Below are the results of the Skyscraper International Challenge, May 30-31, 2009, Americas Cup, Hartill Trophy, and National Cup competition. Dave Acton was CD and single-handedly ran the entry and scorekeepers table. The scores I provide are copied from his sheets. If you see any corrections let us know. We had 41 competitors flying FAI,AMA,NFFS events and 15 competitors in FAC events, separately run by Ed Pelatowski. We held 10 rounds in F1A,F1B,F1C,F1P. Saturday morning after the first round the wind shifted to be from the west, forcing flights from a turbulent area. Maxes Saturday were reduced to 150 after the second round. Sunday morning for the four minute max round at 7am, many did not take advantage of early calm at the start of the round and met challenging conditions when the wind picked up. Noteworthy performances in F1B were by Aram Schlosberg and Tom Vacarro with nearly perfect scores and young Brede Dofrner who had perfect scores on all five flights Saturday afternoon. Noteworthy in F1A were junior competitor Timothy B., who finished ahead of Bob Sifleet and Tzvetan Tvetkov, and Michelle B. who had the lead at the end of the first day. In F1C we were very pleased to have had a superlative effort by Andrei Kirilenko with a near max-out. F1P featured a tight race between junior Brian Pacelli and Skyscraper-of-the-year Dave Rounsaville; with Brian putting in the two days of flying to get the win. Rich Ivers and his father Dick Ivers (Sr) took the lead in the electric events with long strings of maxes, with Dick finishing on top after seven maxes in electric B, and five near-maxes in F1Q. Sunday saw some calming in the early afternoon. John Clapp and Don A fly-away noon Sunday by Julie Barron in Classic Towline with her rainbow colored Brilliant (designed and kitted by Denis Phalen) kept some of the Barrons occupied with the chase. It failed to DT and rose into the clouds heading northeast. Peter, Julie and I chased its signal by van along Interstate 84 past Middletown, Walden, and Newburgh. In Newburgh it changed direction now heading east, now two hours into the flight. We twice saw it as it decended to below line height. We hoped for a landing but it rose again over the Newburgh golf course and headed out over the wide Hudson river near the Newburgh-Beacon Hamilton Fish Bridge. We lost the signal at two and a half hours as it headed past Fishkill over mountains to the east-southeast. Aerial search the next day over those parts of New York and on into Connecticut was unsuccessful in part due to some unexplained interference precisely at her frequency. If it managed to fly another three hours it might have made it to the Atlantic. The flight and search we will long remember. Our apologies to any we may have inconvenienced by our absence Sunday afternoon in looking after field matters. I hope to see many at next weeks Wilber and Orville competition (June 13-14) at our field. My next email will distribute word of its schedule. We certainly do not want to shortchange recognition of the winners and other very good flying in last weeks competiton. Here are the results of the Skyscraper Challenge. F1B F1A F1C F1P F1G F1Q F1J F1H Catapult Glider Sunday [National Cup] (best three of six flights) Catapult Glider Saturday Hand Launch Glider (best three of six flights) Electric B P-30 Pee-Wee 30 Payload 1/2 A Classic AB Classic Classic Towline Dawn Unlimited |