Emerald Aircorp 18th Annual Pattern Contest
Creswell, Oregon

Written by Gordon Anderson, NSRCA District 8 Vice President

The 18th annual Labor Day Pattern Contest was hosted by the Emerald Air Corps (EAC) in Springfield, Oregon. Gary McCellan CD'd this event. A total of 22 contestants participated in the contest; we had competitors in all AMA classes and 3 FAI fliers. Pilots came from as far away as Canada and Sacramento, CA. This event has quite a reputation and always draws a lot of fliers.

The EAC Contestant Group Shot

The weather was pretty good. A little cool in the mornings and warming up in the afternoon. We had a slight breeze all weekend but nothing too bad, just enough to keep you on your toes! We did have a little weather induced excitement on Sunday. The morning fog came rolling in just as the sun was coming up. Brett Bowen was getting in a practice flight when his Hydeout disappeared into the fog! He kept his cool and the Hydeout reappeared from the fog bank and he safely got it back on the ground. After the sun came up the fog burned off and we were flying a little after 8AM.

We flew three rounds on Saturday and three rounds on Sunday using two flight lines; the contest was completed about 2PM on Sunday. Most of the fliers arrived Friday and we enjoyed a lot of practicing and conversation. Friday night the EAC hosted a potluck dinner, with lots of great food! As the sun was setting the electric foamy's came out! At one point we had about 6 or 7 in the air at once, we even had a foamy mid-air! Rex's brand-new Hellraiser collided with Hartley's 3DX foamy (I think?). Rex's plane got the worst of it with the tail pretty much broken off! These things are a lot of fun.

Saturday evening we enjoyed the traditional steak dinner BBQ at the field. The food was great and way too much to eat, no one went home hungry! I would like to thank the EAC and all the wives who worked hard to put this dinner together.

A few of the D8 Pattern Legends!

Jerry Green and Dan Pettit were our two Sportsman contestants. This was Dan's first pattern contest and we were delighted to have him join the pattern family. I have attached a report written by his Dad, Roy. It is a great perspective from a first time Pattern contestant. We sure hope to see more of Dan and his support group! Jerry better lookout because Dan is right on your heals!

Sportsman Dan Pettit in the ready box waiting his turn

Bill Carder won Intermediate! Steve Sterling could not make the contest, he was busy trying to get his Focus II ready in time for the event but he ran out of time. Mike Miller had an interesting event; on a landing (might have been dead stick I just can't remember) he drifted off the runway and hit a tractor! The tractor was not hurt but Mike's airplane and pride was a little worse for ware. The bad part of this "hard landing" was poor Mike hade to put up with abuse all weekend; he is now affectionately referred to as "Tractor Mike"!

Rex Lesher and I continued our Advance battle. The D8 district championship in Advanced came down to this contest. Rex and I entered this contest tied; we had exchanged contests all season with 3 first places and 3 second places for each of us. The other interesting thing is we alternated contest wins all season with me winning the first and Rex the second, etc. This contest was my turn to win and indeed that is what happened. Rex and I are pretty much matched and I'm sure if we held one more event this season in D8 he would win! It was great flying with Rex all season; we generally called for each other and had a great time all season! We are both planning on moving up to Masters at the next contest in Canada, should be a humbling experience.

We had 11 contests in Masters and great competition! Only 22 points between 1st and 2nd with Gary Pugh winning the contest and the D8 District Championship!

We had three competitors in FAI including Dave Reaville from Canada. Craig Blodgett won the event with Dave a close second. Craig was flying an electric powered Smaragd, it was my first opportunity to see an electric Pattern airplane, pretty impressive!

Craig Blodgett's electric Smaragd

Below are the standings for the contest.

The closing of the contest included the traditional raffle. This raffle included at least a hundred prizes that the EAC club members and families spend countless hours creating. This coupled with the great BBQs and social activities is the highlight of this contest.

On a bit of a sad note; Jennifer McClellan is retiring from her score keeping duties after 8 years of service. We will miss you! The contests just won't be the same without your smiling face.

See you in the pits….

