RAMS R/C Club
Northwest Spring Nationals
RAMS R/C Field, Auburn, WA
Written by Gordon Anderson
The Northwest Spring Nationals contest was held June 21st and 22nd at the RAMS field in Auburn, Washington. The attendance was a little low with a total of only 10 pilots with contestants in all classes except Intermediate. Advanced had only one pilot. In spite of the low attendance we had a great time and flew six full rounds. Saturday we completed 3 ˝ rounds and finished up about 1PM on Sunday.
The 2008 RAMS pilots
The weather was pretty good all weekend with cloudy skies; it looked like it could rain but stayed dry. We had light winds resulting in very nice contest weather. After the contest completed on Sunday and we were packing up the skies cleared and the sun appeared!
Rex calls for Craig.
We were excited to see three sportsman pilots and two of them traveled significant distance to get to the contest. This was the first pattern contest for Will Holford and Alexander Safarik. Alexander and Pavel are our newest father and son team! This was Craig Christensen second contest, he traveled from Richland to join the fun!
Our new father and son team, Alexander and Pavel.
Will Holford calls for Jim Hiller
Sportsman
1st Will Holford 4000.00
2nd Craig G. Christensen 3878.89
3rd Alexander Safarik 3599.52
Advanced
1st Jim Hiller 4000.00
Masters
1st Brett Bowen 4000.00
2nd Bill Bowen 3834.41
FAI
1st Rex Lesher 3982.04
2nd Gary McClellan 3970.03
3rd Gordon Anderson 3793.97
4th Pavel Safarik 3744.76
Click here to see scores for all rounds.
The local RAMS club always takes great care of us and has hot coffee and muffins in the morning and hot lunch. We really appreciate the use of their very nice field and hospitality.
The RAMS Welcome Wagon!
Thanks to Meri Anderson for all her work scoring the contest and keeping all the paperwork moving, she always does a great job.
There is a story about this lamp post, ask Gary!
See you in the pits…
Rex Lesher, D8 VP Contest Report:
Oh, it's been a wonderful month since we last read these columns. The 2008 contest season is progressing nicely, the weather has be cooperating... Now if I could just get more opportunities for practice! I have pleasant dreams of an impending retirement, affording me the time and energy to fly whenever I like. Then, like most of us, I wake to the reality of working for a living. Spending the weekends away from normal life, at a contest is pure pleasure for me. There's nothing like having fun with friends and meeting new friends along the way. And so, for the month of June and the first part of July, that's what the folks of D8 have been doing.
One the weekend of June 21-22, we traveled to Sumner, Washington for two glorious days of flying. The weather on Saturday morning was a little gray and cooler temps, but started warming up as the clouds parted. For the past few years, development of the surrounding area has been starting to cramp the overfly area of this field. This year, there's a new big truck yard just North of the field. You overfly it on approach for landing. And there's a couple obstructions sticking up in the form of lamp posts. These "Lamp Posts" force you to either fly around them, or fly in between them...
Enough said for now. We only had 10 contestants show for this contest. Too many people had work or something else get in the way. However, we had a great time, and good air to fly in. Plus, we got two new pilots for D8. Will Holford came over from Spokane with Jim Hiller, to compete in his first pattern contest. Also, ten year old Alexander Safarik, Pavel's son, competed for his first time. It was fun to watch...
Will has competed in IMAC, but hasn't flown for a few years. He definitely was a little too advanced in ability to be flying Sportsman, and he heard about it from most of the other flyers in the form of ribbing... LOL And it worked. By the end of the contest, he had already decided to move up. Alexander has those young thumbs we all wish we still had. You can watch his abilities increase with each flight, and he has a lot of potential to unleash as he gets more used to flying the box... he's going to come up through the ranks fairly quickly...
Now for a little history of the problem of the "Lamp Post"... As we were having our pregame meeting, the Lamp Posts were pointed out, and everyone was coming up with ideas on how to avoid hitting one... Some pilots decided to just completely fly around them and enter the field from the closest edge. Some decided to fly in from an angle from the far edge, taking both poles out of play. I myself, decided to rcome from above, turn on my brake, and fly down between them directly onto the end of field Somehow, along the way, Gary McClellan decided that he had plenty of room, but ended up clipping one of the "Lamp Posts" with the tip of his right wing.... Just hard enough to break his Bipe. It cracked the wing and fuse in a few places, and pulled the threads out of the wing brace... A fairly easy, but time consuming fix... nonetheless putting that plane out of commission for the rest of the contest. He got his backup out and finished without further problems. Somehow, during all this commotion, the nickname, "Lamp Post Larry" got started. I don't know how, but I'm sure that if you ask Gordon Anderson, he'd be more than happy to fill you in! NUFF SAID!
Click here to see more pictures!