BTV at the 2012 NATS Report

[Lee Hines]

Hope all the “BTV at the NATS” flyers enjoyed the 2012 event.

The weather on Tuesday evening, August 7, was very good, in fact virtually perfect
for our Mass-Launch Fun Fly, and we got the first round heats started about 6PM.
The twelve stalwarts who signed up were raring to go!
The entrants were: Chuck Powell, Mike Fedor, Evan Simon, Fran & Paul Masterman,
Ken Bauer, Chuck Markos, Dan Berry, Rick Pangell, Dave Edmonson,
Dohrman Crawford and myself.

Round one was set to have 4 heats of 3 flyers.
The flights went in all directions, with Dan The Luddite experiencing separation of
wing from body at launch velocity! One down in each heat, so eight were still standing…
For round two, the Quarter-finals, 2 heats of 4 were chosen with the top two per heat
going on to the Semi-finals round.

At this point it looked like Ken Bauer was really on form with his Vac-formed LDA wing
job. He really seemed a good pick to win it all in the Semi-final Mass Launch when he
hit some lift and went into the soybeans to the south.
The Ole’ Leeper[me] had the second best flight, so after Ken retrieved his little
rocketship, the two of us squared off for one Final Shot at with the whole Ball of Wax,
namely, The coveted BTV Perpetual Trophy!

The crowd was cheering and rooting us on[or they were just hungry & wanted to go!].
The two combatants loaded their guns, er catapults, and Dan’l did the countdown…
up went the two CLGs together, high in the sky!
Ol’ Red Mo 12 seems to rise to such occasions, as it rolled out into some lift, while Ken’s
was a bit to the west & did not.

So once again, Red Mo gets to rest in it’s cashmere-lined mansion[er, nest] to restore
its magical essences and await the next Challenger!

Next year, if my plans work out I will be abroad to fly in 2013 World Champs, so Dan
Berry will be honchoing BTV at the NATS.

Thanks to all the folks for flying with us!

Ciao from The Ol’ Leeper,
BTV Funmeister.

[Anonymous]

Edmonson’s “Swept V” design as it appeared in the Minneapolis Modeler issue, 2011, July- Sept, bested the competition to take home the BTV perpetual trophy at the 2015 NATS. It was still up after all others were down for 5 seconds prior.
It has very few parts, and costs about a $$$ Buck to make along with a couple of hours of cutting and sanding.

[Author]

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