Poway recap

This last weekend a group of us Bay Area DLG pilots drove down to Poway ,which is near San Diego.The Torrey Pines Gulls RC club was hosting the IHLGF DLG contest.This is the largest DLG contest on the west coast and it attracts pilots from as far away as New Zealand. For me the two weeks leading up to Poway were really stressful.First I had to get my new Sirius plane ready for the contest.Building a plane so fast was a real challenge. Then the week before we were leaving I had a major equipment failure while flying one of my planes.My transmitter totally failed and my Lightspeed took a nosedive .So now I have to get a new transmitter and repair my Lightspeed. This process took me all week and did not get to fly all week. I finally flew most of my planes during the practice and we found that I had a few kinks to work out,but that the Sirius has a lot of potential beyond what I saw the first time I flew it. The big problem was that I was fluttering the whole wing at launch.Greg ,one of our local guys was a real wizard helping me all Friday night getting the bugs worked out. So Saturday morning I finally got everything together and got some more flight time. Between being sick for the past 4 months ,the pregnant wife and my latest radio issues I really was not ready for the contest. The first day is seven rounds which lasts from nine am till almost six pm. I was really up and down as I learned to fly the Sirius in a contest environment. Not having a rudder took me till day two to get even a little smooth with. Since I was not doing as well as last year I concentrated on finding the limits of the plane. On the last round of day one Bob McGowan was timing for me on a 5min task with really difficult conditions. I was about 3 minutes into the flight really far off the field and sinking fast ,Bob helped guide me to a thermal that got me some more altitude,but got me so far off the field that we were worried that I was going to lose the plane. I could hardly see the plane anymore when I got it heading in the right direction to the field.This was a difficult return trip as it was into the wind.But what made it truly hard was that my plane would go in and out of sight along with not knowing how to efficiently fly the plane in these conditions. Luckily I got it as close as a hundred yard of the pilots box.That return trip took 1min 45seconds. So I got a zero for the round ,but got my plane back.Whew. This was a common theme for me all weekend,I kept going way out for the lift and either just making it or getting a zero for a task. Bruce Davidson who won the whole thing and flies the same plane was telling me that he thinks the plane does not handle sink very well. I might have to agree after some of my flights. What this means is that I need to change how I leave a thermal. I have to make sure I keep up the speed and get out of it as early as possible. 

While I performed as poorly as I ever have (was at the bottom of the list) I learned a ton and had such a good time with all the guys. Greg  did the best of the Bay area guys, but everyone had some amazing moments. Yaniv did really well  for his first contest. Bob ,Kai and Dom all had some really bright spots,but the competition was really tough this year. The conditions were also making it hard to be smooth,so different from minute to minute.We all agree that stronger preparation is key.Even with such poor results its a fun event that everyone should go do. I would like to thank everyone who helped myself and all the Bay Area guys. I would like to congratulate all of the top 10 guys , but a big high 5 to Bruce and Jun who were the top two and the nicest guys on the field.