Pattern Matters

by

Chuck Hartmann

A Pattern contest was held at our Crowley field the weekend of June 16 & 17. This was the 2^nd Annual Jevan Fitzsimmons Memorial contest. (Jevan was a member of our club a few years back and subsequently moved to Northern California where he died.) 19 pilots participated: 4 in the Sportsman class, 1 Intermediate, 5 Advanced, and 9 Masters (no FAI). Lynn Burks was the Contest Director; contestants did the judging. As usual, we flew from 2 flight lines.

Saturday and Sunday were breezy with temperatures in the low 90’s. Saturday, flying started around 10:30, once the sun had risen high enough that it wasn’t going to be within the aerobatic box. The wind was from the south for most of the day but for a while it switched to the north then switched back. This year the rules changed, allowing the pilot to announce the landing direction; that change came in handy in this contest. We got in 4 rounds of flying by around 6:00.

Sunday’s weather conditions were about the same. Flying again started around 10:30. 2 rounds were flown by around 2:30. No major mishaps occurred, for which we’re thankful.

Of the 6 total rounds flown, the top 4 scores were counted towards the final standings. Listed below are the first-place trophy winners and Riverside club members who won trophies, those being indicated by an asterisk.

Sportsman: 1. Mike Greear  2. Vic Anderson*

Intermediate: 1. Noah Yaney*

Advanced: 1. Bruce Brown  3. Jim Bronowski*

Masters: 1. Chris Atwood

Thanks to the Riverside R/C club members who gave up their weekend flying so we could hold this contest. Thanks to Lynn Burks for being the Contest Director and doing all the work associated with that job (especially since he already CD’d the April contest and volunteered to do this one when no one else could be found); to Larry Roberts and the Szueber family for doing the computer scoring, and helping with the running of the contest, as usual; and to Dale Yaney for taking the pictures of the pilots for the trophies and his usual help; and to Bill Wallace for picking up the sandwiches for lunch. Apologies to any club members who helped but were omitted.

The next Southern California Pattern contest will be held in Hemet the weekend of August 25 & 26.

For all the contest scores, see the Web site of the National Society of Radio Controlled Aerobatics (NSRCA) at http://www.nsrca.org/d7/