to start breaking down the planes and start the road home to Victoria.

The 2009 Team ..... Chad Northeast, Dezso Vaghy and Dan Venables

It was a pretty well run event and although there were some lessons to be learned I think the club members and Harry did a great job in putting together a combined Nationals. It was a lot of work for them and at times can be a thankless job.

I congratulate the winners, all the competitors whom spent countless hours practicing (as well as hard cash!) and the event organizers whom made this event possible.

Special thanks to Rosemary and Harry Ells for taking us into their home this past week and making us feel so welcome.

More pictures added.

The Contest - Sunday

2008-08-31T17:07:00.000-07:00

A little more relaxed pace this morning as we headed out to the field at 7:30 am. We stopped along the way to take a picture of a road sign that we never see out west in BC.

The sportsman fliers had to finish up their 4th round before the scoring computer was ready to produce the results. Unfortunately Mother Nature decided to play another trick on us and enveloped the field in thick fog.... so thick even Dezso drove right by the field.... even with a GPS. Everyone milled around and talked shop about the Saturday results. Just after 10 the fog lift and quickly burned off. The flying started and we all enjoyed the morning sun.

The battles continued and the round 4 scores were finally posted. Mark had jumped into fourth place as I thought and this set the stage for FAI. All the classes had tight scores at the top so it was going to be a make or break day for most competitors. We all put in our 5th & 6th rounds under sunny skies and a light blow in wind that could not make up it's mind which way to fly. Most flew right to left with the odd exception. Both Mark and Xavier had good rounds and even I had a couple of nice once... yes shocking I know:-)

We were lucky to have the nicest charge station I have ever used. Thanks Ivan!

Harry called everyone over and made the award presentations after announcing the results.

Results are as follows.

Sportsman

Intermediate

Advanced

Masters

FAI Prelims

The FAI competitors that signed up for the Team Trials will now fight it out for the chance to represent Canada in Portugal (2008) Their average score will carry forward and be counted in the best 2 of 3 with two F-09 rounds flown Monday.

After the flying ended the FAI pilots kept their planes out in order to practice F-09. Both Mark and I did a couple rounds... including my patented "Low Knife Edge Loop Pass" :-)

I'll be uploading pics shortly.... off to bed now.

The Contest - Saturday. (updated)

2008-08-30T19:14:00.000-07:00

A six o'clock start today as we need to be up to the flying site early. Harry had all the gear loaded for his CD duties so they led the way up.

29 competitors arrived to battle it out for National honors and the beginning of the Team Trials. The grounds were awash from the previous nights rain which unlike BC, stays on top of the clay and awaits evaporation. There were numerous wet patches all over the field and impound that everyone walked around, over, or through. Wet feet was the order of the day but at least we know it's clear skies for the rest of the contest. By Monday it should be dry :-)

CD Harry Ells gave the pilots the lowdown on the event and reviewed some of the rules for judging. The hot topic was the pause after the 2/4 in the first manouver in P-09.

Mark was first up in FAI and put in a solid round. The 11 other FAI pilots followed suite as the other flight line catered to the remaining classes. Jeff Stevens kept the flight lines & judging order going.

The pilots rotated through judging assignments and the rounds went by pretty smoothly. Paul Hepworth had his plane go into failsafe on the trim pass but managed to get it back down ok. He was unable to sort out the problem so the plane was grounded.

Chad easily outdistanced the rest of us with solid rounds in FAI. As the winds were a blow in from the North West several people struggled to maintain distance. Ivan returned to the skies as well and it was a pleasure to watch those great stall turns he does. (I always remembered those from the 2000 Nats in Vancouver, BC) He looked like he was enjoying himself.

Sportsman flyer Ethan Chariandy, whom just passed his wings test, was doing very well from what I observed. (He got a bullet in round 1!) Watching his dad call for him reminded me a little of my past flying with my own son. Ah... memories. Phil Stang leads right now going into round 4.

Scott McNaught and Bert Armstrong have a real battle going in Intermediate with only 7 points separating them after 3 rounds. It's going to be another tight race.

Advanced has Bev Cowell out front but there will be pressure applied by both Jim Eichenberg and Ross Erwin on Sunday.

In Masters we have a great battle between Steve Miller and Ken Velez going. It will start to shake out after the rounds get dropped but Ken is coming on strong after having major TX problems. Seems his TX fell over while being charged in the vehicle en route. The charge plug broke and a short was created within his TX. Suffice to say the TX was "unserviceable" after the melt down period. He used his backup TX (for foamies) and trimmed during the first flight this morning. Tim Pascoe was having wheel issues as his plane shed them on landing.... too wet to glue them on. (Harry has a fix for him though)

We managed to almost complete 4 rounds with the Sportsman fliers to finish up in the morning.

Scores after 3 rounds (4th not completed yet.)

Sportsman

Intermediate

Advanced

Masters

FAI P-09

Once the fourth round is posted things will change again. Mark should move up as he had a solid 4th round... Xavier had a great 4th round going too but had snap switch issues (seen that movie myself!) It will be a tight race going into Sunday. As Chad said... it ain't over till the large lady sings... hang on tight!

I have struggled with my own flying today and my scores reflect that. Consistency and execution have been my nemesis this season and it has become quite frustrating frankly. I'll give it my best shot tomorrow and try and improve my flights. In the meantime, Mark is in the hunt for a team spot so I'll do my best to help push him through.

After the flying ended we packed up and headed to the Peterbourgh Boston Pizza for dinner.

I have been going for 16 hours now and I am completely beat. Type later.

New Pictures posted.

Friday.. and the rains came!

2008-08-29T19:04:00.000-07:00

August 29, 2008

Out of the rack at 7 a.m and joined the rest of the folks for breakfast. The weather was going to be an issue as we could not see past the edge of the side yard. Low cloud, fog & drizzle enveloped the house.

Harry was having connection problems with his new provider and was hunting down the problem… router reset etc. In the meantime Master Chief Marko Mechanico created a great scrambled egg dish that we all enjoyed. I handle the toast prep under the watchful eyes of Chef Marko. “Toast ready?” he asked..... “Yes Chef” I barked back.

With the vans loaded up we headed north to the Lindsay field with some trepidation. The weather was poor at best for our purposes but we hoped for a break later in the day.

Ivan and Diane Kristiansen, along with Chad Northeast arrived in their beautiful Dutch Star Motor coach. They had to do some maneuvering to get down the access road and into the parking lot but Ivan made it look easy. The Honda van, loaded with pattern planes, made for the ultimate tow vehicle behind the RV. Hope my wife doesn’t see the pictures!

Xavier Mouraux & Dezso Vaghy also arrived and we spent an hour or so under the canopy catching up on news and travel exploits. The weather improved little so they head into town for lunch. Richard Vignealt and his wife also arrived from Sept Iles QC but headed out after surveying the weather from the comfort of their van.

We hung out at the field and rested in the van awaiting the weather to lift. Our mini van has a neat back up camera built into the dash… check out this shot.

We had a nice visit with Ivan and Diane in their motor coach. I even had a little tour and was most impressed with the layout of the RV.

The skies eventually started to clear and Mark was the first one up after weighing his plane numerous times. The ceiling was still low so, after disappearing on a vertical, he opted for some trim pass and “lower air work”. Everyone else started to assemble planes and prep for some practice rounds.

With all the flyers present it was suggested to fly two flight lines but after some discussion we elected to just fly one. Everyone was ready and the flights progressed smoothly. Ivan had an issue with a bad lead on one of his stab servos and needed some repair time. Once fixed, he took to the skies and we all enjoyed seeing him back flying pattern again. He still has the hands!

I flew two practice rounds and Mark managed another 2 as well. The guys are all stoked for the competition tomorrow and a few had game faces on. It will be fun if nothing else!

We headed back to Harry’s place to prep dinner for everyone as we were preparing BBQ hamburgers with sweet potato (yam) fries. Charging was all done so its off to the rack for all of us… up at 6 tomorrow!

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

Practice Day

2008-08-28T17:58:00.000-07:00

Up at 7 a.m. to finish charging packs…. It never ends! We followed Harry & Dan North to the flying site and set up for the days flying. We were greeted to windy conditions out of the South –Southeast but the temperatures remained relatively comfortable.

Dan gave Harry a hand with the marker poles as we set up our planes. After a trip into Lindsay for more paint, Harry finished spraying in the box lines and then they headed back to the farm as Harry had chores to do. Dan elected not to fly as he was awaiting his supplies that he had shipped from Lethbridge.

We had a good day and managed 6 rounds each before our fatigue started to take its toll on both our bodies and flying quality. We packed up early and headed back to Harry’s place to recharge packs and get cleaned up. Mark and I also took a side trip into Cobourg and purchased several wines for our gracious hosts. The downtown core is a very neat spot to walk around.

We were treated to a great BBQ steak dinner with fresh corn, potatoes & tomatoes … I love the farm life! The rains have now started so hopefully they will move through tonight.

Mark is going to prepare a delicious scrambled egg dish in the morning so we will be ready for the day. As the planes stay in the vehicle we will be able a quick departure in the morning.

By the way, Mark is flying really strong and I fully expect him to give Chad a run for his money and take home the top spot on the team.

Mmmmmm,,,,, never leave your computer to check batteries…. Seems someone snuck in a comment re: their flying.

The trip out...

2008-08-27T20:08:00.000-07:00

Up early as Mark & Robyn picked me up at 20 past 4 in the morning. As Mark and I are traveling on a pass, the loads out of Vancouver to Toronto were hammered so we elected to jump over to Calgary to connect to YYZ. The check in was seamless and our flights all connect well with on time departures all the way. Chad and Dan are three hours ahead of us as they caught the 7:30 am flight out of Calgary. Dan will be waiting for us and will hitch a ride to Harry’s place near Cobourg. Approximately 75 minutes drive from the airport.

Chad will be staying with Ivan and Diane tonight and then using their motor coach as he gave up a spot for Dan.

On arrival in Toronto we met up with Dan, picked up the rental van and away we went to Cobourg. We had stop & go traffic for 50 kms…. hey it’s rush hour… then, after stopping at Wal-Mart for supplies we headed to the Ells Farm.

We started to assemble the planes and after a break for a great dinner, finished the assembly job and continued to charge our packs. BTW They arrived just after 2 P.M. in great condition.

We will be on our way up to Lindsay in the morning to check out the field and help Harry get set up. There is no internet at the field.

Off to bed now.

BTW New pictures posted. I'll do captions later :-)

Here we go again!

2008-08-26T22:44:00.000-07:00

Well once again we have dismantled the planes and packed them for the trip to Ontario. The Canadian National Precision Aerobatics Championship and Team Trials will go this coming weekend. I will have limited access to update the blog but I highly doubt that you will see the up to the minute reporting that you may have witnessed from the US Nats. I was just a spectator at that time so updating was easy. This will be different ;-)

Pictures will be uploaded when I have the chance to the Picassa album. The link is on the right side at the top.

Pattern West News - Connection difficulties ;-)

2008-07-31T16:11:00.000-07:00

Hi folks

For those looking for your daily fix of pattern news I have been down in the states and cannot upload to my Shaw server through Comcast.... put a man on the moon... sure, connect to a server...no way :-(

Anyhow I have added the Pattern In The Valley pictures to the photo gallery. Thanks to Scott Esplen for sending me the pics. I'll get some captions done shortly.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Dave.Reaville/PatternInTheValley2008

Through in a blown hard drive on my PC at home just for fun.... arghh!

