I’ll be leaving for the Polecat Challenge (a handlaunch soaring contest) bright’n'early tomorrow morning. It’s one of the two biggest handlaunch soaring contests in the United States, pulling in 60+ pilots! And I’ve had the pleasure of helping Denny (the purveyor of Polecat Aeroplane Works) put the contest together with the help of the Internets, and I even designed the Polecat Challenge T-Shirt – so I’m really excited to get there and do that.

Also, this will be a trial-run of my soaring journalism skills, in that I’ll be doing LIVE updates from the contest with photos, scores, maybe video and reports through the 4 days we’ll be there. The updates will come down here: 2007 Polecat Challenge Live Feed!

I recently made some t-shirt designs for the 2007 Polecat Challenge (a handlaunch soaring contest). They are for sale on the website – pick one up! The pig illustration was done by national Addy-award-winning designed Scott “Airwolf” Schroeder, and the shirts will be printed by MonkeyDrive, a local printer.

You know I really don’t have enough soaring-related content on this blog. If it were in relation to how often I think about it or how much it consumes my free time, we might look into creating a more exciting (to soaring nerds) side-blog. But that is not why we are gathered here to-day, oh no!

I went to the first-ever World Soaring Masters held in Muncie, IN at the end of September. Being as excited as I might be at a world-class R/C soaring event, I decided that I’d keep my soaring chums on the RC Soaring Exchange (RCSE), a soaring mailing list, up-to-date for the course of the 4-day contest. I posted day-by-day accounts of the action, and thanks to the free Wifi coverage over the whole flying site, I was even able to give blow-by-blow, round-by-round accounts of the finals! I went into complete journo-mode with a pad of paper and pencil in teeth and the whole thing. It was a blast, and I received a lot of praise from my soaring brethren over my coverage.

While the emails of encouragement were nice, I was really “awe-shucked” when my coverage got picked up by the RC Soaring Digest (not affiliated with the RCSE), which is a classy monthly magazine for RC Soaring Enthusiasts. They’ve got 20 years of publishing experience behind them, so it was pretty neat to have my work accepted by something that I read religiously cover-to-cover.

Should you wish to read my report, which will be ungodly nerdy to the vast majority of you, you can – the RCSD is only published on the Internet anymore, and you can download the full-color November 2006 issue of the RCSD and read it at your leisure.

Hey all! Just thought I’d give you a postcard from the road! Kelly and I let out of Louisville on Thursday night. We made good time (even stopping by an outlet mall where Kelly exercised amazing discipline both in purchase and in efficiency) and got to the Academy of Model Aeronautics site with enough time to set up the tent in the light. We were, however, surprised, to find a troop of Boy Scouts in the camping area when we arrived. No problems, though — it actually made me reminiscent of my scouting days.

Friday was Handlaunch day at the NATS, and the weather was crap – which means it was great for a contest! Windy and overcast, it had rained the first night a bit, and it threatened to do so the whole day. Thermal activity was boiling in the morning, but it quickly dissapated into what I think was some sort of low-level temperature inversion (think of it as a “cap” on the field) and thermalling was rough. Ed Franz, the contest director, loves to punish the handlaunch competitors, and the tasks were *real* long. One wrong move or one missed thermal and *pow* you were out of there! I flew pretty well during the middle of the day, but I really fell apart at the end of the day, and ended up in 9th out of 19. My buddy Bruce Davidson flew to 2nd place and fellow LASS-mate Ken Marks ended up in 15th. I’ll do better in Unlimited on Wednesday/Thursday and then in RES on Friday, right?

Friday night was rain, rain, rain and our tent has some leakage issues, so we were a little damp. Despite that, Saturday was beautiful and I hung around with “Team Polecat” as they bucked the trends and flew a 60″ ship in an event that usually calls for planes that are 160″ in wingspan. Kelly and I split around 2PM for Detroit, making a stop in Fort Wayne at their H&M store.

Today we went to a Detroit Tigers game, and had a blast! The weather has been very mild (low 80′s ) and a nice breeze was occassionally around. Kelly got to see her beloved “Pudge” Rodriguez, and we both enjoyed a day at the ballpark.

This evening, we headed out to another H&M store in Ann Arbor, and then drove north up State street to the University of Michigan area. What a cool little town up there! We walked around for a few hours and ate sushi and ice cream.

Tomorrow, the Henry Ford! Right now, there are photos here: 2006.07.23 – Detroit. Soaring related photos are here: 2006.07.21 – NATS Handlaunch and 2006.07.22 – NATS Cross-country.

