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Dave K and I had planned to take a trip to South Dakota this weekend and so he had a couple of days off from work. It is hunting season in SD and rooms are few and far between. Our favorite motel in Chamberlain was all booked so we decided to stay local. With the opening of our new site at the Omega Hills landfill it was a safe bet that we would get some flying in if there was wind.

Thursday Dave and I met at Omega Hills and found a due east wind at 8-10 mph. We flew the face that faces Northeast and while it was not spectacular it was very flyable. Dave flew his Spyder and I few my Pixel. After about 45 minutes the lure of the east wind prompted us to head to Concordia.

Dave’s Lumberjack – North Bowl at Concordia

At Concordia we found that even though the coast of Lake Michigan is only about 15 miles from the landfill site the wind was more northeast. We did fly some at Concordia. Dave had his Lumberjack out and I flew my LEG P-51. The wind was off the hill by about 35 degrees but the lift was OK. Much smoother than the inland site. I always knew that coastal sites are smoother but it really drives it home when you fly both on the same day. We did a bit of Weasel flying too but with the northeast wind direction we knew there were better slopes down the coast a bit.

Guys, Michael from AstroWings sent in this report from a flying session at the new Omega Hills slope soaring site in Germantown, WI.

Astrowings members flying: Dave Kraemer, Mirko Bodul, Greg Smith,
Michael Davidson

View From the Top of Omega Hills; About 190 Feet Up.

Strong and gusty winds greeted Dave and I around noon at the new Omega Hills slope site on Saturday. Winds were out of the northwest around 15-20 mph. Not sure of the temperature, but it is definitely time to start gearing up for our year ’round slope season with plenty of layers and warm gloves.

Dave flew a number of planes; a foam wing called a Lumberjack, his composite 60″ Spyder, and the always impressive Opus. I had my recently recovered Pixel up. My Pixel has had several different designs, but I think it’s a sign of our often overcast Midwestern skies that it has gotten brighter and brighter! Fluorescent yellow, silver, and black helped it stand out in the overcast gray skies. Later, Dave’s PSS P-51B was out and looking awesome making low runs through the valley. Read the rest of this entry »

Howdy slope pilots! The long wait is over. Things turned out a bit differently than we’d originally planned but our friends at AstroWings of Wisconsin helped us finally gain access to one of our local “Holy Grail” slope spots. Thanks to AstroWings, and especially Roger Zahn, as well as the folks at Waste Management for this opportunity.

On Saturday, October 6th Mirko, Greg and Tracy made a preliminary venture to the Omega Hills Waste Management site in Germantown, Wisconsin for some test flying of what promises to be a great venue for slope soaring action in Southeast Wisconsin. On this particular day the wind was about as poor a direction (SW) as we could have and we still had many flights of 10-15 minutes. I had on at least 20 minutes. Remember this was in the least favorable wind direction!

For those of you who have been looking forward to flying at Omega hills please mark your calendars for Sunday, October 21st at Noon. We will meet at the Omega Hills gate on County Line Rd. and be given an orientation by the site manager outlining the few rules that we need to be aware of. After that we will be free to fly!

If you will be attending the orientation please RSVP greg@slopeflyer.com. I need to get a head count for the site manager.

Also, please remember, to fly at this site you will need to be an AMA member and an AstroWings of Wisconsin member too. I will have membership applications for AstroWings at the site.

FYI, this has been over 5 years in the making and we are really looking forward to making this relationship work. Your help as responsible pilots and people will be greatly appreciated!

Report by Tracy Brown.

Dave and I arrived at the VAM site at 9am well in advance of the pilot’s meeting at 9:30. The first thing I noticed was that the site had a permanent steel open sided structure built on a concrete pad with brand new picnic tables. Excellent, Dave and I didn’t have to unpack the portable shade tent and chairs we had brought with us. The field was quite large and was set up as a power field. The north, west, and south ends of the field were lined by trees. Sloping the tree-line could be an option if all else failed.

The wind was generally out of the south-southwest for most of the day and was very light for most of the day. Thermals were abundant, but I still had trouble catching any of them for most of the day. I’m pretty sure that the reason I placed as well as I did was not my flying ability as much as it was the height of my launches. Rob Scidmore went from 2nd last at the Madison contest to a first place finish with a perfect score. Rob had modified his Logic DLG by replacing his javelin-style tail group with some DLG-style tail feathers and was launching it within 20 feet of my plane, a marked improvement over his launches at the Madison contest. Every time I looked up at his plane, it was higher than mine! He very much deserved his first place finish.

Dave Kraemer had an excellent run also. I was very impressed with the height of his launches as well.

One thing became very apparent to me by the end of the day: I desperately needed to re-trim my planes. I spent most of the Monday after the contest (Labor Day) re-trimming both of my ships. I think I’m much better able to get into and stay within lift now. We’ll see if I’m right at the next contest.

Top Three:

1. Rob Scidmore – Madison (Perfect Score!)
2. Tracy Brown – West Allis
3. Scott Zastoupil – Waupaca

Our friends at Valley Aero Modelers in Appleton, Wisconsin held what turned out to be their 26th annual Appleton Sailplane event on Sunday, August 12, 2007 at Anderson Sod Farm near Appleton, WI.

Greg Smith and Dave Kraemer made the trip from Milwaukee with Steve Meyer making the trip from Racine. I believe the other pilots were from the general Appleton area.

For those flying the series this was a Wisconsin Championship Event with those folks earning points for that competition.

Things went smoothly for the 13 pilots who flew the event. From the pilots meeting at 9:30 to the final flight at about 2:30 it was a pleasure to compete.