Back home soon... Dave

More Pictures

2008-07-28T11:17:00.000-07:00

Aside from the Picasa web album I have at http://picasaweb.google.com/Dave.Reaville/2008AMANationals

Ivan Kristensen has publish more photos here
http://albums.phanfare.com/ivankristensen/2413376#imageID=38688177

Thanks to Ivan for sharing these with us.

27 Hours and Counting

2008-07-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

From the desk of Marko Piloto :-)

Who said flying R/C airplanes isn't exhauting or hard work! It's 06:00 Pacific time and we are waiting in Vancouver for the last flight of our journey home. Our day began yesterday at 06:00 Eastern ( 03:00 for you west coast folks) and we are now into our 27th hour of Friday. The term TGIF has a whole different perspective right now. LOL

We did manage to get a couple hours of nap time this morning (what day is it??) before checking through our baggage. A quick stop at the Reaville's for some planned coffee and banana bread then Dave and I are heading out to the field to put in a few rounds. Yes Kelly, he is not yours until tonight! LOL

The week that we spent in Muncie was once again a great experience. Lots of flying and laughs shared between the boys and their toys. Congratulations to Chad on his 7th place finish in the finals. We all know that Chad is a very good pilot but his consistency was the factor this week in reaching his goal. No more DA first rounds as his metal toughness has improved significantly.

Back to the grind on Monday of planning and practicing for the Canadian Nationals and Team Trials to be held in Ontario at the end of August. Honey, (Robyn) see you in September.

Marko "Piloto"

Final Results and Heading home :-)

2008-07-26T01:40:00.000-07:00

As Get Smart would say “Missed it by that much!”

Well I guess by now you figured out that we had to leave for the airport in Indianapolis. We waited as long as we could but hey those are the breaks you get in life.

Troy & Quique pose with their Euphorias

We know Jason placed first but it was a real battle for the top three spots. All the top guys put in good rounds in the last unknowns. Both Brett and Andrew had solid Unknown #2 flights. Sadly Quique was only able to complete two rounds (both were solid BTW) after having engine problems on his last two flights. He seemed to take it in stride though. This was the tightest battle I have witnessed as it came down to the last flights scores to determine the US Team.

Mark and I said our goodbye’s and gave our chairs to Chad & Nedim to take back to Calgary. They had lots of room because Chad had sent his backup plane home with Harry Ells (for the Canadian Team Trials in August). He was the only pilot that did not have a backup for the Finals. He didn’t need it as it was probably the best 10 rounds he has strung together at any competition.

At 5 pm the Pattern West Blog went “dark” as we changed clothes and headed to Indy for our 19:50 flight to Toronto. All went well and we arrive in plenty of time to catch the flight. The Thrifty boss drove us in our van right to the check at United (Air Canada). Plane boxes & baggage were quickly processed and we were through security in less than 15 minutes curb to bar. Man I was impressed!

Chad had phoned as we were gassing up the rental so I didn’t have a lot of time to talk to him. He gave me the rundown on the results and his 7th place finish. I was very happy and proud for him as I know how hard he works on his flying. The sacrifice his family has to make for him to achieve this goal has been a topic with all of us pattern guys at one time or another.

Final results:

Dez finished in 19th spot, Mark 26th, Dave 27th, Nedim 30th and Harry 32nd.

Great to see Quique take the fourth spot even though he only put in two rounds… sometimes life has a way of rewarding you when you are patient. Always the gentleman, he has represented the USA very well. You should all be proud of him.

We arrived in Toronto and cleared Costums & Imigration, picked up our planes and rechecked them for our Vancouver flight. They could not check our bags through to Victoria so we will have some work to do when we arrive in YVR. No big deal as we have 6 hours plus on the ground.

I am blogging from Starbucks at the Vancouver Airport right now 02:00 Local and we are both tired and exhausted. The big comfy seats upfront helped a little ;-) I have also updated the Nats Pictures 2008 with the last ones I took before heading out.

Mark sleeps.

We will arrive back in Victoria at 08:20 Saturday morning and be home at 9 am. Mark will go home to bed and I load the trailer and grab the ferry to the mainland for a week of camping at our friend’s beach house looking at the San Juan Islands… it will be tough but I will make it.

Hope everyone enjoyed the blog and I apologize for leaving everyone hanging…. Sorry but our time at the AMA Nats had come to an end.

Depending on Team Trials results we are considering a return again next year.

Friday Finals - Round 4 Unknowns

2008-07-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

Drama is building as the unknowns will determine the US Team.... Chip, Andrew and Brett are battling it out. Chad is flying well but of course will not be on the US team even if he has a great last round..... he's ours!

Jason was first up but made some errors and will not score at the top....so the door is wide open for a 1000. It could go any direction for the battle to represent the USA in Portugal 09.

Bill just landed and he's followed by Dave Lockhart. Chip has now flown and the raws are starting to come back. Andrew up now.... winds have picked up from the SSW.

Seems like a bit of a delay in getting scores. Just hope they keep bring the raws over from the clubhouse... not sure if they will hold them to make the announcement of the team...??? They did bring Jasons :-)

Ok I see the golf cart again... Troys up now... Quique had engine trouble again and was forced to land... I'll try and find out what happened.... Quique says that the power issues have appeared at the same time with both airframes... after changing ignition systems the result was the same... so back home to test the equipment and find the cause.

Meanwhile we await the raws... Jeopardy Music plays...

Andrew. 1484
Brett.... ..1472
Chip....... 1447

Chad...... 1385

Dave...... 1356
Jason.....1290 (couple zeros I believe)
Bill......... 1230

Quique... 135 (power problems again)

Sean...
Troy......

Special thanks to Mike Wickizer for helping me obtain the raws in a timely fashion..... heck we even beat Jason to the posts! Now that is fast!

Chatting about the event. Awaiting scores.

Well it's been fun doing this blog... lots of work though! We leave at 5pm sharp so it's quite possible that I will not get the results in time :-( If this happens go to RCU - Pattern - Nats or go to the Nats News link. I will stay close as long as I can.

The US team will be

Jason

Finals- 3rd Round - F-09

2008-07-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

Ok they are just reviewing all the details with the judges... should be starting shortly. Peter Collinson is now doing the demo flight with his Integral.

BTW The time on the bottom of the post is 3 hours behind Muncie Time... you'll have to do the math ;-)

14:04 local - We are more than half way through the 3 round with Troy, Shaun, Brett, Bill and Dave Lockhart finished... Chip is in the air now.. er just landed and Andrew is up.

Brett, Bryan and Quique discuss Brett's 3rd round.

Raw stcores are on there way as I see the golf cart coming ;-) They do the scoring at the Farmhouse so score sheets go back & forth.

Sean...... 1657

Troy........ 1675

Mark messes with Nedim as he sleeps.

Chad & Nedim before his last F-09... He flew well.

All the raw scores are coming back and it looks like Jason has clinched a spot on the US team.

Quique was just starting his sequence when his engine sounded like it went lean. He had to bail and landed his Euphoria without trouble. He was obviously dejected.

Jason.......... 1833

Andrew....... 1823

Chip............ 1761

Chad ......... 1740

Brett.......... 1738

Troy........... 1675

Shaun......... 1657

Bill.............. 1656

Dave........... 1653

Quique....... 627

Finals - Unknown Round 2

2008-07-25T07:41:00.001-07:00

AC Glenn is flying the Unknown sequence for the judges right now 10:45 Standby for more...:-)

Everyone watches the unknowns for the first time.

Just had this past to me.... top six raws are :

Jason 1854, Brett 1795, Quique & Chip 1792, Sean 1775 and Andrew 1756... Ill get the rest asap.

Andrew is now up first and everyone is watching.

Chad on approach after his round.

Chad had a pretty good round with some errors in his rolling circle. He also exited the reverse Knife edge inverted and into the figure nine upside down... two zeros arghh. It's tough when your string these together and although inverted they looked great ;-)

More pictures on the Nats Pictures 2008.

Here is a shot of the sound meter readings for the first round.... hey I am inquisitive on your behalf ;-)

Brent just landed and had a very solid round, he was followed by Dave Lockhart and then Chip... I will update with raws when I can get at them.

UPDATE:

Ok latest raws I have from my "source" are:

Jason ......1584

Quique....1562

Brett.......1535

Chip.........1530

Sean........1477

Troy........1477

Dave........1466

Andrew.. 1436

Bill............1376

Chad........1267 (two zeros...ouch)

Judges are taking a break as Nedim and I check over the scores.... Time for Chad to step it up in the next two flights.

Friday Finals - Round 1

2008-07-25T05:21:00.000-07:00

FYI Go to the bottom for latest updates this morning....

First off I want to apologize to all those folks looking for Masters results and info... as we have shifted to support mode in Chad's efforts in the Finals and the fact we all fly FAI :-)

We loaded the van with all our gear and head to IHOP for one last breakfast. Arrived at site #1 and cruised around taking pictures. All the planes and pilots are ready but we are on Muncie time and have not started to fly... it's 08:26 a.m... not sure but everyone is just standing around.
Scuttlebutt has it that some paperwork was left in a Muncie hotel room.... not sure if a hot Hells Angels girl was involved. (Canadian Joke:-)

Nedim is trying hard to handle the pressure of calling for Chad but he will do fine. Chad is very relaxed as he has already met his main goal of just making it to the finals.

Nedim took this shot of me in my "blog" position.

Stay tuned... looks like they are starting. Peter Collinson is doing the demo flight for the judges right now.. 0845. New Pictures on the "Nats Pictures 2008" link

Down to Andrew now as he is putting in a pretty good round... slight flaws. Chip appears to us to be in the lead right now with the best flight. Chad next.

George Kennie

Ok Chad had a pretty good flight with some minor deviations. It was not as solid as he has flown in the past... he seems to be taking it in stride. QQ just flew but it appears his plane did not make sound... they have impounded it. Yikes!

Shaun up now. He had a strong flight and will be in good position I think.

They retested Quique's Euphoria and it passed.

Ok Brett and Jason have just flown. Prior to that both Quique and Chip were tied with Andrew right behind. We will have to wait for the results. Quique is having engine problems and has been running up his airplane... he may be going to the backup for the first round of Unknowns.

It's break time before the demo pilot takes the judges through the 1st Unknown round.

Semi's are over!

2008-07-24T14:33:00.000-07:00

Just finished 4 hours in the chair judging Master (Mark was on the other line). We are now awaiting the official weigh in of the finalist. Chad came eighth and is in! Not 100% sure what is going on but there are now 10 finalists instead of the announced 8. Seems that with two ineligible competitors (for the US Team) they added two more spots. Both QQ and Chad are the "ineligible" fliers.

I took some pictures of the planes on Site #1 and posted them on the Picasa site (see the link on the right of the blog... Nats 2008 pictures)

We will get some shots of the weigh in and then split for dinner. Chad and Nedim will attend the special meeting to draw the schedule for unknowns. Everyone will fly 2 rounds of F and 2 rounds of "Unknows" on Friday... starting early at 8 a.m.

