1980 LSF: Regional Tournament
THE BIGGEST Soaring event of 1980 took place on August 23 and 24. The event was the League of Silent Flight's Regional Tournament. Fourteen sites included one in Ontario, Canada, two in Pennsylvania, two in Florida, and two in California. To accommodate the over-3,500 LSF members, sites were also selected in Virginia, Detroit, Chicago, Oak Ridge, TN, Dallas, Denver and Tacoma. Events this year included a four-minute duration task at the beginning of each day, followed by 10-minute duration tasks. A total of seven rounds were flown over the two days. You Contest Directors might take note of that format. Scheduling of a four-minute task in the morning gives all an equal chance with that bad air in the early a.m.
Competition Newsletter
IT'S Carl Blake from Washington, Don Edberg, California, and Dwight Holley, Connecticut-your 1981 U.S.A. F3B team! And if you think the geographical spread is wide, their ages follow suit: Blake is 16, Edberg 24 and Holley 47! The Finals were held on three days over the Labor Day weekend. The site: California State College, Dominguez, CA, with Dave Thornburg the Contest Director. The SC2, a group of nine California clubs, was supposed to man the event. It didn't work out that way, but a handful of members from the San Fernando Valley Silent Flyers, plus a few volunteers from the audience, did cooperate for five rounds and helped to generate a dramatic finish which would be worthy of any Saturday afternoon TV sports spectacular.
Radio Control: Soaring
IF YOU THOUGHT Two-Meter designs had to be drab, unimaginative and winners of an ugly duckling look-alike contest, you missed a few pleasant surprises which appeared at this year's AMA Nationals. True, Tom Killough of Alabama won the 2M event with a simple, straightforward design-a Drifter by Craftaire. But that just goes to prove that the three Ps-pilot, plane, and practice-still win contests. At the Nats, we saw three-piece wings, winglets, and pylon-mounted wings. There were T-tails, V-tails, not to mention some tall tales! One bird had solar cells mounted in the wings. Less than half the planes had spoilers, and those that did had some clever linkage installations.
Radio Control: Soaring
CHICAGO EXPO: By Toledo's yardstick for RC expositions, Chicago's is only about a foot-and-a-half long, but this year the Sailplane display would have overflowed the tables of any past Toledo Expo. For the first time, awards were given for Sailplanes in the Scale category. Eight were entered, and-unlike some other Scale entries in other modeling categories-all of the Sailplane entries had been previously flown! "You have to get their attention department." Last year Jack Rakusan entered his Slingsby-Sky. Its natural wood finish had the judges (?) "tsk-tsk" the fact that the model wasn't finished! This year, thanks to judges who spoke Sailplane, the "Sky" took first place. (See Model Aviation, October 1980 for other details of this model.)
Radio Control: Soaring
IF YOU'RE a newcomer to the sport of RC Soaring, you can get most of your questions answered from a recent publication called How to Build and Fly Radio Controlled Gliders, by Jack E. Schroder. It's available through your local hobby shop, or you can order direct from: Kalmbach Books, 1027 North Seventh Street, Milwaukee, WI 53233. It sells for only $3.50. And if you aren't near a club for its fatherly advice for your first building and flying project, Schroder's book will tell you all about building, launching, and "how to," to keep it right side up.
