Gary Weaver Field, Othello, WA
Written by Gordon Anderson, NSRCA District 8 Vice President
The Nate Dixon Memorial Pattern Contest was held August 14th and 15th at Gary Weaver's field in Othello, Washington. Michael Lance CD'd the event. We had a pretty small turn out with only 8 competitors. The small number of fliers made for a pretty laid-back event. We easily finished four rounds on Saturday and two more on Sunday, a little after noon. Gary Weaver's field has a nice grass field with lots of room for campers and trailers.
The weather was great! Maybe the best fly conditions we had at any of our events this season. The only thing to complain about was the temperature; it did get a little hot. The wind kicked up and it stormed a bit Saturday night but this was after the flying was done for the day.
Parts, parts and more parts make up a pattern airplane. Forget one part and bad things can happen! Steve Sterling found this out on Saturday during a practice flight with his Focus. He had done a little maintenance work on the elevator bell-crank and forgot to put in the retaining bolt. The bell-crank came apart in flight and his Focus went in, he had the power off and the wings level. It hit in a pretty soft field but it did do major damage. I think it's repairable. Steve did not fly Saturday but he did stay to help us judge because we were pretty short handed in this area. Steve came back Sunday with his backup Tipo and flew two rounds.
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| Rex Lesher's New Hydeaway | Gordon Anderson's New Hydeout |
Rex Lesher and I flew our new aircraft in their first competition. Rex has a Hydeaway with YS 140DZ and I have a Hydeout with a Webra 1.45. I had a lot of engine trouble and got everything worked out on Friday before the contest. Friday was the first time I flew it through the pattern; this was true for Rex as well, and he was still trimming his Hydeaway on Friday. Rex and I were the only Advanced competitors, we have been exchanging contests all season and this was no exception. Rex won by 23 points. This makes 3 contests that Rex has won and I have taken second and 3 contests I have won and Rex has taken second. We are now heading to the last contest of the season tied for district points! Creswell will be the Advanced shootout! Rex will be tough to beat with his new plane so I plan on doing a lot of practice in the next couple of weeks.
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Dave Villwock was able to make this contest and it was great flying with him again. His hydroplane boat racing schedule keeps him pretty busy through the summer and he can't make very many of the contests. He was flying his Double Vision. He had a pretty close to flawless performance with a flame out on his first round. |
| He won all but the first round winning the contest with 4000 points. Gary Pugh was not far behind Dave with 3978 points. The competition in Masters is tough! Brett Bowen was on Gary Pugh's heels all weekend. Brett won the first round and beat Gary in the 6th. All of the Masters flyers are doing an outstanding job with some very impressive flying. This is a tough class to fly in with these top notch D8 pilots! | |
We had a lot of fun at this contest! I always loved the color scheme on Gary Pugh's and Dave Villwock's Hydeaway so when I finished my Hydeout I copied Gary and Dave's design. The primary color is orange. Saturday Gary was wearing bright orange shorts that matched his airplane; I was giving him a bad time all day Saturday. Sunday when I arrived at the field Gary and Dave were both wearing bright orange shorts and they presented me with a pair, we are now team orange! We all got a kick out of being color matched to our airplanes. We may see more color coordination in Creswell!
Bill Bowen couldn't join us this weekend because he had shoulder surgery last week and is home recovering. I guess he is doing recovering comfortably. Meri, my wife, picked up a card for Bill and we all signed it and sent it home with Brett. It sure was strange seeing Brett fly without his dad. Bill supports about every contest in D8, a real pattern animal!
| Sportsman No Sportsman
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Intermediate Steve Sterling |
| Advanced 1st Rex Lesher 4000.00 2nd Gordon Anderson 3977.9 |
Masters Dave Villwock 4000.00 Gary Pugh 3911.62 Brett Bowen 3827.61 Dennis Cone 3601.17 Michael Lance 3561.88 |
Many thanks to Michael Lance for organizing and CD'ing this event, its not a small task to run a pattern contest. A big thank you to Meri for running the scoring program and taking care of all the paperwork details. Meri has done this in several contests this year and she is becoming a pro! We have been using this new scoring program this season that I developed. It is a series of macros and VBA in Excel. The program has several nice features, statistics and plots, which are easy implement due to the power of Excel. I'll post this program on our web site when the season ends. We have done a lot of refinements all season long, plus of course bug fixes!
Only one more contest left in D8 before the season ends, the final contest will be held in Creswell on Labor Day weekend hope to see you all there.
See you in the pits….
Dave Villwock holds Gary Pugh's Hydeaway as he runs it up before a
flight