Update - Weigh in and processing.

We headed over to the Headquarters building and watched as the top 10 guys went through the weight and size confirmation. I took several shots of the different planes getting done. I did not stay for all of them as once you see a couple you get the idea ;-)

Nedim and Chad prep for weigh in. Both are obviously very happy to have made the finals

Chad gets the Integral weighed. 4782 grams

Lots of banter.

We headed back and cleaned up a little before picking Harry and Ivan up for dinner. Dez reappeared and we all went to the Texas Road House for dinner and RC related discussions.

Chad called looking for Mark's stick plane to practice the unknown routines, which he said at the time, was almost finished being chosen...yikes it's 9 PM here. It will be a long day for the boys tomorrow. FAI starts on Site #1 at 8 am.

Day 3 Round #1 of Semi’s

2008-07-24T05:52:00.000-07:00

Schedule of the days flying.

We were up early after a good nights sleep and headed to Site #1 were Dez was first up. After the demo flight Dez was up with Harry calling. He had a so-so round and you could tell he struggled a bit with power and maybe some nerves. All in all a decent flight but one you would definitely want to build on.

Site 1

Dez gets ready.

We jumped in the van and headed over to site #3 were Chad would be flying. Right now Brent Wickizer is flying followed by Chip Hyde (Chad is scheduled last) All pretty solid rounds so far….

Site 3.

Chad & Mark watch the flights

I’ll update shortly... more pictures in Picasa.

Ok continuing to the judges break…Jason Shulman flew second last and had a very solid flight… the best I had seen this morning. Chad was up next and basically followed Jason’s lead with an equally impressive flight. We will see how the scores fall out but Chad had a solid 1st flight. Always good to nail the starting flight as you can build on it going into round #2.

Flight line shot.

Chad flies his first round.

Jason had great power as he is now running a Plett 30-10 Evo in his Integral. He seems impressed with its simplicity and performance.

Jason chats with Dennis Kirby.

Raw scores are out… phone calculators are going….. stay tuned. Chad had a raw of 1677 so it will be a 951. Jason had a 1762.. wow.

Rumors from flight line #1 has QQ zero his last 45 downline snap due to time. Also heard that Ivan is onsite over there. We will investigate :-)

Ok Ivan is here and we hade a good visit with him. He stopped by on his way to Oshkosh.

Round 2

Both Jason and Chad had solid flights and are awaiting the last pilots to finish flying. Todd Blose just landed. Jasons raw was 1836! ...still waiting on Chads scores.

Jason & Chad with their Plett powered Integrals.

Ok Jason scored an 1836 and Chad had a 1754.. at the request of Chad I have posted it below for his wife Agnes in Calgary. The gang all say Hi and you should be very proud of hubby... best 6 rounds I have seen him fly!

Day 2 – Rounds 3 & 4

2008-07-23T08:18:00.000-07:00

Up early again as I am up third on Line 1 followed by right away by Mark. Wind was now blowing in and everyone was working hard to maintain distance. Both Mark and I had solid 3rd rounds. Chad was on his game and flew well. Dez had a good flight and both Nedim and Harry flew pretty well but got blown in quite a bit.

Round #4 was probably my worst round as I missed both snaps due to snap switch (brain) not engaged arghh. Anyway that’s sort of been the theme for me this trip. Mark had a solid fourth round along with probably the best round of P flown by Chad on the B line… very nice from my vantage point.

Dez had a pretty good round with Nedim improving as well as Harry. We all thought Harry was going to take out the pilot station as he made his approach in the strong crosswind!

We had a group shot taken and then planed to have lunch at the field. The Semi-finalists will be announced at this site so we will await the results. I’ll post them as soon as I see them.

The Masters guys are starting to show up and get ready for the afternoon flights on this site so we are packing up and giving them room.

Ok change of plans… off to the practice field to watch Chad & Dez practice F-09. We know Chad is in for sure (he uses his cell phone calculator to compute the data) and are 99% sure Dez made it as well although we did not stay until the semi-final competitors had been announced. Mark and I took the opportunity to discharge our packs and I muddled my way through F a couple times in a strong blowout condition. It was fun and I provided some additional humor to the afternoon!

We have now flown for the last time at the 2008 Nats and after 60 some odd flights between the two of us we are better off for the experience. It was a great time and although I wish I could have done better, we look forward to cracking the semi’s some day… until then its practice, practice, practice.

We packed up and headed back to the hotel and dinner at Chilli's … I even made it to the pool for a dip! Planes are all packed, batteries ready to ship and chargers put away.

Results to date have been posted on RCU at http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_7709356/mpage_3/tm.htm
See the last post by Jason. Chad finished P-09 in 10th, Dez 19th, Mark 26th, myself 27th, Nedim 30th and Harry in 32nd position.

Both Chad and Dez move to the semi finals tomorrow morning and then both Mark and I judge Masters in the afternoon. It will be another long day for us!

Mark's up first!

2008-07-22T05:06:00.000-07:00

Up at 6 and at flying site # 3 for our first flights. Several of the contestants are already setting up when we arrived. We are sitting beside Quique on the flight line so if we need tips we will just ask!

Blogger Dave

Flight line.

Standby for more from the flightline... Mark is up first on line A.....

Ok Mark had a solid first flight... minor errors but a good showing even though I could hear his knees knocking :-) Chad was up next had a solid round as usual. Once again minor issues with some elements shaved some points off but a decent flight. I once again struggled with the rolls (too slow) and had a generally poor round. Just not going to happen this flight. Anyway my second round was much better and I leave the 3# site with mixed results. Mark had an ok round but had a few rough elements. We decided that our dropped rounds are gone and we have to work hard on tomorrow's flights. Chad had a better round and scored better. A mixed day all around.

No info on the other line.... yet.

Chad on the Site 3 “A”flightline

Chad readies for his first flight of P with Mark calling. Chad had a pretty solid round….those books must be helping… wonder if I can borrow them ;-)

Chad flies, Mark calls.

The flight line was finished by about 10:30 so we got our scores and headed for lunch with Dez. Never did see Harry or Nedim but Chad was off to judge Masters on site #1 so we left. IHOP again for lunch… hey it’s fast :-)

Off to practice as my three rolls and down line snap need some attention. We met up with the club president and his buddies and joined in for some flights. They were in awe of the super quiet electrics:-)

Headed home after numerous flights and met up with the other canucks. we went to the Olive Garden and then back to Chad's place to review scores...

Chad 915, 958

Dez 898, 890

Nedim 851, 788

Harry 806, 738

Mark 822, 787

Dave 785, 836

We will update as time permits tomorrow.

Last day of practice.

2008-07-21T19:07:00.002-07:00

Marko Mechanico Checking In!

Hi everyone. Hope you have been enjoying the antics of the Canadian pilots here in Muncie. Every day there has been lots of laughs as we prepare for the competition which starts tomorrow. The FlightPower F3A packs are performing flawlessly even in the conditions that we are flying in. Dave “Puff Daddy” Reaville is all smiles with his latest batch of batteries and there should not be any visits to disposal sites on this trip. ;-)

One of the biggest factors that we had to adjust to has been the weather conditions. Unlike the crisp cool air that we fly in at home, the air is very thick and can be compared to flying through slush. The humidity isn’t a problem from a comfort level but our airplanes have a very distinct “fuzzy” appearance out at 150 meters. So if you are used to looking at a particular part of your airplane the chances are it will be blended in with everything else on the airframe. On top of this are the strong winds that make rudder corrections a must otherwise your airplane will be in the next county. Practice has paid off for the boys and we are ready to bring it all to the table over the next couple of days

Mark gets in the zone for his practice flight. He learned this technique from one of the other Canadian fliers.

We are now less than 12 hours away from our first official flights and I get the honor of flying first at 8:00am in the morning. This morning the weather was dead calm at the Nats site when we put in a few rounds so I plan to take full advantage of the conditions and dial in a solid flight in the morning. Chad is flying 6th and Dave flies 8th, on the same site while Harry, Dezso and Nedim are on the other. The reigning world champion Quique Somenzini is also flying on the same flight line as us so it will be great to see how he flies P-09. Wednesday afternoon all the Canadian pilots will be flying together on the same site but different flight lines which will be really cool!

I think Dave will be doing some live blogging from the Nats site starting tomorrow so check back in the morning. For you west coast folks this means by the time you have had your first cup of coffee at around 9 am, we will be finished day one of the event.

Dave's slant on the day....

Puffy Daddy? Sheesh... I hope I don't screw up the calls tomorrow :-)

Up early as we wanted to basically practice at the time we are scheduled to fly on Tuesday. We loaded the gear, grabbed a bite at the hotel and headed to the AMA site. The winds were very light and the skies just partly cloudy. Mark is up first and in an effort to ensure his ESC (Electronic Speed Controller for those non E types out there) was functioning properly he loaded a set of packs in for a quick engine run. It was perfect so he decided to just go for it with a round of P-09.

The air was very thick and bump free, quite a difference from the wind conditions we have been experiencing. He flew very well and put in a solid round of P… which features two negative snaps. After landing he went to remove that packs and realize he had forgot to strap the packs down. The velcro on the bottom of the packs and tray was all that held the two together! We now consider the velcro “tested”.and will refrain from further testing in the future.. Gulp!

Chad had quite a crowd of judges watching his morning flight.... notice the various arm positions of the "judges"... yeah no consistancy at all :-) (not posed BTW). More consultation after the flight as we pick it apart.

I really enjoyed getting to fly on our site again and the practice today will help us with our acclimatization. Chad, Nedim, Dez & Harry all put in rounds but the crowd swelled so we decided to cut and run to the practice field. We met up with some familiar faces and had some good conversations with several of the pilots… Joe Lachowski, Dave Lockhart just to name a few. Mark and I also stopped at the AMA headquarters and picked up some shirts for us and the gang back home.

A big weather system was starting to move into the Muncie area so we left just in time. Harry decided to stay and get a few more rounds in and Dez was going to get new tires for his SUV.

Dave Lockhart and his dad Ron joined us and received a complimentary Precision Aerobatics Geometry Site for being the first guests of the Canadian contingent! Just a nice goodwill gesture from the us Canadians. We had invited others but they never showed up… oh well.

Charge station in action!

Mark thinks this looks good on him. Ron's JR TX.

We packed up and headed to the pilots meeting at site 3... well that was the plan except the tent at site 3 was gone due to high winds! We all meet at sight 1 and got the usual briefing from the CD and his staff. All good stuff.

As I was attending the NSRCA board meeting tonight, Mark got a ride back to the hotel with Harry and I took a bunch more pictures... they are on the Picasa pages.

Had an interesting talk with Todd Blose about his Passport's rudder system. Two separate panels powered by separate servos... for normal rudder inputs only one half moves... flip a switch and the two halves work in unison for stall turns, spins etc.

I enjoyed the board meeting and it was nice to gather with all the VP's and the executive. Even got to say hi to D-8's Rex Lesher on speakerphone! The guys have a lot of passion for the NSRCA and it was certainly evident to me. Your in good hands boys.

BTW Mark and I made the front page of the Nats News.... check it out at http://www.modelaircraft.org/events/nats/NatsNews08/0721.pdf

We are over on the far right, Mark is flying, I'm calling and Dez watching.