Gordon Anderson
NSRCA Dist 8 VP

Dan Pettit Attends Pattern Contest 
by Roy Pettit

On September 4th, FTRCM club member Dan Pettit attended his first National Society of Radio Controlled Aerobatics sanctioned pattern contest. It was the "18th Annual Emerald Air Corps Pattern Contest" in Creswell, OR (10 miles South of Eugene). Dan was accompanied by Jack Dunn as coach and me as "logistics support". This article is an overview of our trip. More detail has been sent to members of the Precision Aerobatics SIG. Those with web access can learn more by going to http://www.tcrcm.org/dist8 (BTW: if you want to see a squared away RC club, check out http://www.tcrcm.org). Also, I took over 50 pictures of the event and will show them to anybody who's interested at a future meeting. 

We arrived Friday afternoon, set up our canopy, and Dan got in a practice flight. Then we were invited to stay for the Friday night potluck dinner. Everybody was very friendly (aren't all RC'ers?). We met the CD, Gary McClellan, and District 8 VP, Gordon Anderson - both very nice and helpful guys. It turns out that the "Emerald Air Corps" is an RC club consisting of six guys, and they put on the event entirely by themselves and their wives! They have rented hangar space on a private airfield and have two "truck containers" set up there, replete with a well stocked kitchen! Our first discovery was that almost everybody stays at the event site in campers. This is a really good idea, as you don't have to keep hauling your stuff back and forth to the motel. 

Pilots briefing was to be at 7:30 am Saturday, so we pried ourselves out of bed at 5:30am, showered, and headed out for breakfast, only to discover that the only place open in Creswell before 7am was a tiny donut shop! We arrived at the field before sunrise, but there were already several guys in the air practicing. At the pilots briefing, we learned that there would be two active flight lines, with two judges at each station. There were 22 flyers registered, but only 2 in Sportsman class - Dan was one, and the other was one of the "Emerald Six". There were 5 classes, and each class would fly 3 rounds. Around 2pm the sun makes flying difficult, so there would be no official flights after that time. 

There were flyers from Sacramento to Canada present, and just about every kind of 2-meter pattern plane you can imagine. All of the airplanes were monoplanes with 2-meter wings, except one Ultra Bipe, and even that was big. There were 25-30 planes pattern planes sitting around. Jack and I estimated there to be $60,000 to $100,000 in airplane value, and with support equipment probably close to 1/4 million dollars worth of stuff at the field. 

The flying scores are "normalized" such that the top scorer in a given class and round gets 1000 points, and everybody else gets something less than that. A complicated algorithm figures it all out on a laptop, and prints out a very nice scoring sheet for the pilot that includes a histogram graph, and bar graph, making it easy to see where you did good and where you did less than good. 

Jack did his typically thorough job of preparing us before we attended, so there were few surprises in terms of the competition itself. On Dan's 3 rounds on Saturday he scored 950, 996, and 977 (normalized). Dan's raw scores improved on each flight. In effect, Dan tied the best flyer on his second flight. Not bad for his very first contest (and considering he soloed only 18 months ago). The judges were all good at discussing Dan's flight with him after his round so he could learn what to improve upon. Between rounds Jack and Dan would review the last flight and discuss what to do better on the next. 

It occurred to me on Saturday as I watched the planes and pilots, that this type of flying truly is an art form. After having just watched two weeks of Summer Olympics, it reminded me of the many Olympic events in which a person works very hard to perfect their skills, and accomplish something that only years of dedication and practice can produce. As a club we can be proud of both Dan and Jack for making the effort, and enduring the "nerves", to participate in a regional competition. Being involved in the PA SIG, I know there are several other flyers in our club who have the potential to participate and enjoy themselves at an event like this. I encourage you to get with Jack and/or Dan and plan to attend one in the future. 

Since we didn't go to win, but to learn what these contests are all about and to gain experience, it was a very successful trip. Jack mentioned several times how happy it made him to see his trusty old Typhoon-D back in the air, and to see how well Dan was doing with it. When you mix a capable plane like the Typhoon-D, with a capable pilot like Dan, and an excellent coach like Jack, only good things can happen - right?

Dan Pettit at his home practice field getting ready for the contest