NATS 2006
District 8 will be well represented at the NATS this year. We have four pilots all competing in Masters:
Gordon Anderson
Rex Lesher
Ray McClellan
Gary McClellan
In addition Bill Carder is attending to support his son, Jeff Carder. Ray's wife Mary and my wife Meri are also attending to support the D8 fliers. Watch this page for daily updates on our progress. The travel will start for Rex, Meri and I Thursday July 13th. Ray and Mary are already on the road, Gary and Bill will be flying to Muncie on Friday.
Wish us luck!
Click on the following links to see all the pictures we took on the Muncie NATS adventure:
July 14, Friday 12:45
We are on the road to the NATS and making pretty good progress. We actually started the trip Wednesday evening and traveled from our house in Benton City Washington to Baker City Oregon and spend the night, this gave us a bit of a head start. Rex left his home near Eugene Oregon and traveled to his mom's home in Weiser Idaho. Rex arrived at his mom's around 9 PM Wednesday.
Thursday morning we meet up at Rex's mom's place and connected my trailer to Rex's pickup then stored my truck at Rex's mom's place. We headed out around 9 AM hoping to make Laramie Wyoming. Things went pretty smooth and we made it all the way to Cheyenne Wyoming. It was pretty late when we got to Cheyenne so I did not up date the web site. As I'm writing this we are in the middle of Nebraska hoping to make it through Nebraska and Iowa before this day ends. Right now we have 859 miles to go to get to Muncie and when we started it was 2200 miles!
No real surprises on the road or any big problems. We have hit a lot of road construction, mostly resurfacing and the speed reductions were only 10 miles per hour. Most of the speed limits are 75 and this means we cruse at about 80. We have only see one cop so far on the whole trip.
The rest stops in Wyoming and Nebraska are real nice. They have semi enclosed picnic areas with BBQ pits. We have been stopping about every 150 miles or so to get out and walk around. The worse part of the trip is the rough roads, some of the roads feel like you are driving on a wash board and is just beats you to death sitting in the truck.
The nicest scenery we have seen was in Wyoming and I have a few pictures below. Well that's it for this report and I will have a new update on the travel adventure as soon as we get to Muncie. At this point we are hopping to be there Saturday around 2 in the afternoon.
We have not heard from Ray McClellan so we assume he has made it to Muncie my now. Rex talked to Gary McClellan today around 11AM and Gary will be getting on an airplane bound for Muncie today. We will see everyone Saturday and post a group picture from Muncie.
Wyoming, somewhere...
Wyoming provided us the best scenery so far!
Not sure what these little brick buildings are for but they were located about every 75 miles or so along I-80 in Wyoming.
July 15, 2006
We made it! It was two long days on the road and only 6 hours on Saturday. We made it all the way to Davenport Iowa Friday leaving us only 385 miles on Saturday. Friday was a long boring day of driving, Meri was the hero, I think she drove 6 or 7 hours while Rex and I slept. We made it through Nebraska and almost through Iowa. We stopped at a lot of the rest stops to get out of the truck and walk around a bit. The rest stops were very nice and in Iowa most of the rest stops had free wireless internet connections!
The worse traffic we saw was in Omaha, the traffic was stop and go for a few miles and we lost a bit of time. Overall I was pretty surprised with how smooth the trip went. We did not have any trouble at all and made it to Muncie sooner that I expected. One of the things we had forgot to include in our planning was the three hours we lost due to time changes but we made such good time that it compensated for this miscalculation.
The weather was beautiful the whole trip, clear and sunny. As we had expected the humidity climbed as we moved east and here in Muncie its pretty bad... at least its something we are not use to.
The Muncie site is very nice. I have included a few pictures below and I will be adding flying details over the next several days. Tomorrow, Sunday, is a practice day and I hope to get a couple of flights. We are heading to the field around 7AM to get our name on the list to fly. We saw a few pilots today but most of the fliers will show up tomorrow.
That's it for today, keep at eye on this page to follow our progress.
We spent many hours on I-80 East!
Iowa, the sate with wireless internet in the rest stops!
Crossing the Missouri river.
Crossing the Mississippi.
Did they put this sign up for me?
We made it!!!!!
AMA HQ.
July 16, 2006
Today, Sunday, was a practice day at the site. There are 3 sites where pattern practice was scheduled to happen, site 1, 3, and 4. We arrived at site 3 pretty early, around 7:30AM and we were able to start flying. A lot of the pilots have other local fields they use for practice to avoid the long delays waiting for a chance to fly. Rex and I chose to practice at site 3.
The way these practice sites work is you put you name on a list and wait your turn to fly, when your name comes up you fly. Then you cross your name off the list and if you want to fly again you put your name on the end of the list and wait. The wait times are long, about 2 to 3 hours in the peak of the day.
Oh yeah the weather. It is hot and humid, 95/95 I think it was today.... I about died.