2008-07-20T19:09:00.001-07:00

Ok Marko’s doing heavy maintenance on his ship but will log on later to update flight orders and other details… seems one anxious fan wants to hear from him. (See comments section)

Until he comes on I guess I will just have to do …

Hit the IHOP again for an early breakfast and was joined by fellow team pilot Dezso Vaghy. We also met up with some other flyers as well. Chad & Nedim joined us and following breakfast headed to the practice field.

Dez has a few new modifications on his Prestige as he looks for any and all advantages he can get to make his plane perform. These include a new large Canalizer that is attached to the fuse to increase stability in knife edge.

He also attached a strip type leading edge device that creates more drag on the clean wings of his Prestige. This is to solve some turbulence penetration issues he has had.

We found the new canalizer wing most advantageous when it came time for lunch… as you can see it doubles as a convenient table. In fact we have now renamed it the “Table-izer”!

Sorry no table cloth…. It was the one thing Chad did not bring!

Chad also had Dez bring down some graphics for his Integral… Nedim helped out and they had it all done in less than an hour. Here is a picture of it all done up.

We put in numerous practice rounds and I tried my best to unravel my crappy three rolls (opposite). Seems I have forgotten how to do it.. arghh. With help from Chad & Mark I managed to sort it out and will hammer it hard tomorrow.

With threatening skies we packed up early and headed to the AMA site to pick up our pilot packages. This shows all the groups in the matrix and who flies where and when. Both Mark Chad and I will fly together with Dez, Nedim and Harry on the other line.

Dinner was at the Texas Roadhouse and once again I ate way too much. One more stop at Wal-Mart for liquids and clothes for Mark and it was back to the hotel to charge and do some maintenance on Mark’s Twister. (Connector issues between the ESC & motor.)

Harry Ells arrived and we had a little gab session while Chad did some soldering on Marks motor connectors. All good!

We plan to hit the AMA site tomorrow and pick up some Nats shirts and other goodies… may even get a flight or two in as well. I am hitting the rack… Mark will update probably tomorrow sometime with info on the event flying.

More pictures posted on Picasa.

Second practice day

2008-07-19T19:10:00.000-07:00

Up at 7:40 to shower, shave and load the planes & gear. We headed to the IHOP again then met up with the boys for breakfast. After that Mark and I headed for the field while Chad & Nedim met with Jason to get even more packs… never have enough you know!

We meet up with some of the D-7 boys outside the hotel... Jerry Budd, John Carter and Krishlan Fitzsimmons were heading to the AMA site then off to another practice field. Not sure if we would meet up with them later today.

For markers at the field (to help lay out the 60 degree box lines) we had picked up some broom handles and foam from Walmart . Here is a shot of our left field marker…. Hey Coltin… recognize him? :-)

A shot of my battery case… lots of flights as we are able to charge onsite… very handy

Technical Stuff

One of the new things we see Chad working on is a variation of the Rasa folding prop assembly. The twist is that the folding prop is mounted the same way as a regular prop instead of the motor mounted version. The prop is very narrow when compared to the APC version and about 30 grams lighter. Chad says this “helps reduce the reactionary torque produced by the prop”.

Because the blades naturally fall into a “balanced or self centered position” there is little imbalance or vibration issues as the blades track perfectly. Also the spool up is quicker and the prop draws approximately 5 amps less with the added bonus of 300 additional RPM. Maybe a variable pitch version will appear down the road… never know.

We ended up taking cover as a thunder shower & high winds battered us for 20 minutes… I had taken some pictures but sadly I left the SD card in my laptop… trust me it rained hard!

We packed up early and headed back to Muncie for a big dinner at the Olive Garden. An early night was planned with more charging… see a theme here?

Mark hauls up the planes to our room... he is good!

Also I added some additional info on yesterdays blog.... scroll down and check it out!

First practice day!

2008-07-18T20:07:00.000-07:00

We met up with Chad & Nedim at the Signature Inn to retrieve the battery packs. They had actually arrived in Muncie on Thursday night but due to a “miscommunication” we thought they would arrive today. Hit IHOP for breakfast and had Jason Shulman stop by for a visit.

Chad broke the news that Ivan Kristensen will now compete at the Team Trials in August. Ivan will be flying Chad’s backup Integral for the next month as he prepares for the trials. Great to have him back in the air after his misfortune of late.

Chad finished soldering up some “new” packs and then it was off to Walmart again to pick up a few items. We are regulars now! We then headed to the practice site and spent the remainder of the day working on our flying skills.

The weather was hot, about 31° C with a south west wind so the sunscreen was put to good use!We did some judging on everybody’s rounds and worked on remedies after the flights. All in all it was a good day of flying.

We packed up and headed back to the hotel to unload and start charging and grab a bite to eat. We met up with the Shulman folks for dinner and then made plans for our practice day Saturday.

Went by this place today but decided not to stop.... :-)

Read on folks....

Addendum… Ok I have been informed that my blog was “lame” and basically lack the punch that it needed to captivate the audience… ok then I’ll add some more details of the day… hopefully this will help everyone understand the pressures we face at this National Competition.

Although I reported that there was no damage to our planes I was a bit off the mark. One airplane suffered severe damage when the fuse was snapped in half and the rudder completely dislodged.

Here is a picture of the damage.

Fortunately Chad had just received a new glue gun and was dying to try it out…. so on went the special 4 inch mixing nozzle and the glue was liberally applied. It is safe to say that this is complete overkill but Chad’s face, as the glue swirled down the mixing tube was like a kid in the candy store. Ah…toys & tools!

We decided to take it for a test flight and although Ivan was not here we let the next guy take it for a flight :-)

Chad then went through the P sequence…. working hard on his loops.

Additional packs arrived in a shipment and Chad & Nedim went to work putting them together, first by removing the Deans Connectors and then soldering on the lame 6 mm bullets. Here is a shot of the secret packs… 2p configuration I believe.

Chad did fly them and the results were very positive according to his data logger.

Although dinner was late (finished at 10 pm local) we headed back to the hotel and started the charge process once again. Nedim and Chad returned to the Signature Inn and spent the next few hours pinning his backup ships wings. They hit the rack about 1 A.M…. a little later than Chad’s self imposed 10 P.M. curfew.

We made it.. again!.

2008-07-17T21:43:00.000-07:00

I write this as we scream along at 37,000 feet heading to Toronto.

I was up at O’dark thirty for our 0530 departure out of Victoria. Kelly even got up to see me off with a very puzzled dog in tow. Mark & Robyn picked me up and we headed to the airport. We were the first to check in and it was a quick & easy process. We had great connection to the 0700 flight to Toronto and plan to update the blog on arrival. With the tailwind we will have almost three hours to collect our planes and get processed through customs.

Ok so there was no “free” internet at the GTAA run Terminal arghh! Anyway we stopped for some dinner before catching our flight to Indianapolis.

Mark relaxing.

Baggage and planes all arrived and we hit the Thriftys Car Rental. In and out in 10 minutes and we left the airport at 20:05 local. Smooth drive up in a new loaded Dodge Caravan and we arrived at the hotel in Muncie at 21:15.

Unpacked the planes (they were in perfect shape BTW) and it was off to WalMart to stock up on supplies. No packs to charge so after we returned we got the planes assembled and did some blogging/email stuff.

Not sure what it is with Mark and toilet plungers but it's been quite hectic around here... anyway we are beat and heading for the rack.

Type later.

Marko's On Line

2008-07-16T21:10:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

I will be adding my two cents worth to the PW Blog while Dave and I are at the US Nats. I hear there might be a little synchronized pool action again this year. We just might have some additional cast members who will joining the troop for the performance :-)

Anyway I am all packed and my suitcase comes in at 7 pounds under the 50 pound limit. This year I have decided to purchase additional clothing items from the Muncie Wal-Mart instead of pushing my luck with an over weight suitcase and the airlines. An over weight suitcase can cost an additional $100.

So basically I have packed enough clothing for hot weather and only 4 days worth and we'll be away for 8 days so a few purchases here and there should get me through the week. I figure $100 saved from paying the airline can go a long way at Wal-Mart. LOL

More later

Marko Mechanico

Muncie 08 - Preparation

2008-07-15T07:27:00.000-07:00

Both Mark and I have started to pack up the planes for our trip to Muncie. We will double check that all the parts are loaded. Don't want to leave anything behind like a wing tube! :-(

As we travel on a space available basis through my employer, the loads all look good with the tightest being Toronto to Indianapolis. Should work out ok or else we are touring T.O. for a day!

AMA Nationals 2008 - Muncie, IND

2008-07-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

Hi folks

Well it's almost that time again as we start to prep for our trip to Muncie and the 2008 AMA Nationals. We should have a pretty strong contingent from north of the border once again with Chad, Nedim, Harry, Dez, Mark and mysef all trying to improve on last years performance.

We will be using this blog as the primary news & information source so bookmark it and check back regularly.

D.A.M. Event 2008

2008-05-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

Not sure how much connectivity I will have in Vancouver but I will try and post some updates as time permits. If you don't see anything here then look for a contest report on the website.

Thanks

Dave

Sorry folks... zero connection over there.... the downside to onsite reporting is your hostage to the wireless world... or lack of it!

More Pictures Part 2

2007-12-25T00:57:00.000-08:00

Well folks the pictures are finally posted. Sorry for the delay.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Dave.Reaville

More pictures

2007-11-24T10:23:00.000-08:00

We are slowly acclimatizing ourselves to the cold weather that has replaced our southern climate we were just getting used too! Oh well it was great while it lasted.

Xavier has posted some pictures on the net at the following locations.

http://picasaweb.google.com/xavier.mouraux/WC2007Practice

http://picasaweb.google.com/xavier.mouraux/WC2007Contest

http://picasaweb.google.com/xavier.mouraux/Wc2007Visit

http://picasaweb.google.com/xavier.mouraux/WC2007AutosAvions

PS My UPS shipment that I sent down prior to leaving has just been return yesterday... seems there were a few flaws in the customs process... all in good order though.

Heading Home Day 5

2007-11-22T13:51:00.000-08:00

Once we hit Toronto we had to wait a long time for the planes to be delivered to the oversize area. We then scrambled to clear customs, recheck bags, go through security again and then find the gate. The weather was dreadful with freezing rain and snow and a world apart from were we had just been. Mark looked a little out of place in his shorts!

Our connecting flight was waiting for us and we were one of the last people on board. With the crappy weather making a considerable impact on operations at Pearson Airport we final got airborne at 11:02 local or 2 hours late after they sprayed the airplane…. I believe there were lots of delays today.

Our flight out of Vancouver to Victoria was changed to accommodate the delayed arrival but we just headed right to the gate as there was a flight leaving in 20 minutes (12:00). We were given new boarding passes and headed to the plane. The baggage and planes had already been loaded!!! I have to say it was an awesome job by the Air Canada folks.

Lauren and Sid met us at the airport and we gathered all our stuff. Said our goodbyes to Mark & Robyn and headed home. Checked the planes out (well actually I had to unpack the planes so Kelly could get at her shopping and everything was in good shape. We are all beat from the long trip and will relax the day away… a nap may be in order.

I’ll plan a review of my trip in the coming days….. suffice to say it exceeded my expectations beyond anything I imagined.

