Tucson Shootout 2008

Day one of the comp!

It started early with a pilots brief! We had the brief at 7.30am, it was all the usual PB stuff and was conducted by Michael Marcellin the CD.

I was flying 8th in the 1st round! I have to admit to being more nervous than usual for an Unlimited known! My first flight was ok and few under rotations of my snaps, but I was gettin used to the plane and the slight wind. I finished 11th in the first round with a normisled score of 860 or so! The standard in unlimited was very high and everyone flew well!

Round 2 I flew a better and placed 8th With a score of 940!! It was good to get the two first flights done without a zero!! Overall I’m in 10th out of 14!

Troy is doing well in advanced, he is lying 4th overall! Invitational is as always awesome to watch! They make these sequences look so easy!! I have a lot of respect for them all!

We are preparing our unknown so I’m out of here until to tomorrow!

Matt

The eve of the shootout is almost over! The big day has almost arrived! Last night at the BBQ round at Dave place, I got chatting to Frazer. I asked him was be going to the judges meeting? He said no “I’m going to the moon!” I Said I had planned on going to the breif, he said come to the moon with me!

So to cut a long story short we did! I flew a few knowns, some unknowns and a spot of freestyle! I have made the decision not to compete in the freestyle. The model is not setup at all for 3d, we can’t change the geometry without effecting the resolution and sequence rates etc.,

The unlimited is the main thing for me at this contest so I would be foolish to ruin that for the sake of a freestyle! The lesson learnt from this is you need two models, no matter what! Frazer agreed he said your flying your sequence bloody good, stuff the freestyle!

Overall this trip has been a blast so far and I haven’t even flown a competition flight yet! I’ve had help from so many world class pilots and learnt lots! I’ve also made friends with a few which has been cool!! Plenty of time to freestyle at next years comp?? Haha

Tomorrow will be cool!!

Matt

Four days to go till the Contest!! We are on wind down mode, just keeping the hands in so to speak, a few flights a day just to make sure the plane is good and I don’t totally lose the feel. Talking to Leseberg yesterday he said that with the amount I’ve been doing I should back off, he said peak on Friday/Saturday of the contest, don’t burn out!! Good advice!

We headed to Catalina RC club this morning which is no more than 5 mins from our hotel. We were greeted by maybe 20 or so very friendly members. The all made us feel very welcome and seemed interested in the aeroplane and our trip to Arizona.

I had three flights with the plane in a full in your face 20mph wind, it was good to fly in the wind but the strip was a one direction affair, so it made the landing interesting. As I said all the members at Catalina were great, a big thanks to the Vice President Bill Disney who stayed with us right to the end, he also got some good photos of the
Model in flight, which he emailed to me. I have posted these on the blog, thanks to Bill for them and his kind welcome.

We headed into DA as Dave wanted to have a chat. He asked would we R&D a new prop which came in from a well known manufacturer. It has been specially developed to match the 170 engine. I’m the only one testing it so it’s good to get to play with new stuff. Notice I said play, its toy planes afterall. Dave thinks this may turn out to be the magic 170 prop, let’s hope so!

Sascha’s (the German) plane finally turned up. I helped him setup his model as he had bought a new US JR9303 and wasn’t sure how to program it, we spent a couple of hours putting in Rx’s and got him going. He went flying that afternoon and was happy when we saw him later on in the evening.

We fitted the smoke pump and cracked the throws up tonight on our Extra, so hopefully we will freestyle tomorrow. It’s not ideal throws, only get about 30-deg on the elev, but we’ll give it a go!

Matt

(kees: Not everybody can see the nifty slideshows, so for now they are on the dedicated ’slideshow’ page on the right..)

Today we had our meeting at the new field close by our hotel, that was a formality, no issues with us flying there, so hopefully we can get some flying in closer to our base!

We headed to TRCC for a bit and got 5 good flights in, with a strong crosswind, which is all good training! Out at the field was Bill Hempel & myself for a good two hours, we just flew time after time! We had to pack up early and head off to DA to fit our smoke injectors! My big Carden is going to be my freestyle plane, so I got to fit our smoke pump so I can smoke the desert out!! As we left the TRCC field Gernot Bruckmann and his dad turned up to fly, he flew a few knowns, his Krill Yak55sp was going well!

When we got into DA about 3pm, Mark Leseberg was in the workshop preparing his planes for the contest! We started working at ours in a quiet corner, as not to distrub him, he called us over and cleared a space for us were he was working! So we got to work on the table beside him!

We casually started chatting, at first he was quiet not really saying much! But as we got chatting he started to loosen up a little. I asked him a few questions on setup’s, techniques for sequences etc., he gave me some good advice, he is a very knowledgable guy, the theory behind his methods is at another level! He was asking questions about why I thought things mightn’t be coming off for me perfectly, like spin entries etc (sounds easy, try it out here in this air? it’s weird!) he would tell me why what I thought was wrong or which bits were right, then go into the advanced theory behind it, I must have chatted to him one to one for an hour! He gave me so much to work on, what did he tell me? Well that’s between me and him, someday I might share it!! LOL

As we worked on he was taking the mickey out of me cause I stood back and watched my Dad do all the work!! I think he was jealous ’cause no one was helping him! LOL I think we’ve made a friend there, he seems like a real nice guy, just quiet and super relaxed!! At one point my dad was helping him too, very strange my dad stuck in the middle of someone elses plane!!

