DISTRICT 7California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah
Hemet contest - Bill Wallace reporting
Guys:
The following is a report on the Hemet contest. I had to leave first thing Monday morning
Well we had a very interesting contest in Hemet this weekend. The weather was great, fairly
Sportsman
Intermediate
Advanced
Masters
FAI
Bill.
to Hawaii for work, so I won't have the pictures for you until next weekend.
good turnout, and lots of good competition. In addition, the sponsoring club - Hemet Model
Masters, gave us all a big surprise both days, but more on that later. We had 21 pilots register,
with the breakdown being - 4 sportsman, 3 intermediate, 8 advanced, 4 masters, and 2 FAI. A few
new faces, some flew a different class, and we saw 1 old friend return for his first contest
in a long time. In Sportsman young Chandler Rose flew his first contest ever, and had only flown
the sequence once or twice before. He did a very good job considering, with Jarvis Johnson giving
him some great coaching along the way. But that wasn't all - for the last two rounds, Jarvis
made the ultimate sacrifice and lent Chandler his Top Star to fly. Well Chandler was thrilled
and got to find out how it felt to fly a real Pattern plane. Jarvis handled the flights pretty
well also, even when Chandler overshot the runway a bit on landing - no damage. Another newcomer
Alvaro Dalton won the class in a hard fought battle over Chris Johnson and Wayne Lovett.
In Intermediate - where we have had a problem filling spots in the past, we had 3 new participants.
Mike Austin came over from Arizona, and 2 sportsman pilots decided to try their hand at intermediate
- Kendall O'Brien and Noah Yaney. This was another hard fought class with only 76 points
separating first from last, and every competitor each won at least one round. In the end Mike
came out on top with Kendall second and Noah third. Judging by the quality of flying I saw
from these three, the boys in advanced better watch out in a year or two. Speaking of advanced,
as has been the case all year down south, advanced had the biggest turnout. Another exciting
battle between Bill Wallace, and the team from Yuma - John Contreras and Dave Dehart. Lots
of great flying ensued with Dave and John both winning a round apiece, but in the end Bill prevailed.
In Masters, we had a battle of the giants - Rusty Fried and Jerry Budd. These guys both fly
so well, that I feel for the judges having to find the tiniest flaw to downgrade them. In
the end Rusty edged out Jerry. Also present in the class was a blast from the past - Jim Oddino.
Jim flew a good looking electric powered Impact - we hope Jim continues flying with us.
Finally, we were a little light in FAI with only Greg Frohreich and Frank Kelly showing up.
Greg won this one, but Frank seemed to have his usual good time pushing him. And now to the
surprises - while we were packing up on Saturday, we noticed a full size plane off in the
distance doing some mild aerobatics - while we watched, the plane headed toward the field and
before we knew it was rolling in for a strafing run right down the runway - the pilot was a member
of the Hemet club and a former Top Gun. The plane he was flying was a T28 - very exciting
seeing this machine up close and personal. Not to be outdone - on Sunday the same guy
brought out a L29 trainer jet and proceeded to make 2 runs across the field with smoke on no less.
One final note on this - Greg Frohreich was able to talk himself into a ride in the back seat.
He was pretty much speechless after that. As I overheard one participant say - that was
worth the price of admission. The Hemet club did a great job putting on the contest and then
gad to ask us if we would like them to do this again next year. Duh!!! We couldn't say yes
fast enough. With the loss of both the Prado and Whittier Narrows fields this year to
height restrictions, we certainly welcome this new contest sponsor. Bob Gillespie also did a great
job of filling in as CD for Harry Gould - Harry had a problem with an infection of a heart valve
and was in and out of the hospital in the last couple of weeks. But you just can't keep
a good pattern guy away - and Harry showed up Saturday for a brief visit with all his
pattern friends. We wish Harry a speedy recovery back to the intermediate class.
1. Alvaro Dalton 4000
2. Chris Johnson 3833
3. Wayne Lovett 3738
4. Chandler Rose 3160
1. Mike Austin 3997
2. Kendall O'Brien 3985
3. Noah Yaney 3920
1. Bill Wallace 4000
2. John Contreras 3955
3. Dave Dehart 3920
4. Jarvis Johnson 3797
5. Chuck Hartmann 3775
6. Jim Bronowski 3281
7. Jim Brown 3130
8. Bob Gillespie 1834
1. Rusty Fried 4000
2. Jerry Budd 3979
3. Jim Oddino 3691
4. Lynn Burks 3188
1. Greg Frohreich 4000
2. Frank Kelly 3873