Heading home. Day 4

2007-11-21T05:19:00.000-08:00

Our last day here started with the usual morning breakfast. We couldn't get on the internet at all so headed up to start packing the bags once we finished eating. Due to the large amount of shopping that a certain someone has done over the past two weeks we are now in "jettison mode". Lint brush, shaving cream, shampoo bottles, clothing bags/boxes etc. will be left behind in an effort to evade those nasty "overweight airline surcharges"!

I popped down with Mark and we were able to get back on-line.. hence this blog posting. I'll update throughout our journey home.

We checked out of the hotel on schedule at shortly after noon. Our rentals were brought forward to the front of the hotel on Cerrito street. Once we loaded our gear we were quickly on No 9 De Julio heading towards the Obelisco (The giant monument in the center of the city.) This was a crazy ride as there are so many lanes, well marked by the way, but it’s just a guide. You basically take your section of the ground and “maintain” position behind the vehicle in front. It’s like NASCAR as the speeds are only slowed by traffic lights. BTW this is the only place we witnessed people actually completely stopping at red lights. Once the light turns red, a throng of pedestrians make their way across in front of you. They walk with purpose much like Kelly heading to the shops on day one in Buenos Aires J The locals also have an innate sense of when the light will turn green and they must be clear of the cross walk or be crushed under the onslaught of automobiles! Organized chaos as Robyn once described it.

In short order we were on No 25 De Mayo and heading directly to the airport. A quick fuel stop ensued and we hit the departure area. The Thrifty Car guy showed up and after some paperwork was done we headed for the check in counter with all our gear.

Ok so it’s 13:30 and the check in counter opens at 15:00.??? So much for the “Get there early” stuff we were told.. arrghh. We were pretty much first in line and one of the baggage guys help us get the plane boxes squared away and prepped. He also helped out with the agent when it came time to put them through security. He was most helpful and received a nice tip $$.

We headed back towards the gate and spotted the Australian Team with all their planes in deep discussion with an airline official. Turns out they did not remove their 4 stroke engines (only cleaned them out.) We tried to help but all our tools (Allen keys) had already been checked. We wished them luck and went to the gate feeling a little remorseful for not being able to help out their team. It may be a long night for those folks.

The flight departed on schedule and we enjoyed the new in-flight entertainment system this aircraft had. A refreshing change from the blank seat back I looked at for 13 hours coming down from Toronto to Buenos Aires. I prepped our blog update on our way over to Santiago, Chile We will stop for an hour or so and re-board the same plane for the flight to Toronto. I looked around for our camera and after searching through all our bags realized it’s gone missing.

In reflection, I had taken a picture of Mark flaked out in the waiting lounge and must have left it behind when we boarded the plane in Buenos Aires. I notified the airline when we got to Santiago and will leave it in their hands… never know it might turn up someday.

The Canadian Team.

Buenos Aires Day 3

2007-11-20T09:38:00.000-08:00

Met up with Mark & Robyn for breakfast in the hotel as this is our normal meeting process. This is also our blogging/e-mail time as well although connection has been hit and miss the last couple days.

The plan is to split up this morning as they have several shops scoped out that they want to visit. Kelly wants to do the other half of the pedestrian street that we have not seen yet. I will …gulp… do my duty and shop with her for the morning at least. Hey it’s a small sacrifice and how often do you get a chance to do it in Buenos Aires… besides I am planning on picking up an MZ-14 so brownie points count!

NEWS FLASH!! Ok I never thought it possible! After leaving Kelly in the shops, I returned to the hotel to get some blogging updated and e-mails read. When she returned later in the day, she uttered the words I have waited to hear for a long time…. “I never what to go to another store”…. I was dumbfounded, shocked and totally unprepared! Wow with the money we will save that MZ-14 is looking better all the time! Mark and Robym also hit the stores.. twice actually and were also shopped out much like Kelly.

We headed for dinner but to my amazement, (not really :-) Kelly had recovered slightly from her “shopper shock” and managed to hit a couple shops before we ate. We return to the airport tomorrow and, as we have a noon check out time, we have made arrangements for a 13:00 car drop. This is going to give us lots of time to clear Argentinean Customs and get all our stuff checked in before our departure. I am betting Kelly’s bag(s) will be overweight :-)

Here are a couple pictures as we walked about. Sometimes a strange mix of old & new buildings.

Lot's of dog walkers.

Statue at Pellegrinni's memorial.

Ok this is the plate of steaks they bought out at La Estancia Parradilla (BBQ) to show the customers. We had to put this picture up so Kelly’s brother Rodney (a big beef eater BTW) could see it as a picture is worth a thousand words. HUGE steaks! Very impressive!

Buenos Aires Day 2

2007-11-19T14:33:00.000-08:00

Met up with Mark & Robyn for breakfast in the hotel. Its included every morning in our “package deal” the gals arranged. The hotel is not as nice as Santa Fe but its clean and close to everything. We are right on #9 De Julio, “just minutes from the shops” according to Kelly. Wireless helps me get the blogging done at breakfast!

Kelly took this shot of me infront of the Obelisco... I figure its at the top of the box :-)

We walked many miles today and my legs are feeling it! Mark got his 400th geocahe at a very interesting Argentinian Tall Ship.

#400! Very cool.

There is a very sleek pedestrian swing bridge down at the waterfront. Here is a shot of the gang.

We scouted out some eateries down by the water frontand decided on Italian tonight just for a change of pace. I wonder if the spaghetti will taste as good as my moms...:-)

The rest of the team fly out today at 18:15 and we will head home Wednesday. We are sitting in the right now watching the largest traffic jam I have ever witness... we are guessing at 22 plus lanes of bumper to bumper rush hour traffic! I'll take some pictures tonight/tomorrow. For all you RC guys hoping for pictures of Latin American hotties... neither Mark or I have seen any.... well maybe a few :-)..... the women have seen lots of good looking men though :-)

Dinner as planned was Italian. We grabbed a cab and went back down to the waterfront as Mark had spotted a great menu from one of the many restaurants in the area. The cab ride was a nice break from the many miles of walking we have done in the past few days. Although the cabbies could not speak English, we managed to travel both ways with no difficulty whatsoever. Our total return cab fare down and back was $6.50 Canadian including tip! Forget walking! Check out the video :-)

Here is the gang in the cab. We strolled around, took some more night pictures and then loaded up on pasta. It was delicious and very filling.

After dinner we continued to stroll (to work off the pasta!) and came across a soccer game being played under the lights. We stayed for ten minutes and marveled at the speed & skill these players exhibited as well as the seriousness of play. It was like pickup hockey... only better quality.

Kelly and I on the pedestrian bridge.

Kelly and Robyn in front of this neat neon art deco “sculpture”.

We then managed to get the last geocache in Buenos Aires for the four of us. It was a "micro" with coins in it so we left a Canadian quarter and Robyn left a coin and Canada Flag pin.

We then grabbed one of the half million cabs driving around the city for the trip home to the hotel. We are done for the night.

Buenos Aires Day 1

2007-11-19T04:00:00.000-08:00

It’s a wrap on the 25th Worlds! We had a great time at the banquet the night before but it was so late into the evening (dinner was served at 23:00) that most teams headed out after desert was served. We met up with the gang the next morning for breakfast and a rehash of the previous day’s events.

We said our goodbye’s to my fellow team members and friends before leaving the winds of Santa Fe and the now simple sanctity of one plane and one pilot working the flight box. We trade that for the super pedestrian shopping area of Buenos Aires and the chance to rub elbows with half a million other shoppers! Even my wife is in S.S. mode…. “Shopper Shock”. Every fancy shopping store is located in a special walking area in the heart of the city just off the main street of #9 De Julio. Now when I say “Main Street” I am not kidding…. it has more lanes than our very own BC Ferries parking lot.

Team Suriname heads down the highway.

I was very lucky on the shopping trip with Kelly today as I was able to pick up a couple Pico Dulce suckers. These are great little treats and help pass the time as the wife drags me from store to store. (Just ask Andrew Jesky… it worked for him before round 4 on Saturday!)

Anyway I did actually pick up some men’s cologne as my previous scent had long since mellowed since my glow powered days:-) .
We had a good look around and found some great parks close by. We plan to check them out over the coming days.

We had a great steak dinner (best so far) at a restaurant close to our hotel in the walking district. They have a huge BBQ pit going and it was incredible service from start to finish. We decide after dinner that it will be our “last meal” location prior to leaving Wednesday.

We walked back to the hotel on a great evening. We are beat so it's early to bed for all of us. We plan on doing some geocaching tomorrow.

Tech Support Update

2007-11-18T02:56:00.000-08:00

Well it's been over 3 weeks since Dave last saw his F3A packs that he sent by UPS Canada to Argentina. This was done to ensure that they would be here when we arrived ready for practice on November 5th. Dave's wife (Kelly) received a sheepish telephone call a couple of days ago from the UPS representative in B.A. that the shipment has been sent back to Canada at no charge this after many emails and even a telephone call to the Canadian Consulate to try and access the shipment.

It's a good job that we had a back up plan otherwise Dave would have been scrambling to borrow packs from other pilots. We did manage to talk to Colin McGinn of FlightPower who came to cover the semi finals and finals for the company. Colin told us that FlightPower UK sent 19 sets of F3A packs with banners, hats, shirts etc. to support the pilots using their products at the event and these mysteriously disappeared in the Argentina customs. A second shipment was sent and received here by one of the teams using the FlightPower products but we had no idea that they were available. Colin was very supportive in our situation and the company will support us in replacing any of the product we have lost. Thanks Colin!

Day 7 -Finals

2007-11-17T06:20:00.000-08:00

Up late this morning as we all slept in a little. We spent the morning packing up the planes and getting ready for our departure tomorrow... seems like we got here yesterday!

We decided to head out around lunch time to the flying site. We will watch the last F-07 and Unknown rounds before attending the closing ceremonies at 16:30 this afternoon. We'll plan to head back to the hotel to prepare for the big "social" this evening. It starts at 21:00 at the Terminal building so one more trip to the airport.

We headed out at 11:45 and watched the F-07 round and then the Unknowns. It was blazing hot today as the temp in the car showed 38C (100.40 F). We melted in the sun as we watch the flights. Mark and I pose with the FAI flag when we arrived at the flying site. The pilots had all been up early as the first round started at 07:00.

Onda prepares for his final unknown sequence as they watch the warmup flight.

QQ puts in his final unknown round at the competition. He flew very well as did all the pilots at this level.

Team Canada had a large cheering section infront of USA. We had very high temperatures at 33F and the girls made a nice long trip back to the car for an "air conditioning check".

You can't get much closer to the action than this!

QQ gets a helping hand as he heads towards the van.

We all huddled in the shade as we awaited the closing ceremonies to begin. We managed to find a nice cold water tap to help cool us off.

Team Canada poses for a shot prior to the closing. Speaches, flyby's and fireworks ensued.

The French, US and Japanese teams after recieving their awards

Quique celebrates after winning the Individual World F3A Worls Championships! It took 27 years to get to this point in his carear.

Chad dresses up really good as we socialize at the banquet. We ate very late but everyone seemed to enjoy the event. Every one was very tired!

They put on a very nice dancing show to entertain the guests. Other than the late hour it was very well done. We headed back to the hotel around 00:30 and watched a dazzling light show of lightning. Xavier has some great pictures that I hope to post.