We stopped of in Hobbybarn on our way back to basecamp and meet Bill Hempel’s wife and kids, Bill is a nice guy and wants to come to NI for a comp!!

Matt

Btw the pics of my and Mark’s planes on the work bench at DA, their top 2 pilots getting their engines serviced!! (haha I wish!!) That said DA have treated was so well, nothing is too much hassle!

Thursday was a fairly uneventful day to be honest, 2.5 gallons gone again, some good practise in a crosswind and a quiet TRCC field.

Chris Brislin was practising his freestyle, it was outstanding to watch with and without music! His invitational knowns were pretty good too!!

Frazer was out with his new PBG Extra 260, it was going well and the 200cc DA was hauling it around great. Frazer’s knowns looked pretty bloody good (that’s what PBG stands for!)

From my point of view, some good flying done today. I’ve started to unload my snaps much better it’s tracking cleaner on my exits. Looks and feels better. The 170 has transformed my model. I’m really keen to see how it goes again back at sea level.

An earlier night ahead, we have sorted out a new field much closer than TRCC, in fact about 5min from our hotel. I have a flying test/meeting at 7am with the club’s safety officer. Hope I don’t scare him! LOL

We are heading to TRCC in the afternoon though, Mr Leseberg, Jesky & Geilizes are in town tomorrow and are flying at TRCC so I’m looking forward to seeing them prepare!

Matt

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Our fourth day of preparation started with an early start and a trip to TIMPA the home of the shootout!

We got there at about 8am and as we unloaded the plane it was windy! John Wondra was already flying and watching his sequence we realised it was a real shootout wind, somewhere around 20knots (or so I was told, means nothing to me!! Can I stand up? Then I will fly!!)

We hooked the plane up, fueled it up with the lawnboy mix mineral oil/petrol and went flying! It wasn’t to bad actually, a very stiff wind but it wasn’t gusting! I had one flight, landed and checked the plane over! The telfon coupler on the lead cyclinder’s header had come loose! As we didn’t have a spare we packed up & headed back to DA to change it out! Once at DA we chatted with Tony and Jeff about this and between the four of us, decided to stick a self tapping screw through the header/coupler/clamp! DA don’t think it’s necessary on 150 motors, although my Dad has done it on all my models and we have never had one come off! They came to the conclusion the 170 is too powerful for the standard setup!! (nice to hear the DA engineers say your engine is too powerful!). So with the help of Mr Russo we did a quick pit stop, ran the motor at idle for 10mins to heat the exhausts/couplers up, but without the back pressure of full throttle running. This means the coupler expands then it’s contracts around the clamp and header and in theory shouldn’t move, it won’t now as it’s screwed on! Job was a good one and we were ready to go fly! We decided TRCC was closer and handier so we headed there.

Meanwhile the Kiwi pairing of Frazer & Mike Briggs had hit town, shorts and jandels in toe! Already Frazer had everyone on DA in switches and was giving orders and abuse like he owned the place! Frazer is probably the nicest person you’ll meet in RC, he always has a joke to tell and is very quick witted so you have to be careful what u say!! That said he can’t understand my accent, I was talking to him about his plane for a minute or two, at the end of the conversation he said, “I haven’t a bloody clue what you said paddy but it sounded good!” he’s one of the good guys and restores your faith in the hobby!

The shootout raffle plane also turned up whilst we were there, it’s a comp-arf Yak55sp 3m, it will be completely ready to go with a 170 up front, not bad for a $5 ticket! The paint scheme is as the yanks say “badass” it looks great and I wrecken that it would look even better in our garage! LOL!

We headed on out to TRCC and were meet by Troy, Steve and a few other local Shootout pilots! We managed to burn 2gallons of gas without a hitch! My schedule is improving and I’ve got used to the silly Tucson air! The plane is ripping the heck out of the 30×12 prop, not an issue out here but the Noise Police back home might wince! We’ll worry about that on a months time, probably go to QQ’s prop of choice an air model 32×11! The techniques used in snaps are a lot different in this climate, you have to unload a lot throughout the snap to hit your stop correctly! The 6 of 8 followed by 1 1/4 pos snap needs work, I’m pitching a little too much, need to unload the elevator and rudder a few fraction earlier, I know what I’m doing wrong but it’s hard to adjust sometimes! Especially when your fingers slip of the sticks cause of the stupid suncream and sweat doesn’t help either!!

Tomorrow leaves us exactly one week, so let’s hope for good weather……!!!

