On Wednesday, July 31, the Dime Scale Contest (9 cent scale) was held in the Stonehurst gym.  We had a great meeting before the contest which ended with a few surprised, "The contest is today?" remarks.  As it turned out only three people brought dimers.  But, following the FAC three contestants makes a contest rule it went ahead anyway.

Bill Watson brought a freshly made Heath Parasol.  Joe Whiting brought a SIPA S.11 (French Arado 96) and a Fokker DXVII.  Don Butman brought his SB2C-3 and a Howard DGA-15.  Once Bill got the Heath trimmed it was evident that he would win the contest.  Joe's Fokker had been finished the night before the contest and was in need of more trimming that could be done that morning so he flew the reliable SIPA S.11.  Don's SB2C-3 was beautifully stable in flight but he couldn't get over 30 seconds out of it so he switched to the DGA-15.  (Although he held the more colorful Curtiss for the photos.)

The contest was for the best single flight of unlimited (well, completed before the 11:30 cutoff time) attempts.

The results:

• 1. Bill Watson         80.3  seconds
• 2, Joe Whiting        52.41
• 3. Don Butman       36.1

CD Joe Whiting, Timer Howard Littman

The next contest is the Rubber Payload Contest on August 14.               

Wednesday, July 31, (That's tomorrow, folks.) is the 9 Cent Scale (Joe Whiting's relaxed Dimer rules) contest at Stonehurst.  If you have a dimer that flies come on out!

Also, for those who enjoy a challenge, the OFFC Payload contest will be at Stonehurst on August 14.  See attached poster.

OFFC  contests are open to all interested modelers.

Stonehurst Rec center is at 9901 Dronfield Ave, Sun Valley, CA 91352.  It's one of those hidden parks so you will have to Google Map it to see how to get there.

The OFFC meetings start at 9:00 AM and the flying sessions are 10:00 to 12:00.

I was at the Predicted Time/Spot Landing contest yesterday.  This is the OFFC's one outdoor contest that is always held in the middle of summer on the Stonehurst Recreation Center field.   It was a bit windy but flyable. The contest is open to any rubber powered model that can ROG (Yes, in the past helicopters have been entered!)  You have four flight attempts, each. to accomplish two tasks.   The flight for, either task. must be at least 15 seconds to count. The two tasks may be accomplished by a single flight.

The first task is predict the duration of your model's flight before launching your model from a card table.  The second task is to get the model to land as close to an American Flag on a pole in the middle of the field.  The pole has a 50 foot measuring tape attached to it for measuring the distance from the pole to the closest part of the model.

An interesting variety of models was flown, the usual Minnows, a few designed for the contest models and for those without anything to fly, Dave Gee brought a box of Guillow's Jetstreams. I brought one of my Double Trouble prototypes but discovered that I had left the front end back on the bench and ended up flying a Jetstream. 

Every once and a while you get a Jetstream that won't climb. This is a bit of a problem in a contest that requires ROG (ROT?) takeoffs.  I ended up extending the wing slot all the way to the prop hanger to get it to climb.  The next flight it flew straight to the trees and treed itself 20 feet up on the back side of a tree.  I got Bill Watson's modified kite pole, which acted like it was a prop from a Buster Keaton movie, and retrieved the model.  My last flight, predicted for 20 seconds, flew 31 seconds and bounced off a tree on the other side of the park...FOGETTABOUTIT!  There is always next year!

Dave Gee, the CD for the contest was feeling a bit poorly and had to leave in the middle of the contest.  Kurt Young took over as timer and CD

The results were:

Flier                                         Model              Seconds off predicted     Distance from pole

1. Barry Dougherty                      Zipper                 .2                            10' 11"
2. Bill Watson                             Own Design          .2                            16'
3. Jim Leuken                             Own Design         1.2                            50'+
4. Don Butman                            Peck ROG            4.0                           12' 10"
5. Kurt Young                             Jetstream            4.0                           50'+
6. Howard Littman                       Jetstream          11.6                           50'+
7. Stan Christopher                      Minnow              N/A                           50'+
8. Marylin Commer                       Jetstream            N/A                          N/A

The next contest is Dime Scale (Joe Whiting's 9 Cent scale rules) on July 28.  If you have a Dime Scale model and can make it that Wednesday morning, come on out!         

I was out of the country for the A-6 contest on June 26 so I can't give you a description of how it went but I was given the results and a few photos.

The results:

1. Bill Watson            272   seconds
2. Jim Leuken            182.5
3. Pete Basone          179.8
4. Don Butman           148.3
5. Bud Matthews        N/A

The photos are the finishers, Bill Watson, Jim Leuken, Kurt and Barry who were timing, and Will Woods.  I don't know how Will didn't end up finishing.

The next contest was the outdoor Predicted Time/ Spot Landing contest on July 17.

The Legal Eagle contest happened on Wednesday, May 29.  There was a very good turnout for the meeting but only six members brought models for the contest.  Bill Watson, once again, proved what can be done with a light, carefully trimmed model by winning , but it wasn’t a runaway with Paul Avery coming in a close second.  Joe Whiting had an interesting design that had some structural issues but after repairs it turned in a good performance for third place.  Don Butman finished  fourth with a usual competent performance but had trouble breaking a minute.  Howard Littman brought a development of his last Legal Eagle design but he finished and trimmed it at the contest and was only able to get three flights of around 40 seconds in before the end.  Don Smith finished sixth.

Results:  (Total of best 3 flights out of 6)

1.      Bill Watson                  335.9  seconds
2.      Paul Avery                  320.2  (5 total flights)
3.      Joe Whiting                  203.2  (4 total flights)
4.      Don Butman                  175.5 
5.      Howard Littman            117.7  (3 total flights)
6.      Don Smith                    65.2  (4 total flights)

The next contest is A-6 on June 26.

Here are more pictures from the Delta Dart contest.

Sounds like fun, I look forward to seeing your post of the meet and the results.  Thanks for posting!
Sky9pilot