We will head to Buenos Aires in the morning for a couple days of sightseeing and down time. I'll update this blog with some comments as time permits.

Final Results here http://www.argentinaf3a.com/final-flights.aspx

Semi Final Results here http://www.argentinaf3a.com/semifinal-flights.aspx

Preliminary Results here http://www.argentinaf3a.com/preliminary-flights.aspx

Day 6 - The Semi Finals

2007-11-16T02:10:00.000-08:00

We are all looking forward to seeing the flying today as the quality is going up big time. As I reflect on my performance here, it's evident that making the semi's will be the next goal for me. It's the next step in the process and this trip and the whole experience will certainly help as I focus on the next goal. Hey the Canadian Team trials are just 9 months away :-)

Ok now on to the details of our day..... We arrived at line "B" early to support Chad in his push for the finals. We met up the US team along with many of the other competitors that were scheduled to fly on this line. The 27 semi finalists were split between the two flight lines with each group flying in front of 10 judges. The fliers will switch sites during the lunch break.

The winds continued with a moderate blow out condition. These are pretty much the norm for the spring here. As the flight lines are set up on the taxiways they are subject to this crosswind condition.

The planes were put together in preparation for the first on two flights today.

The US guys also gather prior to the start of the flying session. Much discussion about the winds... winds... winds.

Mark poses with Chad's Twister.

Marco Mechanic and Chad carry towards the flight line.

Interesting things started to happen as the flying started early for some reason. It was scheduled for 08:30 but the first guy was up at about 08:10.

Chad has his batteries checked while the Swiss competitor ahead of Chad appears to be a no show. He may be going much earlier than originally scheduled. Not a big deal as he is well prepared to fly. The Swiss flyer Marc Rubin casually walked over and asked if Chad was next up as the ready box beside Chad was empty. They said "no your up next." and the Swiss team went into into overdrive as they quickly brought up their plane and equipment.

A further delay ensued as the Transmitter flash card (carrying the model settings) was missing from the TX. mmmm.... interesting no? Another mad dash to the van to retrieve the card and Marc was up and flying.

Chad's plane was once again sound tested (every plane was checked prior to flight) and passed the test.

Jason and some of the US team watch Chad's flight of F-07. Chad was fourth up and had a very good flight (At least I thought so anyway as I have seen him fly a lot this past week.)

We spent the remainder of the morning watching the other competitors flights. Some good, others not so good. All in all we felt Chad had a good flight and would score well against what we observed.

A shot of Quique's Euphorias. Absolutely beautiful aircraft.

While awaiting the results we met up with the Plettenberg family that had just flown in from Germany. They came out to support the various pilots flying their equipment. It was a pleasure meeting then and I made sure they had some Team hats and pins to wear.

The scores..... well I am no expert on this judging thing at this level. Although I have flown in many contests as well as judged many flights over my RC career I must say I, along with Mark, were absolutely mystified at the scores award to some pilots. Flights that were much worse than Chad's scored higher! (?) Now I could go on about the judging but I am Canadian after all, and we are known as friendly, easy going, peace loving people that don't get wrapped up in the semantics of issues. So with some wise words of wisdom I had from my parents as a youth.... If you have nothing nice to say... don't say anything at all. So with that in mind I will remain very, very, quiet.

We headed for lunch at the Airport Terminal... ya try as I might to travel around the world, it's ironic that I and up in an airport cafeteria! Anyhow lunch was fast and then we headed to the "A" Flight line down by the hangers in preparation for Chad's second flight in the afternoon.

Chad prepares for the second flight.

Once flying started a rather large crowd gathered and were treated to some great flying. Once again Chad had a good flight and was very consistant. Both flights had some minor errors but he presented it very well I thought. (Both of these flight today were almost identical.)

Another shot down the pit area prior to the second flight.

Part of the Canadian cheering squad enjoying the heat of the afternoon

Quique's son gets "pinned" by Team Canada.

As we await the scores, Rosemary Ells, Brian Northeast, Mr Jesky and Mark relax in the shade of the lift gate.

When the dust settled (literally!) Chad was in 22nd position overall. The top 10 pilots will now head to the Holiday Inn (main hotel for the event) and choose their unknown manoeuvres for the finals tomorrow..... it will be a long night for them as they try to figure it all out. We, on the other hand, hosted a nice enjoyable "social" in our hotel room before heading out for dinner .

The finals go tomorrow! Should be good as the entire US, Japanese and French teams all qualified along with one Italian flyer.

Results of Semi Final flights here http://www.argentinaf3a.com/semifinal-flights.aspx

Lots of pictures here: Thanks Xavier!

http://picasaweb.google.com/xavier.mouraux/WC2007Argentine/photo#5131014486733557778

http://picasaweb.google.com/xavier.mouraux/WC2007Argentine/photo#5131014473848655874

Day 5 - Semi's Practice

2007-11-15T02:36:00.000-08:00

We are all up for breakfast at 0700. We will head to Galvez to assist and support Chad as he prepares to compete in the semi finals on Friday. Mark and I plan to take our new kites and work on our synchronized kite flying.... because the swimming thing isn't working for me :-)

We expect to see the Japanese and Italian teams practicing as well. The girls are going shopping of course.

Update... Ok so our plans changes somewhat.... we decided that a return to San Lorenzo was the best bet at uninterupted practice for Chad. Dez & Xavier also made the trip down to burn off some voltage prior to the trip home. Xavier got a chance to fly in the southern hemisphere and was having a lot of fun with Dezso's Prestige. Chad put in 9 rounds and was looking good as we all tried to offer constructive critisism . Nice clean snaps with well flown rollers. He is ready.

We also managed to get the kites out that we purchased at the main flying site. As the winds are still howling it was the perfect stress reliever for us all. Mark and I have now moved from the pool area to syncronized kite flying.

Chad is up on Line "B" at about 09:00 local tomorrow so it of to bed early for the whole gang.

I finally had a cold alchoholic beverage following my final flight on Wednesday... I have been abstaining in preparation for the event. So even though it may look like I had a couple of drinks in the picture on Robyn's blog ... nothing could be farther from the truth. The team comes first.

I'll update in the a.m.

Results: http://www.argentinaf3a.com/preliminary-flights.aspx

Day 4 - The lady sings.....

2007-11-14T04:57:00.000-08:00

Slept in today as Team Canada takes to the skies at line "A" in the afternoon. It was a nice change. I'll be first up followed by Chad and then Dezso. I'll update when we get back....

Ok I am back! It was carnage in Santa Fe when we arrived at the airport this morning. Strong winds prevailed.. Mark says the winds on Sunday, added to Monday & Tuesday equaled what was experienced today! 8 t0 9 meters per second with gusts to 13 created havoc for landings in particular. The first 11 fliers on line "B" had finished their flights with no less that 5 of them suffering damage to both wings and gear. The worst was Bernhard Schaden's Onyx that suffered major damage when the prop hit the ground.

Here Chad and Mark check out the damage. A very clean break that should be easily repaired.

After a short break due to the high winds. The head of the competition Mario Korman checks wind speed with Marco Mechanico observing.

We headed to the other flight line to set up and prepare for our afternoon flights. It is very windy......... and I probably would not have risked my plane if I was at my home field but hey, this is the worlds! Mark and I prepped the planes as we readied for my final P-07 flight of the contest. I am a realist and the chances of making the semi's is very slim ( this means non-existent :-) I would need a 550 or so to make it and ... well maybe wishful thinking, not really possible in the company of the great fliers that are present.

There were many delays prior to my flight. Try as he might, our team manager Harry Ells tried to keep us concentrating on the task at hand but unfortunately the local peeler palace sent over a few scantily clad girls to promote their establishment. I tried my best to not be taken off focus so I left the picture taking to my fellow Canadian Teammate Xavier.

Xavier did a pretty good job of capturing the moment?don't you think.

Anyhow.. back to RC flying.... lots of excitement on both takeoff and landings the winds were howling. Lots of zero landings as many planes inadvertently ended up behind the flight line as they overshot their final approach. One airplane from Brazil missed Dezso by 5 feet as it made it's landing. It ended up to the right and behind the judges station. The takeoffs were equally interesting.

I "launched" my Twister for my final flight and fought the strong winds as best I could. Not a great performance but I was happy I had the opportunity to compete at this level. I zeroed the spin entry as the plane pitched way to high in the strong winds. Sheesh twice in three days... not my usual style. I managed to get it back to terra firma in one piece and was rewarded with a 400 score. Sorry to let the team down but this will end up as the throw away round for the event. I'll end up in 50th position out of 83 competitors.

Chad was next up on our team and put in another great round with only minor errors observed. He seemed happy with the flight even with the stiff winds. He ended up with a 500 score and finished in 22nd position overall. This qualifies him for the semi-finals starting Friday. Congratulations Chad well done! My mechanico Mark has now been promoted to help Chad during the semi's.

Ultimate starter motors... powered by Flight Power!

Dez was last up for our team and had a good round going until he got blown in the last few elements. Aside from this he had a good competition and was awarded 37th place overall.

As I wrap up my slice of the worlds competition, I would be remiss to not thank the many folks that have helped support me through this effort. To the fine folks at Duralite Flight Systems & CRC Products.ca, my fellow club members at the Victoria Radio Control Modelers Society, the Model Aeronautics Association of Canada, the Vancouver based RCFCBC.... in particular Kevin Forsyth and Shaun Lammers, and fellow fliers Mike Scho, Brian Weekley and Greg Jestico for their technical support (i.e. borrowed stuff!) and Bob Stovel for his lathe work. The many contributors throughout Canada that sent funds (or bought raffle tickets.:-) in support of our team.

I sincerly thank you all.

Special thanks to our Team Manger Harry Ells for his support and efforts to make things easy for us pilots... well done. Of course we really know that it's Rosemary that should get the credit!

Most importantly a big THANK YOU to my helper, fellow flyer and good friend Mark Byrne for his unending support and assistance during these past few weeks. He was and is always ready to lend a hand and offer advice and constructive criticism when needed. This has made my experience here all the more memorable.

Mark and I after the fourth round.

Also "Thanks" to Mark's wife Robyn for keeping us all entertained with Kelly and her exploits in Santa Fe. http://islandcachers.blogspot.com/

It was truly a great experience and with luck and hard work, I... actually we all hope to return to these World Championships in future years. The team will now throw it's support behind Chad as he carries the flag into the semi finals starting Friday. It continues to be a great experience!

Day 3 continued...

2007-11-13T18:38:00.000-08:00

Sheesh.... I hope those synchronized swimming pictures don't make it into the K-Factor! Ill be toast as a VP not to mention being banned from most all hotel pool areas around the world.

As Mark mentioned, it was a pretty good day for Team Canada. Dez had crappy conditions and managed a pretty good flight all things considered. I believe the blow out was actually stronger than yesterday afternoon as crab angles were very high. Being able to handle the wind and maintaining the requisite track was hard work for the early flights today. The winds pretty much stayed that way for the first couple hours then started to die down a little.

Massive sounding Canadian cheering section!

