Paul Walker getting a well-deserved Concourse award for his B-17.
By Matthew Neumann
Today, the contestants were again greeted by clear skies, a cool morning, and very little, if any, wind. Again “Remember the sunscreen” was the motto of the day. The next talk of the town was the lack of air movement. Very little to no wind can be very dangerous to the CLPA community. We fly in such a tight area that we many times can go through our own wake causing the plane to do some things the pilot does not want to do. It can only knock you out of maneuvers, if you are lucky, and to the extreme, cause you to crash. This latter happened to a top contender on Saturday before the contest, knocking him out of competition.
Today was the second day of qualification for the top-20 day in Open class and the finals for Advanced class. Both of which are going to be held on Thursday. The pilots will fly two flights each today. The top flight from today's score will be added to yesterday's high score to determine who moves on. The number that moves on is the top five from each of the four groups in Open and Advanced. As the day continued, the wind kept changing directions, keeping the pilots on their toes, and keeping them guessing as to where to place the judges.
Pilots can place the judges just before their flight where they will get the best vantage point. However, with shifting winds, this can be a bit of a gamble, because the pilot will not know if the wind will stay in that direction or not. Just before my first flight, I moved the judged 180 degrees across the circle. And wouldn't you know it, the first set of inside loops the wind shifted back. Fortunately for me, it switched back and held there the rest of my flight.
By the time the second round started, the temperatures were starting to increase. With the increase in temperatures came thermals. I hate thermals. They cause you all sorts of grief in one particular spot. For me, that happened to be right where I wanted to put my vertical eight. Let’s just say I got through it, but it was not pretty, thanks to the thermal.
We did have one crash today. That was due to pilot error. He just pulled out too low and skidded the plane across the tarmac. Fortunately, the plane appeared to be repairable.
Once the flying was done, the scoreboard watching began. Since this is elimination day, those who were on the bubble had to wait and see how those chasing them scored. There was a lot of nervous pacing going on. For those who scored quite high, they just got to leave and check later to see who all made it and who did not, knowing they were in the made-it category.
In the end it, was a pretty good day of flying. In years past, we have had a lot of passes during the second round if the weather got bad. For those who know they are in it, they just pass the second flight and come back to fly another day. For those on the bubble, they have to go up. However, since the day was quite good, there were not many passes.
Today the concourse winner was announced. It was intended to be given out yesterday but there was a mix up and it did not get awarded until today. The winner was Paul Walker who made a remarkable B-17 CLPA plane. It has been the talk of the town all week. It is a marvel of engineering, building and finishing. I understand it has been a two-year project from when pencil was put to paper until first flight. The electronics bay is a maze of wires. I would not be surprised if he owned some stock in one of the wire companies. But in all seriousness, it is a well-deserved award. He got something like 42 out of a possible 50 votes. That is an an overwhelming majority, for sure.
Forever young at heart, Dan Banjock was also out again with his little .010 plane, entertaining the kids and being a kid himself. I don't know who has more fun, Danny or the kids. It was again a joy to watch them fly together.
Tomorrow is top-20 day… probably the hardest day of the week. On any other day, you have a throw-away flight. That is, if you goof one, you have a chance to redeem yourself. Tomorrow, we fly two flights. One flight is in front of one set of judges, and one flight in front of another judges. The two scores are added together to determine who wins Advanced and who moves on to the coveted top 5 on Friday in Open class. Tomorrow is a do-or-go-home day, since there are no throw aways. The heat is on, in more ways than one.
