27 Hours and Counting

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 :-)

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

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.