Much discussion over the past few days over back up planes... do you need them? If you had one would you bring it out of the car? Why assemble it if your primary always works? etc. etc. Well we were first hand witnesses to an example.... one of the Argentinian team members YS would not fire up....... mayhem in the pits as they scrambled to change glow drivers, try another starter, flip the plane over. ... all the glow starting tricks. No joy followed by much consternation (and a few choice words I am sure.. I don't speak Argentinian so I could be wrong:-)

After three minutes passed the official timer announced "time" and the flight opportunity was lost. Not sure if he had one in his car but no backup plane was present on the flight line. I felt for the guy.

I had a much better flight as I fought with strong blow out conditions. Mark did his usual stellar calling job and we received a good score for the team. 499.40 to be exact :-) It felt good throughout the flight but I had used up a lot of my power supply. The batteries took a beating but lasted long enough to make it home after a somewhat crushed 6 sided loop. Sorry Jack!

Chad prepares for his round.

Harry Ells calls as Chad puts in his best round of the event.

Chad's round was "locked in" and everyone enjoyed the solid flight in relatively calm winds. This should place him into the semi's if his math is correct. Funny thing but even though he had a backup airframe ready to go on the flight line, it had suffered a bump or such to his left stab. This caused the threaded titanium rod to pull out of the nylon BB clevis and rendered the airplane unserviceable had he needed it.

Chad had also suffered some stress cracking around the gear plate area and Harry Ells was put to work making repairs.

Mark and I relax after the third round. We had a great day and look forward to day 4.

Day 3 Wind, Wind Go Away

2007-11-13T13:43:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, we were up at the crack of dawn and out the hotel at 6:30am as Dezso was scheduled to fly at around 7:15am. After a few delays he took to the skies in..........you guessed it strong blow out wind conditions. This first few pilots had a bit of difficulty as the winds at the top of the box seemed to be blowing about twice as hard as down low and many choose to start their sequences downwind ???. Dezso chose the correct direction and was working really hard but didn't mange to surpass his previous days scores. I'm sure he'll bounce back tomorrow afternoon.

Dave was up next and he flew his best round of the competition and even when he knew there was a drop in power through the last couple of maneuvers he stayed with the aircraft and managed to complete his routine without any zeros. The only casualty was a puffed cell on one of his packs, but if you are going to stretch a pack beyond it's limits this was the time to do it. The result was a score of 499 something which I'm sure Dave will clarify later today on this blog.

Next up was Chad and the pattern gods were with him today as when it came time for him to fly the winds stopped all of a sudden for a period of about 10 minutes. Chad put in a beauty of a round and got a round of applause from everyone on the flight line. Simply magic to watch!!!

The boys then took off to a local park to test fly one of the kites we have bought at the flying site. For $105 Canadian we each purchased a high performance carbon kite complete with flight strings and control straps. This type of kite would retail for around $300 in Canada. Xavier's kite was the test model as we all took it for a spin and it wasn't long before we were doing knife edge passes, Cuban eights etc. It's quite a work out to fly those things in high winds but what a blast and a way to get away from flying for a while.

It was quite the work out flying the kites so we headed back to the hotel for a quick dip in the roof top pool. Keeping in the spirit of pattern competition, Dave and I demonstrated the finer points of synchronized swimming. We hear the judges didn't score us well however :) I think we got downgraded for uneven tans. :)

Team Placings

2007-11-13T00:53:00.000-08:00

http://www.argentinaf3a.com/preliminary-flights.aspx as of day 4.

Day 2

2007-11-12T14:06:00.003-08:00

A nice sleep in... well until 07:00 anyway! We took it easy this morning as we fly in the afternoon. We headed out to the "B" Flight Line as we will swap both early and late slots and flight lines each day.

Dez was first up and had a very solid flight in strong blow out conditions. He held the distance quite well and was one of the best flights I have seen him do. Dez seemed pleased with the flight.

I was up next and had a so so flight in my opinion. I blew the spin... ya haven't done that in years... sheesh and tried hard to fight the wind. More speed would have made a much better presentation.

Sound check on the Twister

Lot's of people had trouble with the wind and this made for some exiting takeoffs and landings. One fellow was half way though his routine when his radio connection failed (for unknown reasons) and his plane went in hard. Sad to see anytime.

Here he talks with the officials as they try and determine cause.

Chad had a great flight but didn't seem to get the scores that I thought he deserved. The humpty bump earned a 9 from one judge and a 4 from another??? He was happy with the flight but not the scores... total point spread was 144 ouch... such is life sometimes.

The Argentinian Marcello Columbo is one of the local favourites and drew a large audience of flyers.

Canada now sits in 11th place overall so we have to pick up the pace.

Day One ... by Dave

2007-11-11T14:24:00.000-08:00

Out of the rack at 05:45 in preparation for day one of competition. Now this is about the time when our team manager Harry Ells is heading towards the flying site in the dark carrying his team's transmitters. This is the downside to the team managers position because each and every day that a team member competes, his TX must be in impound by 06:30 I believe. I am sure Rosemary deserves a medal as she does the driving!

I met up with Mark in the hallway after he returned from his 04:30-06:00 blog & e-mail session. Mark also did some tech work for Duralite as well. We loaded the car with our gear then headed for the buffet breakfast in the hotel. We were joined by our spouses and fellow team members.

We departed the hotel at 0700 for the twenty minute drive to the flying site. Chad had already gone ahead as he was scheduled to fly at about 07:50. We all arrived in plenty of time to help support him and cheer on our team mate. Harry handled all the logistics of picking up the transmitters etc so we had time to relax once our planes were put together.

Chad gets into the mental game.

Things progressed at a steady pace and I was pretty calm for the most part. We watched Chad fly first and then Dez follow with both returning to cheers from the massive (well ok... massive sounding) Canadian contingent!

As my flight time was approaching I tried to concentrate on the elements and went through the sequence numerous times using my Precision Aerobatics Tia Chi .... you know the right hand becomes the airplane and you fly it around the sky kind of routine.

The planes were first checked for correct voltage (see Chad's get checked on left) and when the previous plane landed, Mark packed my airplane over for the sound check. I applied full throttle (with the sound guy watching my every move to ensure compliance!) and I passed the sound test... never did see my db. (94db on pavement is the limit)

It was show time and I quickly went about my business and posted a fairly good first flight. Some in and out for distance but I managed to control it fairly well. Some of my roll rates were inconsistant and I'll work on that next flight. Mark did a great job of calling and has been an incredible help for me on this trip.

We met up with the US squad and had a group picture.

All in all a pretty good start for me and a lot of the "mystery" was quickly removed. I have not seen my scores yet as they are having some issues getting all the data out. I look forward to tomorrows flight.

As both Kelly and I have spent years in pipe bands performing at Remembrance Day services, we are remembering those who have made the ultimate sacrafice so we can live in freedom. We understand even more the importance on this day.

Lest we forget.

Round One In The Books

2007-11-11T13:55:00.000-08:00

Well it's been 14 months since the 2007 Team Trials in Victoria and the guys finally took to the skies in Argentina today representing Canada here at the F3A World Championship.

We were greeted to a clear cold morning but once again the winds were blowing 90 degrees into the pilots. Chad was the first Canadian pilot to fly at around 8:00am and although he put in a good flight I'm sure he'll agree that there were a couple of elements that he wish he could have back. No worries as we all know how Chad seems to turn it on strong after day one and will step it up.

Dezso was next up and flew a consistent flight as the temperature warmed up and the winds started to decrease a bit. Fellow F3A pilot Xavier Mouraux making his first trip to the worlds was handling the duties of helper for Dezso as well as the photo expert of the team. Here's a photo of Xavier taking a break from behind the lens while he gets ready for Dezso's flight

My good buddy Dave finally reached his goal of flying at the worlds and it really made me proud to stand behind him on the flight line while he flew. I actually had a hard time calling out the maneuvers which Dave and I have down to a couple of words as I got kinda choked up about the experience. Dave flew well in the conditions and did the team proud with his first attempt at this level of competition.

As you can tell on Dave's face he is one happy camper!! The raw scores are a little behind as Chad and Dezso have theirs while Dave hasn't got his yet. I don't know if they are on the net yet as there was some delay in getting the results out.

One day to go!

2007-11-10T16:31:00.000-08:00

Up at 6.am. for the start of our day. We headed for breakfast all decked out in our Team Uniforms. We looked very sharp if I don’t say so myself : -)

We departed for the main flying site at 7:15 to get our practice flights in during our allotted 45 minutes. We watched the French team fly then Chad, Dez and I each flew a round.

Chad put in one more flight following a “Stop Fly” order due to an arriving full size airplane. We had a very strong blow in which made the crosswind T/O’s & landings a challenge as the airport taxiway we used as our runway was quite narrow.

Chad had a solid flight with just minor deviations and Dez followed right after. I had some strong winds to deal with following a long sound check… 94 DB (the limit). The experience was both humbling and exciting at the same time… very hard to describe really.

After we finished our practice flights we moved the planes over to a local hanger were the processing was taking place. After getting the paperwork sorted out we had the planes measured, weighed (My primary was 4970 grams and backup was 4890gr.) and the receivers checked out (?) and TX’s checked for correct frequency.

We all passed inspection and then headed out to have some pictures taken with both the planes and our supporters.

There was a lot of interest in my construction techniques... I think.

We had to have a special “high security” pass obtained for all team pilots and managers. Not sure why but it was a pretty straight forward process for us as we just had to stop at the Terminal on the way out.

We then headed back to Galvez to put in some practice flights. The Italians and Brazilians were already there but they made room for us for a couple flights. The gals headed into Galvez and then back to the flying site for the opening ceremonies.

We joined the throng of teams on the terminal ramp and marched via escort into the main area under the music of a live band. A large crowd had gathered an all were treated to some nice short speeches and then some very entertaining kit aerobatics, aircraft fly by’s and a parachute demonstration. It was very well done and a nice break from the usual practice regime.

I managed to get a picture for my son Kris who is in the Maldives flying… hope this works : -)

Early dinner and off to bed.. round one tomorrow!

Up early.

2007-11-09T01:38:00.000-08:00

Up early this morning at 6 a.m. for a 7:30 departure. Got the gear ready, made wakeup calls and headed down to meet up with Mark for breakfast. Kelly came down and joined us as well.

Prior to heading out to Galvez, Xavier and Dez had checked out of their hotel and moved over to our location at the Holiday Inn. We stored some stuff in our rooms until they could check in later in the day.

We arrived at Galvez Aeroclub and Chad quickly got in a round as it started to spit rain. By the time I had half my round in it was coming down very hard. I cut short the flight and we covered the planes up. It rained and blew for about an hour when Dez and Xavier arrived. The Japanese team was also waiting by the clubhouse for weather conditions to improve. Harry and Rosemary Ells also arrived to support the team during todays practice round.

After another 30 minutes or so that rain stopped and we started to fly. The Japanese team of Tetsuo Onda, Koji Suzuki and Yoichiro Akiba alternated with us and Portugal’s Antonio Costa until lunch time. Japan always fields a strong team and they have absolutely spotless, flawless aircraft.

Chad and I check out the Japanese Narlar. Clip on wings make the thing a "span" to put together. Very nice equipment.

The proprietor of the field had asked if we wanted to have a lunch at the clubhouse and not ones to turn down any meal, we gladly accepted. This was a good thing as we were all treated to a great BBQ of the various meats of Argentina along with the sweetest tomatoes I have ever had. A real treat for us and totally unexpected… definitely one of the highlights of our gastronomic experience here.

