Friday Finals - Round 4 Unknowns

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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!