Soar Milwaukee Guys at Appleton Sailplane 2007
Monday, August 13th, 2007Our 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.)