Rex was flying right away and had no problems at all, for me it was a very different story. My first flight went so so, I was having some trouble with the sun and the flight was not very good. Toward the end of the flight by engine died and I did not quite make it back to the field. I ended up with a little damage to my elevator but it was easy to fix with some 5 minute epoxy. So I fixed my plane and put my name back on the list and waited. When my turn came up I could not get my engine to run so I had to forfeit my turn and work on my plane. It turned out to be a bad fuel pump on my engine and of course I had no spare. Gary McClellan told me the parts that I would need would be the ones I did not have spares for... damn I hate it when he is right!
Anyway; I replaced the pump with a cline regulator system I did have with me but that I had a lot of trouble with in the past. I had another flight and the engine died again. One of the fellow pilots had a spare pump and I then replaced the pump and put the plane back to original condition. It turns out I did not have it running right and just as the plane was lifting off the runway the engine coughed and I aborted the takeoff. Not a good idea because I did not have enough runway left to slow down so the plane ran off the end of the runway and broke one of the landing gear struts and the prop, a $40 carbon fiber prop! So that was it, my primary plane is out of business. I was and still am bummed out!
I brought a backup airplane, my Hydeout. I have not flown it for about a year but its all I have. I got it all ready to fly and I'll try it tomorrow. I will have no chance to practice so I'll just go for it and see what happens.
It was fun at the practice site today because I got to meet a lot of the pilots we all hear so much about. All pretty nice guys and all very helpful. I have a bunch of pictures below, please check them out. I'll post my experiences tomorrow night, I sure hope they are better than today.
Working on my engine, I spent a lot of time doing this!
Quique Somenzini's Brio, he said the winglet makes a big difference.
Site 3 flight line, I don't like flying off hard surface!
The shade helped a little..... just a little!
July 17, 2006
Its Monday and competition started today. The FAI pilots and Advanced flew first. FAI on sites 1 and 3 and Advanced on site 4. I did not get to site 4 today. There were a total of 25 FAI pilots and we had to judge them all Monday. We did 13 at site 1 then the judges moved to site 3 to finish the last 12 pilots. This was a grueling experience, it took 5 hours to complete this judging assignment. Masters and Intermediate flew in the afternoon with Masters on site 1 and 3 and Intermediate on site 4. The Masters pilots got started a bit late due to the length of time it took to get through all the FAI guys.
The fun thing about judging these top pilots was having the opportunity to see the best pilots in the country perform. I saw some outstanding flying.
It will take Intermediate, Advanced and Masters 3 days to get 6 flights for each pilot, assuming the weather permits. We fly only 2 flight per day. There are about 110 pilots at this contest, most of them in the Masters class. Intermediate and Advanced are done after Wednesday, Masters will take the top 8 pilots to finals where they will run a 4 round contest to determine first place. FAI is even more complicated with 20 (I think) going to semi-finals after four rounds and 8 or so going to finals where they fly unknown sequences. Unknown sequences are routines the pilots learn about the night before the competition so they can't practice.
Things went pretty good for me today. I flew my Hydeout, my backup plane. I had not flown it for some time so I was pretty nervous about the first round. It flew fine, Just like I remember. The motor was a little lean and I had to nurse it through the first flight. I richen it up a bit for the second round and it ran a lot better, I still needed it richen it up so I should have things about right for the 3rd round tomorrow. Its amazing how much the weather effects the motor settings and also how the plane flies. I was warned that roll rates would be higher that normal snaps would be violent and I might need to dial down the rates. I had no chance to practice with the Hydeout so I just went for it, the warnings were right, the snaps were violent! I over rotated on the Reverse Avalanche by about 100 degrees!
Rex flew on a different line today so I don't have a lot of details other than he said his first flight was not so good but his second was a lot better. I saw the last half of his second flight and it looked pretty good.
Bill Carder is here helping his son Jeff. Jeff had a battery fail in his transmitter and lost his Partner on his first flight, pretty sad. Jeff got his backup Brio out and flew it in round two.
Ray McClellan had engine trouble on his first flight and ran out of time on the 3 minute timer. Gray completed two flights today but was not too happy with a humpty error he made.
All in all it was a pretty fun day but tiring. I hope to take a lot more pictures tomorrow and visit the other sites. I have the morning free time because I don't have any judging duty.
The view from the runway at site 1 looking toward the pits.
More pit action at site 1.
Rusty Dose's beautiful Brio.
Site 3 during the morning judges break.
Site 1, Ray flying on line 1 with Gary calling, Me flying on line 2 with Jerry Budd calling and Bill and Jeff Carder preparing Jeff's Brio in the foreground.
July 18, 2006
Today is Tuesday and its the second day of competition flying. The weather today was a lot more challenging. The wind direction shifted around a lot and we had a delay starting the Masters flying on site 1 due to thunderstorms in the area. This is pretty common for this area. We heard a lot of thunder and felt a few rain drops but no problems at the Muncie field. All the other D8 pilots were on site 3 except for me so I was flying with a bunch of pilots I did not know. A fellow from D7, Lynn Burks called for me and I called for him, nice guy and it worked out pretty well. We were both on the same frequency so we were separated by one pilot and this gave us time to work together.
My first flight was in pretty calm air and the very worse flight I had. I had only brought the 30% fuel for the Temptation with the OS 1.60 and the Hydeout with the Webra was a rocket! Still trying to get the engine tuned and slow down the Hydeout. The flight was terrible! The second flight was at the end of the day and the wind shifted direction so I was flying left to right. The wind was pretty strong and the thunderstorms were again threatening. This flight was a lot better but still too fast.
