District X - 2012/12

I attended the US Free Flight
Championships, which were held
at the Lost Hills FF Model Airfield
in California’s Central Valley. I am
impressed by the skills on display at a
FF contest. If you’ve never been to one,
you owe yourself the treat of attending.
I guarantee you’ll enjoy yourself.
CD Ted Firster sent a summary of
the contest.
The US FF Championships were
held September 21-23, and we enjoyed
three of the best flying days we have
seen in some time. We approached this
event with questions about our new
neighbor: 1,600 acres of future nut
trees.
Kevin Sherman and I traveled to Lost
Hills in mid-August to assess the affect
the trees would have on our southwest
and west boundary. We secured
permission from Holloway Mining
Company to have launch sites on the
company’s property 1/2 mile north
of our normal launch site. Holloway
even volunteered to clear the site of
tumbleweeds—what great neighbors!
The new planting area extended
farther east than what we had
anticipated. Chasing in that area was
impossible, rendering our original
launch site useless. We moved our
launch site farther east on our property
where we had never flown before and
found excellent chasing areas to the
south.
This contest was one of the most
successful FF championships we
have had in the past five years. The
temperature was typical for this time
of year and wind conditions hovered at
approximately 10 mph, but thermals
were tricky to find.
At the FF Champs, we run a
different schedule than the usual
FF contest. The contest is for the
contestant and not for the ease of the
CD. Old-Timer (OT) events and all
non-power events can be flown on any
of the three days and do not have to
be completed on the same day, with
the exception of Catapult and Hand-
Launched Glider (HLG). Nostalgia
and Classic Power pilots can fly any of
their first three flights on Friday and
complete them on the schedule.
Rocco Ferrario from Napa,
California, brought his usual contingent
of junior competitors and they always
seem to have a great time.
We had our Gollywock Mass Launch
on Saturday morning. It looked like a
World War II dogfight over the Pacific,
but fortunately there were no collisions
and we had several good flights. Carl
Redlin climbed higher than the others
and again walked away with the
trophy. Carl also won the Twin Pusher
Mass Launch and the Dawn Mulvihill
event.
Fred Ginder returned after being
absent for a few years and won High
Time with a score of 1,418. He is a
third-generation flier and his father was
instrumental in getting the High Time
trophy started.
Some of the more contested events
were OT A Pylon, P-30, AMA A Gas,
and all Nostalgia Power events—with
five maxing out and two tied at 533 in
A Nostalgia. We had a good turnout in
E-36, with John Oldenkamp flying for
762 seconds. Sevak Malkhusyan started
chasing late and ended up with 737 for
second place. Good flying, Sevak.
We had 25 FAI fliers and that
number was low because of the
short time until team selections. The
Sweepstakes Championship was
highly contested until the third day
when Terry Thorkildsen pulled away.
Congratulations to Terry and to OT
Champion Hal Wightman.
I have more photos from this event
than I can fit in this month’s column.
Visit the District X website, www.
ama10.org, to enjoy them all.
Until next month, may you have
nothing but happy landings.