Chad and I help prepare lunch.... well sort of:-)

Team Suriname also arrived and we met up with Freddy Haggens and his gang. Here is a shot of them with thiere planes

This was day one of the “Official” practices for half of the teams entered. It is a 45 minute flying session that is available to each team for acclimation to the site. If it’s pouring rain then your out of luck on the flying part. Following these flights, all team aircraft are then processed (measured, weighed, etc) and certified legal for competition in the event.

Our times are set for 8:45 am on Saturday followed by aircraft processing. The team managers meeting also took place this evening with the times for team members flight published. Out of a group of 21 we fly…..
Sunday Morning (7 a.m.) Chad flies 5th, Dez 13th and Dave goes 20th.
Monday Afternoon (noon) Dez 8th, Dave 15th and Chad goes 21st.
Tuesday Morning (7 a.m.) Dez 3rd, Dave 10th and Chad goes 16th.
Wednesday Afternoon (noon) Dave 5th, Chad 11th and Dez goes 19th.
We stuck close to the hotel for dinner this evening as we will be up & gone with a 7:15 departure from the hotel. This gives us plenty of time for the 20 minute drive to the flying site, preparation (and watch the French team fly…. should be good!)

Galvez Practice

2007-11-08T18:45:00.000-08:00

The boys are working hard at “tweaking” their sequences. Chad is starting to show his game day routine as he put in a couple of almost flawless P07 flights this morning before we got rained out.

Dave’s flying is getting stronger and he is picking up some finer points from his fellow Team Canada pilots. The practice time he has put in over the past couple of months is coming together at the right time. Dave has chosen his old trusty original Twister as his prime airframe as he is most familiar with it’s set up. Today he flew his backup airframe, which will probably not fly again unless a mechanical issue crops up on the prime ship.

The exposure to the other international teams will also help Dave with his performance by getting used to flying in front of other “world class” pilots before the competition begins.

Day #2 Practice.

2007-11-08T18:26:00.000-08:00

We had planned to depart at 8 am the next morning but elevator problems made loading a major pain. We are on the 11th floor and need good coordination to get everything down. I wanted to fly my backup today so both planes would make the trip. We finally left about 8:30
give or take.

Plane's loaded. The boxes, although not pretty, worked very well.

We headed to the Galvez Aeroclub field which is about half the distance south that we travelled the day before. Much quicker drive this a.m.!

We had just set up and started flying when the Italian team, along with the Portugal contingent arrived. They wanted a different flight line setup than what we had so we packed up and made a quick move to accomodate. Sebastiano Silvestri, Andrea Graselli and Luca Friggeri all managed several flights It was interesting watching the Italians launch their planes... verticaly... just like the foamies! I'll stick with the conventional departure until after the contest :-) I'll try and get some photos/video of it.

We all took turns getting in rounds when the weather started to turn on us. Rain showers came through and then it started raining continiously. We decided to pack it in and head home to Santa Fe. I did manage one flight with the backup plane but my glasses were so distorted with the rain that flying was less than desirable.
Charged batteries and managed a short sleep after getting some lunch. Harry & Rosemary were busy getting passport photos copied for the competitors.... appearantly the airport security folks needed it. Harry is also trying to help track down a package I had sent down. Dinner was Italian tonight... not because we saw the Italians but that was the restuarant we walked by ;-)

Our first day of flying!

2007-11-07T23:55:00.000-08:00

It was a slow start for our first practice day but considering all the travel & just getting used to everything this was OK. We all met at the Hotel's buffet breakfast and decided on which field to head towards. We wanted one that is not crowded as this can make the breaks between flights quite long making the day even longer. We decided to head south to a field near San Lorenzo. As this is 120km from Santa Fe and only a short distance from Rosario the girls decided they would follow along and take a tour of while the guys flew.

Heading south.

The girls follow us down the highway towards Rosario.

We headed out in a three car convoy and after a bit of searching for the correct exit, we found the field occupied by only fellow team members Dezso Vaghy and Xavier Moureux.

We unloaded and prepped the planes for the practice session. We had only brought our primary planes so we started putting in rounds one after the other. We are on our team frequency of Channel 30 which means nothing to anyone here.. it's 72.390.

We met Joe (the owner of the "campo" field) and his family and managed, through his wife's broken English, to explain who we were and what we were doing. They were very happy to have us visit and wondered if other teams would be arriving? That we did not know. We had the place to ourselves so we managed 7 rounds each.

The girls hooked up with Rosemary Ells and, along with Brian Northeast they headed into Rosario to check out the sights while we flew.

The winds were blowing out so we worked hard to maintain distance throughout the day. It was nice to finally fly and get some practice as this is probably what we will expect at the "Official" site. I let Mark take the sticks on my last flight.. hey he came all this way to helps so i thought it appropriate for him to get the chance. He had fun.

We headed back to Santa Fe and went for a late dinner. The lifestyle here leads to this as everyone goes out after 9 at night. The restaurants start to fill and it gets busy. Tonight it was the legendary beef that we wanted and after getting some tips from the Canadian interpreter Nick, we found a very good place down near the main part of town.

Mark finally got his steak!

The food was great and everyone was pretty tired as we headed back to the hotel. It was a late night and not really what I had expected.... hey I need some sleep! We made the next days departure arrangements and headed for bed.

Update later today.

2007-11-07T23:45:00.000-08:00

Sorry folks, really busy this Wednesday. I'll update and bring everyone up to speed later on Tuesday. Connectivity is an issue on our floor so I have to head to the lobby to blog... bit of a pain. :-)

We made it!

2007-11-06T21:43:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the delay in updates but we have had sporadic connection issues with our wireless system..... and we have been very busy! Lets bring you up to date shall we......

We arrived at the hotel just before midnight after a 6 hour, 450 km drive from Buenos Aires. Although it was rush hour (and after a short 10 minute detour when we got off track slightly) we managed to hit Hwy 9 north to Rosario and on to Hwy 11 to Santa Fe. The drive up was uneventful other than a stop for fuel and the numerous toll booths along the way. The topography is much like Alberta in summer, flat with lots of green fields and the highway is populated with many hundreds of heavy transport trucks... like the I-5 in Washington State only more trucks. Tourists are easily recognized as they are the only one's using turn signals for lane changes :-)

We awoke about 9 a.m. local and after showering etc, we headed down for breakfast in the hotel and a short walk around the area. A general plan was made to have the guys start assembling planes and the gals to get some pesos and.. well go shopping! The place closes down between noon and 4 p.m. for siesta so this helps save me some money:-) I was pretty bagged from the travel so I opted to not fly today.. just get prepped and ready for practice Wednesday.

Mark and I got the planes put together and then we followed Chad's lead and headed to the store and then on to Parana (to the east) to check out the practice field. After stopping for supplies (chairs, cooler, water etc.) at the local Walmart. We continued the drive out and easily found the practice site. We met up with D-7 's Adrian Wong and the rest of the Hong Kong contingent. The Chilean team was also there practicing.

Adrian mentioned several teams having both shipment and transportation issues. USA had planes stuck in customs for two days.. others with packages still in customs!.. and I am told it apparently took the South African team 12 hours to get from Buenos Aires to Santa Fe... ouch!

We stayed for a half hour or so to watch some flying then headed back to the hotel to prepare the van for transporting the planes. Once assembled the planes take up almost all the van's interior.... this one's anyway! Much work was needed.

Driving here is not, shall we say as "controlled" as in North America... it's more like a race to the finish line. Some are determined to win and other are just happy to finish the race! Every style of vehicle is here... new BMW's to 1950's relic's sporting original paint on their crushed fenders. Pedestrians have no rights and the four way stops..well any stops for that matter, have yet to find there way into the mindset of the locals. There are Stop signs but those appear to be "for display only" :-) As much as the driving seams like semi-organized chaos to us, we have not observed any accidents to speak off.

We had grabbed some cardboard boxes and tape at Walmart and Mark and I started to dream up some stands for the two planes to fit into. After about an hour & a half we had the van prepped and ready. Mark had a local reporter stop and take some pictures and a short interview. We hope to see his mug on the front page tomorrow morning!

We "accidentally" crashed the organized meal for the competitors after being told this is where dinner was served (?). We were all so hungry we put up little resistance and settled with the organizers after we finished the nice buffet... so no "free" meal :-).

After dinner we met up with Harry & Rosemary Ells and Brian & Chad Northeast in another dinning area. We had a short visit and got caught up on our adventures to date. We'll met for breakfast in the a.m. to organize our practice day.

In bed early as we try and catch up on lost sleep we suffered in the past few days. Mark has some additional pictures he will post once he gets up. Please ignore his comments on my tumble into the fountain... it never happened! Ok.. well maybe my hand might have gotten a little wet.... no 2-1/2 gainer though :-)

Well We Know They Left Victoria

2007-11-04T19:09:00.000-08:00

When traveling by air there is always the concern if the airplanes are with you. Here they are being loaded out of Victoria. We are now sitting in T.O. and hope the transfer goes smoothly

In Toronto

2007-11-04T17:56:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture Robyn took of us at check in in YYJ. After a brief stop in Vancouver (and lunch) we arrived in Toronto to little fanfare... obviously the fans were too tired after sending Chad & the gang off on the 2nd :-) We decided to snack at the YYZ airport before loading onto the flight to Santiago, Chile. The flight is some 10 plus hours long and we hope to sleep the majority of the way down. Once we arrive in Santiago we will deplane for a while as the plane is "groomed" (this is "nice" speak for getting the lavs dumped and the plane cleaned up before departing to EZE)

We are awaiting a post from Chad on his blog to see how the rest of the team is making out. FYI Chad's Blog is at http://chadnortheast.blogspot.com/

Another "Twist" Perspective

2007-11-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

Since Dave will be putting in a lot of time in flying and I will have some downtime between hauling luggage, charging his batteries....yeah right!!!!, I have offered to add my perspective to the trip.

It's getting close now so I'll have to think about packing on Saturday night after our indoor Foamie session. Should be easy....don't take anything warm as it's almost summer in Argentina so it looks like shorts and T-shirts are on the agenda. Now where did I put my sandals??

Adding a new "Twist" to this Blog

2007-11-02T17:28:00.000-07:00

I will be enlisting the assisitance of my fellow flyer, friend and caller/helper Mark Byrne to author some content on this blog. Mark is Duralite Flight Systems tech guy and Canadian F3A Team Alternate. He will share his thoughts and perspective on this page when he's not polishing the planes, charging my batteries and other general duties I'll have him do throughout the trip :-). Look for input shortly :-)

I am busy at work until late Saturday and then we will all head out Sunday afternoon through Toronto and Santiago, Chile to Buenos Aires. Hotel arrival is sometime Monday night in Santa Fe, AR.

Start of the Pattern West News blog

2007-11-01T20:19:00.000-07:00

Well I saw Chad's site and thought... hey why not try to add our perspective to the Worlds experience as well. Chad's blog, along with this one and the various internet websites should provide lots of insight into the event. Enjoy. Now if I can just figure out this program :-)

The Blog Team

2007-11-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

Here is a shot of Mark and I with the planes.