The HRSF/BRASS clubs opened the ESL's 2011 Unlimited competition season on May 14th and 15th in scenic Ladd, VA. Josh Glaab was the CD and Tom Broeski was the Co-CD. Both clubs combined to host a great event to bring in the 2011 ESL soaring season. Several new ideas regarding R/C Soaring competition were evaluated during the competition, such as flying Sportsflyers with the Experts in a hybrid random Man-On-Man early with Seeded Man-On-Man later format, the Constant Delta normalized landing task, and the newly-machined narrow-diameter winch drums. Overall, 13 rounds were flown with 20 competitors each day. Several more competitors were expected, but the very poor forecast kept them away. An outstanding raffle was held too with donations from several club members as well as Horizon Hobbies, Tower Hobbies, Micro Fasteners, and AirTronics.
In keeping with tradition, the HRSF/BRASS ESL contest was success due to outstanding efforts by all who were there. Steve Lucke transported most of the contest gear to the site and worked tirelessly to set up the winches and power system. Luis and Joanne Bustamante brought down the most outstanding ESL PA system as well as setup and ran the scoring tent along with Teresa Zyga. One thing that is really needed at small competitions are timers. Having volunteer timers enabled us to keep flying. Eric Grovesum and Gary King, new HRSF members, worked the entire weekend timing and driving the golf cart which really helped out. Angela Johns also volunteered to time flights which helped keep the contest moving. Tom Broeski and the BRASS group had the site in excellent condition. Chuck Pinell setup his large tent we used for scoring and storing the gear out of the rain when needed.
Frankie Coyner field in Ladd VA was the site for the competition. This field is a very nice location for an R/C Soaring event with the Appalachian mountains providing a picturesque panorama. The field is meticulously maintained by Franky along with help from the BRASS club members. This year the BRASS club was able to claim some more area from the farm part of the property and can now setup a contest to launch in about any direction.
For the last several seasons, the ESL has been evolving the method by which it's competitions are held. In 2009 the league adopted Man-On-Man soaring format over the Open-Winch method used for many years. In 2010 seeded Man-On-Man (S-MOM) became the most popular format with just about all contests being run in that manner. The changes for this year are perhaps more subtle than S-MOM and are intended to continue to build the excitement and fairness of the event.
One change implemented at the HRSF/BRASS contest was the Constant Delta (C-Delta) landing task. Basically, C-Delta landing task is a normalized landing with the pilots' landing score based on measured landing and his actual flight time. It is probably best to consider the landing score to a percentage of the flight time which is then combined with the flight time for the normalization process. The maximum landing score is adjusted based on flight time to ensure that the difference between a perfect landing and zero landing is constant and eliminates situations where landings could contribute 200 to 300 or more round points. For this contest the C-Delta landing was set to 100 round points. Pilots can out soar the competition and maximize their round score without scoring any landing points as a result of the normalized landing. Another benefit of normalized landings is that significant changes in landing conditions, such as wind-shifts, ground thermals, good-lift, can be accommodated in a similar way that flight times are.
The C-Delta landing task came into play on Round 5, Group E (the leader group) on Saturday that was flown in poor thermal conditions as all had to struggle. Neal Huffman had the highest flight time (8:48) and opted to try to get more flight points and risk the landing. He missed the landing and did not win the group as I had a 8:19 and a 64 pt measured landing, but Neal came away with a 987 only losing (or not earning) 13 round points. Note for a 8:48 flight time, the max landing score is a 55.44. Had this been a non-normalized landing task, Neal would have ended up with a 1,000 and I would have had a 1,009. Both of our scores would be nowhere near a max round score of 1100 which could have been earned with non-normalized 100pt landings by someone in another flight group that had good lift. As it turned out, Neal won the day edging me out by 45 points in the end. Oddly enough, while all of this was transpiring in Round 5, Lysek had us both beat. However, Lysek was trying to maximize his flight time and bury Neal and myself but miscalculated his position and got caught behind the trees near the spots. He landed out with a zero, but he would be back.
Another feature for the contest was the use of Random MOM (R-MOM) rounds in the morning, followed by Seeded MOM rounds later in the day. This was done in response to comments from several pilots that they do not like flying against the same pilots all the time as is frequently the case with S-MOM. We flew two rounds of R-MOM to start each day which provided a mix of pilots in each group from each class. It seemed like everyone enjoyed the variety afforded by this approach.
We also experimented with flying the Sportsflyers with the Experts for the entire contest. The reason this was implemented was to enable those who are looking for LSF points a chance to easily compute their LSF scores. This would also greatly improve the ESL advancement points system. In addition, the higher-level LSF levels require at least 20 competitors for the contest tasks. Flying the Sportsflyers separately from the Experts makes it hard, but not impossible, to combine the scores in a normalized event. While the expected result did usually occur and the Sportsflyers were flying against each other in the later rounds, periodically Sportsflyers would be flying in one of the higher groups and having to work hard to maintain a lead over the other Sportsflyers. That is kind of a nice challenge. Another unexpected result was that sometimes top-Experts would get a zero flight and be relegated to the lowest group. This would create a very unbalanced group and may suggest that flying S-MOM with all groups in one class may not be a great idea.
