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aeajr
477 Posts |
 Posted - 10/09/2007 : 08:54:23 AM
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| The weekend of the 2007 Thermal Duration End of Season contest at the Daniel Boone Homestead in Birdsboro, Pennsylvania was forecast to be unseasonably warm, with temperatures in the 80's, light breezes and sunny skies. I am sure the great forecast contributed to the high turnout of 39 pilots on Saturday and 37 on Sunday. Inclusion on the top 10 experts for the season was also wide open with several pilots in contention for the top spot. |
Edited by - aeajr on 10/09/2007 08:55:51 AM |
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aeajr
477 Posts |
Posted - 10/09/2007 : 08:55:35 AM
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Report provided by Anker Berg-Sonne
The weekend of the 2007 Thermal Duration End of Season contest at the Daniel Boone Homestead in Birdsboro, Pennsylvania was forecast to be unseasonably warm, with temperatures in the 80's, light breezes and sunny skies. I am sure the great forecast contributed to the high turnout of 39 pilots on Saturday and 37 on Sunday. Inclusion on the top 10 experts for the season was also wide open with several pilots in contention for the top spot.
Many ESL members pitched in to plan and run the contest. Without this help we just couldn't pull it off. Special thanks to Dale Hart who took care of scoring equipment, scoring on Saturday and retrievers and Steve Lucke who organized hauling the ESL winches and other launching stuff from LISF. Also thanks to the DBSF club for organizing the use of the field and for lending us their retrievers.
Saturday morning turned out to be very foggy and the early risers who came to the field at 7AM to set up found that they could have slept in. After setup we had extended "testing of planes and winches", and also held the annual ESL meeting. Finally at 11AM the ceiling lifted enough to allow zooming off the launch. We flew fixed flight groups through the day, starting with a 6 minute task, going to 8 minutes, and then to 10 minutes as conditions improved. Winds were light and most flyers made their task times. The landings were challenging with "NATS" landing tapes: 100" tapes with each inch worth a point. Flying continued to late afternoon to make up for the late start. To our surprise there was a tie for the 2nd expert position which was resolved with a F3J style flyoff between Josh Glaab and Tom Kiesling. Tom won the flyoff. We had one junior pilot, Josh Glaab Jr., age 8, who joined the AMA at the field, flew really well and walked off with the junior trophy. Josh jr. was also one of the three novices. The Saturday results were:
Junior:
1: Josh Glaab jr.
Novice:
1: Brandon Waite
2: Josh Glaab Jr.
3: Bob Cortwright
Sportsman:
1: Chuck Robinett
2: Gary Bolash
3: Robert Buxton
Expert:
1: John Hauff
2: Tom Kiesling
3: Josh Glaab
Sunday was forecasted to have very light breezes and sunny skies. The first round was an 8 minute task in completely calm conditions.The first group to launch discovered that flying efficiently towards the NW took them into a wave that made the task a piece of cake. The rest of the groups followed suit and what had looked like a very difficult round turned out to be quite easy. By the second round the wind had picked up out of the NW and the rest of the day we had 10MPH prevailing winds, often strengthened and weaked by huge hatsucking thermals. There were periods of huge sink that punished the group that was up to fly and by the end of the day every group had been slammed into the ground and sucked high up into the sky by hatsuckers. Very exciting flying with uncertainty about the results right up the the last round. By the end of the day the results were:
Junior:
1: Josh Glaab Jr.
Novice:
1: Brandon Waite
2: Josh Glaab Jr.
3: Bob Cortwright
Sportsman:
1: Dimitri Katramatos
2: Lenny Strickland
3: John Bitzer
Expert:
1: Mike Lachowski
2: Tom Kiesling
3: Kerry Cochrell
Weekend champion was Tom Kiesling.
After packing while the ESL scorekeeper frantically calculated the end of season standings, a pilot meeting was called and the end of season awards were given to:
Sportsman:
1: Chuck Robinett
2: Robert Buxton
3: Dimitri Katramatos
4: George Hill
5: Rich Watson
6: Ed Anderson
7: John Bitzer
8: Lenny Strickland
9: Peter Nicholson
10: Michael Lavelle
Expert:
1: Thomas Kiesling
2: Michael Lachowski
3: Luis Bustamante
4: John Hauff
5: Jeff Steifel
6: Josh Glaab
7: Tony Guide
8: Steve Lucke
9: Peter Schlitzkus
10: Leszek Zyga
Most improved: Fritz Bien
Advancing from sportsman to expert are Chuck Robinett and Miner Crary.
I have been told that a green Coleman folding chair was left at the field after the contest. Please contact me if you are the owner.
Respectfully submitted:
David Beach, Saturday CD
Anker Berg-Sonne, Sunday CD and ESL scorekeeper
For more contest reports visit the contest forum:
http://forums.flyesl.com/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=15
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Edited by - aeajr on 10/09/2007 12:06:05 PM |
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JamezBrokEr
1 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2013 : 12:54:30 AM
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| Thanks you for updating us with this interesting information.you did very great job. keep it up |
"ONe Day I will be Part of your World.")
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End of Season TD Contest Report
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