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Greetings, fellow gliderphiles!
This is to announce that the 4th Annual ‘Beat The Vart’ event will be flown on Tuesday evening at the NATS. Weather permitting. If the weather will not co-operate, I will consult and confer and find an acceptable compromise for another time.
Yep, you read that correct…. I, as in me, Dan- the beer slayer- Berry has been annointed as the contest director for BTV ’09.
Rules are the same as in the past:
12 inch maximum projected span.
10 gram minimum weight.
AMA CLG legal catapult.
Event will be flown in elimination rounds to be determined at the spur of the moment relative to the number of entries.
Contestants will need to have a stopwatch with them.
There is no Builder of Model rule. Bring a spare glider and we can probably find a flyer for it.We will fly after trophy time on Tuesday.
There will be one slight deviation from past BTV events—this year, it will be possible to bribe the Event Director with a tasty beer. 😆
Looking forward to another fine time flying little gliders.
Dan BerryDan “Beery” (you’ve heard that 100 times, right?!),
I’m confused – do we build a Vartanian for this contest, or is it just any 12″ or less CLG?
—CG
p.s. Mmmmm….Beer!!! 😉Vartanian is legal as it has a slightly less than 12″ span.
Cobble up a plane. If you wanta win, 80 secs in dead air is a good target.
Ok, here goes my attempt at journalism.This year, the fourth iteration of ‘Beat the Vart’ was a lot of fun, but frustrating.
Several stalwart regulars were not in attendance, notably Stan Buddenbohm,Dennis Phelan,Dick Peterson, Lee hines and others whose names have escaped my feeble mind. Stan was at some dinner, can’t remember what it was about, but it must have been important or he wouldn’t have missed a glider comp. I cannot recall where Hines was, but it was probably something big and important also. Dennis Phelan’s absence was particularly vexing for me, as he was gonna bring me a Hooker from his home state of Connecticut. I was REALLY looking forward to enjoying a Hooker while we were flying. Alas,’twas not be.Tim Batiuk and I discussed whether to try for another day or time from the scheduled Tuesday evening. We decided it wasn’t gonna get any better and I think that was the case. Muncie weather for the FF Nats was weird. Didn’t get real hot. Didn’t see much sunlight,just a lot of clouds. It was never REAL windy but the air was tricky. Tuesday evening for BTV was breezy but not as windy as the inaugaral BTV 4 years ago. The problem was turbulence. It just made for a lot of embarrassing flights. One flight, repeat, ONE flight exceeded 60 seconds.
Here is a list of contestants:
Dave Edmonson
Kurt Krempetz
Mike Fedor
Bill Reuter
Jan Langelius
Graham Webster
Jim Lewis
Ian Wicks (a junior!)
Paul Wicks
Dan Berry
Andy Bandy
Alex PivittWe started with 3 groups of 4, eliminating the first one down. I was in the first flight and feeling real generous, I went ahead and dropped first. About 10 secs, dumped by the turbulence. A portent of things to come, but hey, it left me some time for a beer!
So. after the first round, Dan,Ian and Graham were spectators.Round 2, we again dropped the first one down. There was some concern when we realized that Paul had his wife timing for him. I guess there was some worry that there was room for shenanigins. Since Ian was there, our guess is that they decided to set a good axample for him.
Rund 2 eliminated Alex,Jan and Jim.
The weather didn’t get any better. Best flight in rd 2 was 46 secs.Tim and I decided to finish it up with one 6-plane fight. Last one down wins.
There were no objections. Of course, there ain’t no rules, so who could object.Final Round with times
Kurt Krempetz 65
Dave Edmonson 40
Andy Bandy 35
Mike Fedor 23
Bill Reuter 21
Paul Wicks 7.4We had our usual gaggle of fun.
Heres a few notes. Fedor flew a Vart. I think he loaned a Vart to Graham. Reuter might have flown a Vart. Andy Bandy, with permission from his wife Sandy Bandy, flew the plane that I campaigned last year.
I think that Lee Hines’ exhuberance for the event was missed by all of us.
It would be a lot of fun to do this in calm air. I’m not betting that will happen at Muncie, though. It won’t keep me from flying it, either.When it was over, I found a red stick-looking thing near my box of gear. Someone, on a retrieve, had found it and dropped it at my feet.
I shoed this thing to several guys. It had a firewall and a timer-mount plate. It was determined that we had a fuselage for a VECO Apache.
This was confirmed when I showed it to Jan’s Dad. He told me that it had been lost earlier in the day and that Bill Vanderbeek and Abram Vandover heartsick at its loss. I brought it to Bill and he was very excited. It was an original that someone,maybe Abram was going to give to Ralph Ray at the Hall of Fame dinner. I don’t know who found it, but it was a big deal.Kurt was VERY excited about getting the BTV trophy.
I hated to miss this one, I had a great beer ready to slip into Dan’s hand. I’ll have a few fresh ones next year so Dan doesn’t forget my name.
I’ve been close, really close and I hope to have a better plane for next year!
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