The flight tasks we geared towards getting pilots to compete without placing too much demand on them but were still challenging enough for experienced pilots. Tasks were 3, 5, 6, 8 and 10 minute rounds to be flown in any order (no penalty up to 30 sec. over max time; thereafter 1 point/second penalty.)

The landing task was also fairly generous; land within a 50 Ft. Diameter Circle for 25 Points.

The 10-minute round would have been the tie breaker if needed but as it turned out it wasn’t. Both Unlimited winner, Bob Johnson, and RES winner, Steve Meyer, (fresh off a 3rd place in RES at the NATS!) flew perfect scores and in each class 2nd place was only one missed landing away from perfect. Greg Smith had a battery failure in round one of RES and, thanks to a well placed tree, made his 5-minute round fine but missed the landing circle and Lee Murray missed one in Unlimited.

Dave posted a few pix to the Soar Milwaukee Flickr Pool at:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/soarmilwaukee/

In the end here is how it turned out:

Unlimited
1. Bob Johnson – Topaz XXL
2. Lee Murray – Psycho
3. Steve Meyer – Pike Perfect/Supra

RES
1. Steve Meyer – Topaz
2. Greg Smith – Ava
3. Dave Kraemer – Oly II (proving a 25-plus year old airplane can still do fine.)

Our friends in Appleton, Wisconsin are holding their 25th annual Appleton Sailplane event on Sunday, August 12, 2007.

This is a Wisconsin Championship Event.

UNLIMITED AND RES CLASSES

WHERE: Anderson Sod Farm, Appleton, WI  (7 miles west of US 41 on Highway BB)
WHEN: Sunday, August 12, 2007       Pilots meeting at 9:30;   First Round by 10 AM
FLIGHT TASK: 3, 5, 6, 8 and 10 minute rounds to be flown in any order(no penalty up to 30 sec. over max time;  thereafter 1 point/second penalty.)
LANDING TASK: Land within a 50 Ft. Diameter Circle for 25 Points
Registration Cost: Free Entry  (Donations for postage accepted)
AMA Membership Required
Contest Director: Lee Murray
E-mail: lmurray002@new.rr.com

Cold Soda will be on sale and provided free to volunteers helping with the contest.

A trio of hand launch pilots from Milwaukee went to the 1.5 m Summer Fling near Madison, Wisconsin Sunday July 15, 2007

Hosted by the MARCS club the 2007 1.5 m HAND LAUNCH CONTEST was held at Paul’s Turf and Tree Nursery near Marshall, WI.

Tracy Brown and Greg Smith, founding members of MSG, as well as slope convert Michael Davidson made the hour and a half drive to the contest site where they were greeted with nearly perfect weather, a beautiful contest field and 8 other competitors for a total of 11 pilots.

The contest was flown man-on-man by rounds and usually involved activity by all competitors during each round as those not flying were timing for the pilots. We flew 6 rounds with some interesting tasks.

At the end of the day Tracy, with 5 x 1000 point rounds, took top honors with Ben Yahr 2nd and Steve Meyer from Racine, WI taking 3rd.

A few on-lookers came to watch which is interesting considering the out in the boonies nature of the field.

I look forward to it next year.

Complete results (Perfect score 6000):

1    Tracy Brown        5640
2    Ben Yahr        4947
3    Steve Meyer        4902
4    Chris Shubak    4858
5    Scott Zastoupil    4831
6    Greg Smith        4816
7    Steve Yahr        4584
8    David Suttie        3815
9    Brian Andreas    3657
10    Rob Scidmore    3353
11    Michael Davidson    1166

The F3B worlds ended a week of competition this past weekend. Results at the highest level of RC sailplane flying were:

1. Martin Herrig – Germany
2. Andreas Herrig – Germany
3. Fidel Frick- Liechtenstein

Team USA had a great showing against the best in the world with the Team earning a 3rd place and individual placings as follows:

Mike Smith 8th
Tom Keisling 15th
Aaron Valdes 16th

Congrats to the Herrig brothers and Fidel Frick and a big Well done team USA!

The F3B World Championship runs from July 7 through July 14 and is being held in Emmen, Switzerland.
F3B is a multi-task thermal glider competition that focuses on three tasks.

Duration – flight time of exactly 10 minutes with landing as close as possible to a marking on the ground.

Distance – passing a flight zone of 150 meters as often as possible within a limited time.

Speed – passing a flight zone of 150 meters two times in both directions as quickly as possible. Speeds reach up to 150 km/h!

Local and National competitions lead up to the F3B Worlds and pit the world’s best model glider pilots who vie for gold, silver and bronze.

The high-tech sailplanes are among the most beautiful in our sport and many are as high-tech in their construction as an F1 car!

Keep up with the official Worlds site at:

http://www.f3b-wm.ch/index.php?show=49

Or view the Team USA site at:

http://www.usrainfo.org/teamusaf3b/5_6/html/index.html

There is even an RCGroups discussion at:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=708862

Several of our club members are avid slope flyers and often have the chance to talk to the general public about our sport. We field all sorts of questions but one we hear pretty frequently is “do those things have motors?” or some variation like “how come the motor is so quiet?”. I think that due to the speed, maneuverability and close in flying we do at the slope it may be hard to believe for some folks that, no, these things do not have motors. So, even though the question may seem obvious to those of us involved in slope flying I think it is a good one from the general public and provides us with the opportunity to explain how slope soaring works and how we are able to extract energy from something as simple as wind hitting a slope. The next time someone comes up to you at the slope and says “Do those things have motors?” use it as an opportunity to be an ambassador for our sport!

If you’ve asked the question “do those things have motors?” in the past and want to know more about radio controlled slope soaring take a look at the slope flying section of this website.