Rex said his first flight was pretty good but I did not have a chance to see anything because he was on site 3 all afternoon. He finished early and came over to site 1 and called for me on my last flight. Its sure nice to have your familiarly caller!
Rex told me about a little excitement on Site 3; I guess one of the pilots took off and the stab of his plane hit his caller's leg as the caller was letting go of the plane. This significantly changed the incidence in one stab. The pilot had his hands full as soon as he was airborne. His landing was pretty rough and he had a bit of repair work to do before he will be able to fly.
I did not have any morning judging so I went to each site a took a few pictures. I included a few below. The heat and humidity is really getting to me, this weather just wears you out, by the time we are done for the day we are totally exhausted.
Site 1, Quique's Brio.
Site 1s control center.
Site 3 FAI judges.
Site 3 flight line.
Georgie Kenniy comes to the NATS and scores rounds then compares his results to the official standings.
Site 4, Rex judging the Advanced pilots.
Site 4 is a grass field, I wish we could have flown on this site!
July 19, 2006
Today is Wednesday and its the last day of competition flying for Intermediate and Advanced, Masters completed rounds 5 and 6 and selected the finalists. The top 8 Masters pilots fly in the finals on Thursday to determine the final placement of the top fliers. The plan is to fly 4 rounds and keep the three best.
Rex was flying on site 1 with me all day so we were able call for each other. Rex had a couple of pretty good flights likely the best flights he had all weekend. The wind direction resulted in left to flight direction all day. My flights were better that Tuesday but not good enough to make a difference.
It was a pretty uneventful day and very hot and humid. As soon as the day ended we went back to our hotel and Meri and Rex jumped in the pool. We then meet up with a bunch of the D8 pilots at the local Olive Garden. Jeff Carder made the Masters finals so we all celebrated his victory!
We decided to head home Thursday morning, its been a long week and we are all anxious to get home.
Lynn Burks getting his plane ready and I'm calling.
Gordon flying with the line boss, Rob Gainey, in the far left.
Rex calling for Gordon at site 1.
Rex talking to the judges after his flight.
Victory dinner at the Olive Garden.
July 20, 2006
We left Muncie Thursday morning at 8 AM and Meri and I made it home late Friday night, actually at 1AM Saturday morning. This was two very long days of driving. Rex stayed in Weiser Idaho at his mom's place and went home Saturday.
Thursday we made it most of the way through Nebraska and stayed in Ogalalla, this was about 1000 miles from Muncie.
Meri was the hero on this trip, she did about 60 percent of all the driving. Friday we made it to Weiser, 1000 miles more, and picked up my truck and headed home, another 240 miles.
We had a good time and learned a lot in Muncie. I'm pretty sure I will be building an electric this winter. The reliability of the electrics is impressive and its simple to get the plane setup at the field. I only saw one electric have trouble at the NATS. Most of the equipment was pretty reliable. I only saw a few flameouts all week.
The travel experience was great. We had no problems on the road at all. We only hit a couple of small traffic jams that only delayed us a little. We stayed in Best Westerns on the road. We picked up a Best Western guide book and when we were sure what city we would stay at I would call ahead and make reservations. We did this about 2 to 3 hours ahead and we always found a room.
We will likely not return to Muncie for a few years, too long and costly to do every year.
Impressions and thoughts
Here are some random thoughts and impressions from my Muncie experience:
1.) Take spare parts! What you don't take you will need!
2.) Its HOT and HUMID in Muncie so pack a lot of light clothing.
3.) The contest is not too intimidating, its just like any other contest except you are on a clock when its time for you to start your flight and you can't mess with the flight order.
4.) Lots of down time, you only fly two times a day so you have time to chat with other pilots and watch others fly.
5.) The Muncie site is very nice.
6.) The wind blows in Muncie! and there are other weather challenges.
7.) If you practice at Muncie the day before the competition starts plan on only 2 or maybe 3 flights if you are lucky.
8.) There are some great pilots at the NATS!
9.) Judging FAI pilots for 5 hours (25 pilots) is brutal!
10.) Watching the FAI F07 routine flown by the best was an experience.
11.) 2200 miles to Muncie is a long drive! You need 2 or 3 people to make this happen in 2 and 1/2 days.
12.) It was ironic that in 6 years of attending contests I have never had equipment failures that resulted in not being able to fly my airplane, until Muncie!
13.) I flew my backup, the most antique pattern airplane in Masters, a Hydeout.
14.) Being judged by the best was pretty cool, but I hope they don't remember my performance, or I should say lack of performance.
15.) If you want to fly on the same line with your buddy you should both select the same frequency. They group frequencies together and this will raise the likelihood that you will be in the same group and able to call for each other.
16.) Snaps are at least twice as fast in Muncie! Not sure why but you better be ready!
17.) Perhaps what I will remember the most is our line boss Robert Gainey saying "Mr Anderson your on the clock, have a nice flight".
Everyone should make this trip, at least once!