Matt

Monday morning and we decided to head to DA early to get our engine tached by the DA engineers! Before going to DA we called into HobbyBarn which is world famous pilot Bill Hempel father’s shop. It is a great store and we got lost in it for a good hour and gave the credit card a bit of a hammering! The staff were very friendly and we meet Bill’s mum and the president of the field were the Shootout is held, Mike Cummins, it’s always good to meet these people, makes it handy if/when you might need a favour!

We headed into DA after all that. My dad wanted to check the plane over in the comfort of a workshop rather than at the field, after all it’s a new engine and the most things on the plane got re-bolted on after shipping, so somethings may have worked loose! As it turns out everything was fine! When we had the cowl off, Brian Gilmore, DA’s chief engine builder and field engineer, decided to tach our engine! We ran it up and got 5950rpm on a 30×12 prop with MTW 110 Cans, the exact setup I have used on my 150 all season! Watching over this run up was Dave Johnson and Tony Russo, so we had the 3 best engine experts in the world working on our engine/setup! Dave and Tony both agreed that the MTW cans had been designed around the popular DA150 motor, as of yet MTW haven’t released an exhaust to suit the more powerful DA170. The engineers at KS exhaust have just released a new 95 serious exhaust with new baffles specially for the DA170. We all chatted and agreed that the MTW setup was ok and pulled my lightweight model through the schedule well, but they wreckened the KS system would give me more power and a better midrange as they were 170 exhausts not 150’s, well at least on their test bench. So within an hour, Brian and my dad had the MTWs out and a new set of KS cans installed! Luckily they fitted straight in with any mods to the airframe!

We did a test run again and with the tacho we got readings of, wait for it 6140 rpm, almost 200rpm more than my previous setup, 200rpm you might think isn’t much, but believe me on a 40% model it’s a lot!! DA think this its the best setup available for a 170 motor, I’m the only person running it at the shootout, Dave also noted that I will have a lot of questions about it once people start to catch on! It is better than pipes, the tuned pipes that are being used are designed again for 150cc motors and people are having tuning issues with them, my throttle responce is very linear, without any curve required, I’ve never had that before on my 2cylinder petrols! Increased performance coupled with a 35lbs model means, I’ve got the best chance to overcome the altitude and heat problems that kill your performance! The Extra has lost weight from back home, the engine is 6oz lighter than a 150 and the exhausts are overall just under 3oz lighter!

There aren’t many people get the opportunity to have Dave, Tony and Brian for a whole day working at their engine, so I’m very happy and grateful! If we had to pack up and go home today, the trip would have been worthwhile just for the learning experience we had today! There were so many techniques and technical issues we picked up and can now tweak our other DA’s back home to get the ultimate setup! A big thanks to DA for their time and help!

Whilst we were working at our model, Troy and Steve the Aussies finally tracked their plane down and collected that! They spent the day building the plane and at about 5pm we both headed to TRCC to get a bit of flying in before dark! Tony came with he as he wanted to see how our new 170 setup performed in the air. We fired her up, did a range check (we had everything unbolted so thought it was best to be sure, all checked out fine). Into the air we went, it was fairly windy but I could tell I had even more power, the figure N with a pos snap on the upline, it just sailed through it, unloading on the way up, brutal power! But if you’ve got it you’ll use it!! I did one unlimited known and landed to check things over, all was well. Troy put a few flights on his DA150 powered Comparf Super Xtra, it was going nicely as well. Also at TRCC was Bill Hempel, John Wondra and a few other guys I didn’t know! It was pitch black by 6.30 and we were the last to leave!

So all in all a brilliant day, we learnt so much and had great fun with the Aussies and all the people at DA! Tomorrow our plan is to hit TIMPA the shootout field and we believe the Kiwi’s are in town, so not doubt Frazer Briggs will keep us all on our toes.

Matt

Hi just on my way back to the hotel from the flying field. We went to TRCC again and it was quiet. Most of the club members go early in the morning before it gets too hot. The good thing for us is that it’s empty by 11am, the bad thing is it’s 40 deg!!

We had the field to ourselves apart from John Wondra a fellow unlimited pilot! What a nice guy he is and gave me some good tips! He was flying a Carden Yak54 and very well too!!

I managed to burn 2 gallons of fuel and the schedule is getting there. A few tweeks on the rates and my knife edge mix has the plane flying better, it’s funny how the air effects even mixes?? The 170 is definately stronger than my 150 was back home, through the power zapping loop and humpty it keeps pulling! It will get better with more running in too!

Two Austrailan IMACers came out to the field, Troy (who’s competing in Advanced) and Steve his caller. Their plane is somewhere in Tucson but they don’t know where, so hopefully that will clear customs soon!

Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures was too busy flying! The one pic is off the plane in our hotel room! The reason for this is that it’s easier to charge in the room, if you think charging lipos is risky in a car back home, you want to try it out here, inside the car today must have been well over 50 deg when it was parked up at the field, so there is no chance I’m charging a lipo in it! So the plane sleeps in the room (so many jokes, but not enough time!!) I’m sure the maids appreciate the smell of petrol!

Right we are off to have dinner with the Aussies, I wonder will it be BBQ’d??

Matt