Throughout the weekend, many impressive battles were taking place in Group E. The last two rounds Sunday were probably the most dramatic. As we went through the day, we could see clouds and rain to the SE and sun to the NW. Just after lunch Round 5 was started with some very light rain with heavy clouds overhead. By the time we got to Group E conditions were pretty sketchy. Most of that group went to an area of lift for the previous group. I went the other way and headed for the distant sunny area. I was able to put several minutes of air-time on Group E, no small task as the top pilots were in that group. While that put me in the lead for the final round, the house-cleaning performed in Round 5 would let Lysek back into the top group. As CD, and with some consultation, I rolled the dice for Round 6 and hoped that the rain would stay to the SE, it didn’t and by the time we got to Group E it was raining pretty well. We launched anyway in an attempt to complete the round. Lysek flew his Explorer very well and ended up putting 29 seconds on me (he got a 7:05). I knew I needed all the points I could get at the end and nailed a 98-point measured landing. However, Lysek had an 83-pt measured landing to overcome the lead I had going into the round and win the competition on Sunday. Note again with the C-delta landing method my landing score was a 43.1, Lysek’s was a 39.2. Lysek needed only to have a measured-landing a little better than a 50 to win the day given the additional air-time he had.
In Sportsflyer, Chuck Pinell was consistent and consistently good all weekend winning both days. Chuck flew his Shadow very well. Other particularly good performances in Sportsflyer class was Ward Warren, new BRASS member, who flew the heck out of his Sprite and earned a lot of competition points. I think we will see a lot of good flying from Ward in the future. Rob Johns, HRSF, flew my old Ava very well and seems to be very much interested in competition soaring. I think we will see a lot from Rob as well as Gary King in future ESL events.
After the flying was done on Sunday, and we dried out a little, we had a raffle. We had a lot of great stuff to give away, including a Senior Telemaster, Horizon Hobby Radian BNF, a foamie A380 and a collection of gift certificates, micro-fasteners, and hats. The big-winner was Duane Beck who walked away with the Telemaster. Bob Buxton was the lucky winner of the Radian, and Reto won the A380 (there was some concern that Reto’s car may not be large enough to transport the A380 home ;-)).
Overall, we had a very good weekend of soaring and tried out some new ideas. I think the C-Delta landing worked well and should be used for more competitions. The hybrid R-MOM/S-MOM also worked well and provided some desirable benefits. Flying Experts and Sportsflyers together has some benefits but some undesirable aspects. More discussion is needed there. I want to thank everyone for attending and helping to run yet another great event. I am looking forward to seeing you all on the competition circuit this year as well as the 2012 HRSF/BRASS event!
Saturday’s Scores:
Place Name Class Total
1 Huffman, Neal Expert 6,937.36
2 Glaab, Josh Expert 6,892.36
3 Schlitzkus, Peter Expert 6,704.11
4 Bustamante, Luis Expert 6,663.08
5 Lucke, Steve Expert 6,652.93
6 Cochrell, Kerry Expert 6,362.52
7 Richmond, Don Expert 6,287.93
8 Beach, David Expert 6,134.41
9 Buxton, Robert Expert 6,128.77
10 Broeski, Tom Expert 6,054.05
11 Beck, Duane Expert 6,005.79
12 Strickland, Lenny Expert 5,953.94
13 Zyga, Leszek Expert 5,940.38
14 Guide, Tony Expert 5,685.39
1 Pinnell, Chuck Sportsflyer 5,684.35
2 Procino, Anthony Sportsflyer 5,336.79
3 Johns, Robert Sportsflyer 5,332.35
4 Jenkins, Will Sportsflyer 5,140.56
5 Warren, Ward Sportsflyer 2,514.50
6 Hartzler, Phil Sportsflyer 522.52
Sundays Scores
Place Name Class Total
1 Zyga,Leszek Expert 5,923.22
2 Glaab,Josh Expert 5,906.14
3 Bustamante,Luis Expert 5,682.87
4 Strickland,Lenny Expert 5,655.04
5 Huffman,Neal Expert 5,648.88
6 Beach,David Expert 5,558.63
7 Cochrell,Kerry Expert 5,444.31
8 Broeski,Tom Expert 5,171.00
9 Fiolka,Reto Expert 4,949.02
10 Guide,Tony Expert 4,863.97
11 Beck,Duane Expert 4,605.86
12 Jenkins,Will Expert 4,548.53
13 Lucke,Steve Expert 4,516.50
14 Richmond,Don Expert 4,497.71
1 Pinnell,Chuck Sportsflyer 4,288.74
2 Procino,Anthony Sportsflyer 3,934.25
3 Schlitzkus,Peter Sportsflyer 3,906.89
4 Johns,Robert Sportsflyer 3,794.60
5 White,Regis Sportsflyer 3,339.45
6 Buxton,Robert Sportsflyer 2,980.12
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Wonderful view from Frankie Coyner/BRASS Field
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Some tree-top soaring, lots of battles won/lost in this area of the field!
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Dave Beach gets ready to launch his Supra Pro (JR DSMX)
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Duane Beck, the luck winner of the Telemaster!!!
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Neal Huffman, 1st Place Expert, Sat
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Lesek Zyga, 1st Place Expert, Sun
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Chuck Pinell, 1st Place Sportsflyer both days.....Move him up, Move him up! |
2011 HRSF/BRASS/ESL Unlimited Season Opener
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Posted - 06/13/2011 : 8:08:38 PM
