Radio Control: Soaring
UPDATE. In Mid-July, our F3B team will fly to Germany to compete in the "Big One"-the world championships. It's going to be a tough competition. The Europeans, who are formidable in F3B anyway, will be on their home turf. The West Germans have a very strong team plus current World Champ Rolf Decker. Countries competing will include: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, East Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, U.S.A., and West Germany. Last month we talked about our team's budget and the need to spend this amount of money in order to have a chance of doing well (maybe winning!) at Osnabruck. Well, time is growing short, and we still have some funds to raise. We want our guys to be concentrating on the contest-not worrying if there's enough funding. So, if you haven't sent for a team patch or pin, please sit down and write your check for $15 for both items-or $10 for the patch-or $5 for the pin alone. The address is U.S. F3B Soaring Team,
Radio Control: Soaring
LAST PITCH. Our U.S. F3B Team, with contestants Steve Work, Rich Spicer, and Steve Lewis, will leave for Germany about mid-July. I'm sure everyone knows the deal by now. The team needs to raise about $15,000 from donations to accomplish what they set out to do: give the United States the best possible representation at the 1987 Soaring World Championships. If you agree this is important, you can assist by purchasing a team pin for $5, a beautiful patch for $10, or both for $15. You could also win a nice prize, because a couple of thousand dollars worth of radios and kits will be raffled off to contributors. Please send your donation to U.S.A. Soaring Team, P.O. Box 9328, Albuquerque, NM 87119.
Radio Control: Soaring
CLUB of the month: The following write-up on the Clarence Sailplane Society comes from club secretary Lyn Perry and newsletter editor Roman Paryz. Roman also took the pictures and supplied information for the captions. "The Clarence Sailplane Society is AMA-chartered club 1883, begun in late 1982 when founding father Ed Waters had no one to fly with him. Our members are drawn from across Western New York, including Buffalo and surrounding towns; many of our members, including Ed, are from Clarence, NY, and our flying site is a series of marvelous turf farms located in Clarence-hence our name.
Radio Control: Soaring
AN APOLOGY to our F3B team. Back in the June column I talked about the budget for our F3B Team. An editorial insertion made to clarify the situation may have, in fact, caused some confusion. Dr. David Williams, the team's media coordinator, brought the offending sentence to my attention. It is: "Expenses for travel, room/board, etc. for spouses and other team support personnel are paid by the team members or by contributions from supporters." This does not not mean wives and "supporters" were going to Germany on money you contributed! Your contributions went only for the expenses of the eight team members. What the sentence meant was that spouses and supporters (like Dr. Williams) were not part of the eight-man team, and their expenses to and from Germany are for their families' account. I'm sorry I didn't catch this earlier and straighten it out in a more timely fashion. By the time you read this, the World Championships will have been over about a month. I hope the situation is now cleared up and that no Sailplaners were "put off" by it at the time.
AMA Nats: RC Soaring
IT WILL LONG be remembered for its high drama and low weather. The stalwart fliers at the 1987 Soaring Nats were dogged by some of the most perverse extremes of weather at any Nats in recent memory. Plagued by winds, rains, and temperature swings, the contestants needed their ingenuity to survive. We'll tell you all about the weather-which, after all, heightened the drama-before describing the exciting climax that sorted out the winners and losers after a week of intense flying. Actually, there were no real losers: Everyone was a hero in the battle against the weather demons. Before getting any further into our story, however, the AMA, the Soaring officials, and the contestants wish to thank Mr. Norm LeGrande for the use of the flying site. This was, in fact, the third time the Nats Soaring event has been flown on Norm Hendricks' sod farm property, another of Hendricks' fields having been used in 1979 and 1982.
