Results of the NAR Winter meet at ROCC

ROCC Winter Meet

We finally got the contest in during our March 16 & 17th flying weekend. I feel for anyone who could only make it out on Saturday, because the weather was blustery all day to say the least. That caused some problems for fliers in both the 1/2A Boost Glider Competition and the B-Cluster Altitude event. The glider issues should be pretty obvious – gliders (and kites, John) don’t fly too well when the wind is gusting like mad. The B-Clusters on the other hand were a little different. People who got all 5 motors to light actually did OK, but those of us (and there were many) who lit a motor or two less than 5 had the penalty of less thrust combined with the wind to make marginally stable rockets do loops.

Sunday was the better day overall and specifically for the contestants. The top 2 boost glider flights were on Sunday and the highest recorded B-Cluster flight was also then. I’m specific to say recorded flight, because John Tolppi did fly a great flight on Saturday with his entry, but the altimeter shut off prior to the flight, so an altitude wasn’t recorded. I believe anyone who saw the flights over the weekend would agree, though, that John’s altitude was in the top 2 from a performance perspective.

Without further adieu, here are the results.

B-Cluster Altitude:
Don Carson turned in a flight of 338 meters with his streamlined (BT-20?) design earning first place.

John Bergsmith got a height of 189m, which was better than his first flight of 167m for second place, using his UNPAINTED Sprint inspired BT-80 design.

Devon Tomkinson flew to 139m with his BT-80 to BT-60 model that included a transition and a set of 36DD fins.

Doc Russell was barely outside the top 3 with his 132m flight, while his second flight DQ’d with a deployment issue. Malcolm Smith and Scott Robinson each made one flight, but their rockets were on the edge of stability, which resulted in reduced altitudes of 91m and 52m respectively. Erica Owens didn’t get them all lit the first time for a sky writer, but did get a good altitude on her second attempt. Regretfully, she got some bad advice form her husband on friction fitting and ejected not 1 but all 5 motors for a DQ. As mentioned above, John had a great flight, but altimeter problems meant there was no official score. Jason Pettler and Sandy Houston both had flights that looped under boost due to ignition issues. Jason suffered damage on his first flight, preventing a second and Sandy flew twice, but never got them all to light and made loopy smoke trails because of it.

1/2A Boost Glider:
Sandy Houston flew his Estes Tercel for a 45 second flight early in the morning Sunday when the winds were perfect.

Don Carson shredded his scratch built first attempt on Sunday, but reinforced his second bird and managed to get 32 seconds before the wind took the glider out of site and over the trees. After searching for a while, it seemed the glider was lost, but Roy ‘the bloodhound’ Potter worked his typical magic and came back with the glider in perfect shape.

Speaking of Roy, he finished 3^rd with 13 seconds on his Saturday attempt using a Tercel.

John Tolppi managed to beat the wind for a few moments with a 10 second flight on Saturday using a scratch build and Erica Owens snuck in a 7 second flight that day as well, also using a Tercel.

Overall:
Don Carson won the day with a total of 282 points.

Sandy Houston was second with 170 points.

John Bergsmith was third with 108 points.

The total points awarded to ROCC for the flier participation in the contest was 841.

Thanks for all that participated. Please send suggestions for our next NAR contest to rocc_contest@tshouston.net <mailto:rocc_contest@tshouston.net> (see the NAR website for the options!),

Sandy.