This Thursday, Kelly and I are headed for vacation, bookended by me competing at the Academy of Model Aeronautics Soaring Nationals in Muncie, Indian, better known by it’s competitors as just the NATS. You may remember that last year I went to my first NATS and I managed to do pretty well. Hopefully, I can repeat that performance this year, but in all reality I’m just there to have fun.

The Soaring NATS is actually a number of different events packed into a week-long span. This year, I’m flying handlaunch, Unlimited and RES. Handlaunch being planes under 60″ launched by hand, Unlimited being winch-launched planes of any size, and RES being rudder/elevator/spoiler only planes. Handlaunch competition is on Friday, July 21st, and my next event, Unlimited, doesn’t start until the 26th, so Kelly and I have plans to go up to Detroit and kick around there for a little while. We are going to hit a Detroit Tigers game and go to the Henry Ford Museum as well. Not to mention that Kelly is most excited about going to H&M, the “hip Target”.

Photo courtesy of Charles Frey. That is a RES plane I’m throwing there, by the way. Handlaunch planes are under 60″ in wingspan.

What’s shakin’, mother bacon?! Been a lot of stuff goin’ on ’round here lately — but I haven’t had the time to come back and rap with you, so here goes:

So, as you know, I like playing with RC sailplanes, and specifically ones that you throw into the sky with your hand (aka handlaunch). Well, the last handlaunch contest of the temperate season this side of the Mississippi was held last weekend in Wilson, North Carolina. You might remember that about this time last year I made a similar voyage to Wilson to compete in the 2004 East Coast Handlaunch Glider Festival, and this year was no different.

No, wait, it was different! Firstly, Kelly was going to travel down there with me because I went with her to her big contest — the Chicago Marathon a few weeks back. I was to be the only LASS member to make it, so she was a welcome companion. I certainly recognize her sacrifice of a perfectly good weekend to sit in a field with me! Secondly, I had managed to do pretty well at the 2005 NATS handlaunch event back in July, so I had to prove to myself that that wasn’t just a fluke.

Long, boring story short, we had a good trip and I managed to get 6th out of 22 against some of the best handlaunch pilots out there and most importantly had a lot of fun. It was nice having Kelly around, too — she’s never seen me “in action”, and it was nice to have a lady around to hug on.

Want some photos? Check them out here: 2005.10.22 – ECHLGF @ LouisvilleSoaring.org. Further coverage you can find here at RCGroups: East Coast HLG Festival ’05.

Hey hey! Back from the NATS for a short time… I’m leaving again this evening to fly in the 2-meter competition on Monday and Tuesday.

Well, as it turns out, I managed to get 4th place in the Handlaunch event! Wow! I’m pleasantly surprised. I even led my mentor, Bruce Davidson, for a couple of rounds there. It was truly surreal. I was in 2nd place up until the last round, when I really blew it! I scored only 549 points out of 1000 and frittered away my 2nd place finish. Ah well, too much fun! By the way — the term “getting wood” means getting a trophy, which is usually a plaque.

I received quite a few kudos from some really top-notch pilots, only adding to the elation of hearing my named called at a national-level soaring event! Dang.

You can check out more photos from my NATS trip here: 2005 NATS Gallery @ LouisvilleSoaring.org.

Woo woo!

Most who know me know I have a thing for controlling unpowered planes from a distance via radio-waves. My major hobby (outside of teh Intarwebs) is R/C Sailplanes, and starting this Friday (tomorrow) the 2005 AMA Soaring Nationals, AKA “The NATS”. The Soaring part of the NATS is only one chunk of a 6-week set of events that started July 4th. Over 1,000 pilots will be in attendance for this festival of flight.

The Soaring “genre” encompasses a number of events – Handlaunched gliders, F3J “man-towed” gliders, 2-meter (wingspan) gliders, unlimited gliders (any wingspan allowed), RES (rudder/elevator and spoiler only), and Nostalgia (gliders designed before… 1942? 1962?). Me personally am only flying in the Hand-launch and 2-meter events. I have attended handlaunch contests before, but never at the NATS! I’m excited.

The NATS also draws international competitors as well — and one of my fellow LASS-mates (Gordy) is hosting a gent by the name of Jo Grini who has come all the way from Norway(!) to fly as a part of the LASS team. To quote: “There was not one single place around here that did not have an air conditioner. And when you walk out to 90-95F (33-35celcius) you feel the difference I can tell you.”

I’ll be taking a crapload of pictures, so keep an eye on this site and wish me luck!