1) I think we all have a set-up routine we follow; some kind 'do this first' sequence.. like set up your flight stand, get out the fuselage and put it in the flight stand, get out each wing, connect the aileron wires, secure the wing to the fuselage, and on and on. My first 'oops' happened on Friday when I arrived at Lancaster. I took a practice flight, a good flight for my first flight of the day, and when I came down, I went to charge my batteries (electric). I'll step back a bit here.. my chargers (2) have plugs on both ends so one side connects to the batteries, the other to the power source. You don't want to have the power source side with male connectors as this could short out.. not a good thing. So logically, you have female connectors at the power source and male connectors on the charger side. On the other side, the same situation, you don't want male connectors on your 'live' batteries so you use female connectors on the batteries and male connectors on the charger side.. this became my problem, I now have 2 male connectors on each side of the charger. This is not a problem when I fly at home, as the charger is far enough away from the power source that the charger would literally hang in the air if I connected the wrong set of wires to it. (Coming off the charger is one long set of wires, maybe 24" in length, and a short set, maybe 10" in length). Anyway, when I went to plug in my chargers to the 12V battery, I plugged in the wrong side of the charger to the battery.. and the charger did not come on.. no smoke, on indication of what was wrong, it just did not turn on. I will credit Astroflight for this good design. I tried the other charger, nothing.. perhaps my 12V battery was dead? But I knew I charged it before I left home. I got another 12V battery and we connected it to the leads.. nothing. Perhaps a fuse in the charger had blown? But on both chargers? Well, it turns out I was connecting the wrong lead from the charger to the battery. I now have the ends color coded and idiot-proof.

2) The second thing, and it related to the first, is Routine.. As I'm installing one of my flight batteries, someone comes up and is talking to me.. at this time the wind was blowing pretty good and I had my plane on the ground so there was not chance of it falling off my stand. I ALWAYS put my batteries in when the plane is in the stand at home. I have everything right there, and a routine for putting the batteries in. I put in the batteries and go fly another sequence. When I land and remove the batteries it find the 2.5lb batteries loose under the canopy. Where is the screw? I tip the fuselage upside down thinking perhaps the screw is in the fuselage still.. no sound of a screw tumbling down the fuse.. 'shoot, it fell out one of the exhaust holes' (to cool the batteries / ESC and motor). Do I have another screw? I open my flight box and right were I keep the screw, is the screw! I forgot to put the screw in as I changed my routine and someone was talking to me. I don't see how the battery did not fall out.. long uplines, snaps, downlines.. and it stayed where I had put it.. (my battery plugs into the front of the fuselage bulkhead and the screw holds it in place). This was a bullet dodged and a lesson learned.

3) The third thing I learned in this contest, is to keep doing your best even if you mess up a few maneuvers. It was the 5th and last round, and I was not going to win the contest, but I was flying in front of two top FAI pilots that were judging, Tony F and Greg F - and I wanted to fly well. I had won the 3rd round flying in front of them and had hopes of doing so again. I felt these were very credible judges that know much more than I do about geometry, centering, 'flow', and could judge the best flyer. I walk up confident, knowing I'd been flying well to this point.. my takeoff was great, the plane left the ground in one piece. I call, "in the box" and I start into my stall turn, 1-1/4 up, 3/4 down (Masters pattern) and it's off center.. the stall just barely makes it over and the wings come down about 30 degrees off-axis. At this point I'm about ready to land and call it a day.. but I continue.. the 1/2 outside loop with 2 of 4 on exit is not much better.. the loop gets cocked a bit, the 2 of 4 is not the best I have flown.. now I'm talking out loud.. 'this sucks'.. the Avalanche is not great... and I continue.. the rest of the flight was marginal in my view. I land, thank the judges, and walk away with my head held down! Later, as I'm kicking things in the pit area, Greg comes up and says, "nice flight".. I wonder who he's talking to! He's looking at me, there is no one behind me.. and I wonder if I should as acknowledge this comment... I do, and tell him in a frustrated voice, "it sucked". He says it started out shaky, but it got better as you sent on.. it turns out I won the round and I was a bit to hard on myself. I had won the two rounds in front of these judges - satisfaction for me. It was not one of my better flights, but it was good enough. I will not let a few maneuvers shake me again.

Lesson's learned #2 : Tom Messer

From Chris Fitzsimmons; Today, I did a bunch of work to Vic's radio and plane. I take his battery pack out of the tx (it slides out on the Stylus) and put in on a discharge. I was going to cycle it for him as it seemed to not hold a charge for to many flights. 1100 mah pack. The charger kept telling me there was a connection error. So I put the voltmeter on it. It checked at 10.26 v. Then I put it under a .5 amp load and it dropped to 2.20 volts. Lesson learned. Check your Tx packs under load. I don't think there are many that do this....