Some random other pics...
Brett being photographed with his F1d and an R3350 in the background.  Certainly a rare combination.  He seems dubious himself.

Alden Frautschy showing great fashion sense and great glue sense.  The Rocketeer and Ambroid go great together...

Rob focusing on some slope soaring...

Early P-51's hanging out together...



Guillow's Glider Event

This was an impromptu event that the local volunteers came up with years ago that turned out to be a real blast!  Lee Damnann had a great little glider assembled from a couple of the Guillow's hand out kits like this that he was catapulting up to the ceiling during the morning Saturday. 

Before long the rules were established:
1) You get to start with two of the stock Guillow's hand out kits
2) You can garbage pick from any can in the room for more pieces
3) The original EAA log must be visible on the wings

Brett, John, Rob Lee Damnann and I got busy working on our ideal designs between repair and modification requests from the kids.  Rob did a single polyhedral modification and in short order there were kids lined up several deep for the "mod shop".  Every competition glider design was based upon using both wings to double the span of the stock kit. 

Left to right: John Kagan, Brett Sanbron (with two attempts), Jim Buxton (kneeling) Lee Damnann, Rob Romash.

After some major effort and tweaking we were in the 20 second range with modified Guillow's gliders!  One of the great variables of the event is that we flew it concurrently with the rest of the kids in the hangar.  That meant getting a flight to the ground could be a real accomplishment at times, and instant glider destruction under foot was a known variable!

As the dust settled though it was Oshkosh local glider guru Lee Damnann taking top honors with a 25 second plus flight!  That is impressive!  Lee beat out two glider national record holders and an F1D world champ turned glider guru to win the event.  He made a comment about local rules and locals rule!  Well done Lee!  I would say we will get him next year, but we put all the effort we had into this year and it was still not enough.  We will try next year, but I am not overly confident in our success!

Lee and his great flying "Garbage Glider" winner:

Well done Lee!

Cheese Town Glider Throwdown recap. AKA the John Beat Down.

As mentioned earlier in the blog, John Kagan of all people took a day one lead with some impressive times in standard catapult.  His pair of 43's set the mark.  Then a late night lucky shot of 47 seconds (video posted earlier) set a new standard in standard.  It forced Rob and I to do some modification work Friday night. 

We both did some test flying Saturday morning and had improved to match John's times.  A Saturday night show down was in the works!  Rob pulled to within 9/10ths of a second, but eventually ran out of flights to close on John.

I decided to fly my standard cat in unlimited and posted a 46 and a 43, bettering John's times in standard by three seconds.  I then went on to hit the same light SIX TIMES IN A ROW (despite moving my launch placement each time Rob) to fail in efforts to catch John in standard.  Sadly, he was able to top us all with only four flights.  Lucky John.  He got to tell his new girlfriend how awesome of a glider flier he is yet again....

At least I had him well covered in unlimited, or so I thought.  His first three flights looked good, but once again his fourth was a death nail, and I will offer one shiny Sacagawea dollar to anyone that ever betters it in that building with a standard 12" catapult.  It was a perfect flight for that building.  His launch rolled out above the girders, flew between them, narrowly avoided two different hanging lights and then just grazed below the girder it went through on the first circle for a time of 51.3 seconds.  I am still shaking my head about it.  I cannot determine if John is that lucky or that good.  He simply outclassed Rob and I by a large margin, and we were giving it all we had.  Look at the individual flight scores and you will see it was feast or famine as we started pushing launches to the limit of safety.

In HLG, Rob, for the second time ever beat me handily.  He had a really nice glider tailor built to the site.  I tried to recycle a Kent glider with little success.  He got some face time in as well.

For future reference this is a straight launch left glide (or right glide) site suited to smaller gliders in the 10 gram range.  Next year.  Next year....(Yes there will be a next year, bigger and better we are told, so keep your eyes and ears open!

Media Coverage

We made the Oshkosh Northwestern, with a blurb about the Cheesetown Throw Down!  See photo 14, 15, and 8.

Link to Oshkosh Northwestern Coverage

The Fun Stuff...

This contest was very unique due to the low-key friendly feel it has.  Really the contest itself is a secondary aspect to the event.  Our reason for existence at this event as invited guests of the EAA is to help them promote aviation and entertain the patrons of their first class museum.  We really had a ball helping the kids, which is our volunteer work description from 10-4 (Although as I told one staffer I have a hard time calling something this fun work).  Being around such a young group seems to be contagious, as we found ourselves having just as much fun.

Exhibit A:
When Rob stepped away for a minute his glider box was stolen by us and placed over with the gliders they were giving away to the kids...

Exhibit B:
Getting bored while watching your F1D or F1L flight?  Cruise upstairs and watch your model fly from the mezzanine while talking a turn on one of the four flight simulators.  Rob getting some stick time in a C-47:

  John opting for an F-18 to make things more interesting:

Exhibit C:
After that take a stroll down the hall and into the main space of the museum.  No lack of inspiration here.

Rob, Brett and John taking in the sights.

Over in the Kidventure wing Rob found this great R/C simulator and logged some R/C flying.

Apparently this was good practice for an improv attack on the blimp during the open flying sessions in the Eagle Hangar as caught on video here:

Exhibit D:
Last but not least was a viewing of the much publicized Little Wings Big Dreams exhibit that has been renewed for another year.  That means this will still be the first thing patrons see as they enter the museum.  Rumors of John doing autograph and photo sessions during the event went unverified.

 These are just a few of the moments that made this such a unique event in contrast to a typical indoor contest!

Glider Video

Here's the video mentioned in an earlier post of John's really nice flight in limited catapult, and my not so major effort to move out of the way.  It would be followed up with an even luckier flight Saturday.  Impressive flying for an F1D guy....