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December Contests FAC Chapter 69/Black Sheep Squadron

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 8:32 pm
by kittyfritters
The next scheduled local FAC Chaper 69 contest is on Sunday, December 2 for FAC rubber scale, Pearl Harbor mass launch and profile jet catapult.

The contest is at the Grassy Knoll Area in the Sepulveda Basin, Van Nuys, California. Starting at 9:00 AM. (People will probably be there at 8:00.)

Be sure to have documentation for the FAC rubber scale event. Flight times over the 20 second minimum can beat good flight times when the points that documentation allows are added to the flight score.

On Friday, December 7, the Black Sheep Exhibition Squadron will hold it's annual Pearl Harbor No-Cal contest at the Boys & Girls Club San Fernando, 11251 Glenoaks Blvd, Pacoima, CA 91331.

The contest will be from 6 to 9 PM. It is open to No-Cal models of any aircraft that was present in the Hawaiian Islands at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. (Not necessarily combat aircraft there is an official list. The following link has the military aircraft. http://www.ww2pacific.com/aaf41.html )

They must be "legal" No-Cals (Max 16" span) and there will be a 10 second bonus if the model can ROG.

Re: December Contests FAC Chapter 69/Black Sheep Squadron

Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2018 1:58 am
by kittyfritters
ATTENTION!!

Due to the weather report indicating strong winds tomorrow, the FAC contest has been postponed to Sunday, December 09.

The Pearl Harbor No-Cal contest, indoors, will go on as scheduled.

Howard

Re: December Contests FAC Chapter 69/Black Sheep Squadron

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2018 11:47 pm
by kittyfritters
FAC report courtesy of Hugh Langhans, FAC Chapter 69 Adjutant. (With a bit of editing, KF.)


An FAC contest was held at the Grassy Knoll on Sunday, December 9. It was scheduled for Dec. 2 but was blown out based on weather forecast of high wind. The forecast for Dec. 9 was also not so good, but I did not want to postpone the events again, and we lucked out. The wind did not start to show up until 10:00 AM and we were done by then. We did not have enough entries for Pearl Harbor and we started an FAC scale event but people left at about that time because of concerns about wind.

This may be the last event held at the Grassy Knoll. There is an alternate site south of the RC field that is larger than the Grassy Knoll and has fewer trees. Jim Alling lost a P-30 at the top of a tree on the far side of the grassy Knoll and we are always getting models out of trees in that location. So far we don't have a snappy name for the new location. perhaps Urban Undergrowth?

The Profile Jet Catapult event had four entries. They were Bill Watson with an XP-89,Hugh Langhans with a Grumman Cougar, Don smith with a Gloster Meteor and Howard Littman with a B-52. An initial trim flight with the XP-89 resulted in damage which was soon repaired. The initial launch of the Panther resulted in a big loop that came around and hit me knocking off the front of the tip tank.

Bill's XP-89 had both the best times (one flight of 30.1 seconds!). It also had the highest score for color, details and craftsmanship.

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Howard was second with his B-52,

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Don smith third with the Gloster Meteor

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and Hugh Langhans fourth with the Grumman Cougar. (sic. It's a Panther.)

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The Cougar had a best time of 4 seconds, but hey, it flew!

We hope to fly the Thomson/Greve trophy race planes and Guillows 500 series planes on January 13 2019. We will have several Guillow 500 series events during the year.

Re: December Contests FAC Chapter 69/Black Sheep Squadron

Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2018 5:18 am
by kittyfritters
It was suggested that the Pearl Harbor No-Cal event would be better attended if it were held on December 08 since people coming from farther than the immediate Valley would not have to fight Friday night, home going, Los Angeles traffic. The suggestion was, however, overruled because the cachet of actually holding it on December 07 was too much to resist. Unfortunately, the prediction proved correct when only five contestants, plus a couple of wives, showed up. The other problem was that the usual take away for the contestants, boxes of chocolate cover macadamia nuts, were not available this year. Oh, well, those of that were there competed and had fun anyway.

The location was the Boys & Girls Club in Pacoima, a nice gym except for the infamous “Sikorsky”, an immense ventilation fan on the ceiling. The fan was off but you still don’t want a model to hit it restricting the maximum number of winds you can put on your motor.

Dave Gee made a new model for the contest, an SB2U. This is an interesting choice since few radial engine aircraft had such a long nose and it has a generous wing. Bill Watson brought the Zero that he had carefully trimmed for a few weeks. Don Smith brought the reliable F4F he had been campaigning for the several years. Don Butman had a Zero and an F4F. Howard Littman had an F2A, built the afternoon of the contest, and his old, Scotch tape patched P-36. Howard managed to bounce the F2A off the Sikorsky on one flight with no damage. Hilly Smith did the timing and recorded the flights in the top of a cardboard box since no one brought a timing sheet.

The results were: (Time in seconds, total of best two flights, 10 second ROG Bonus)

1. Bill Watson Zero 164.80 (No ROG Bonus)
2. Don Smith F4F 143.98 (ROG Bonus)
3. Don Butman Zero 135.38 (ROG Bonus)
4. Dave Gee SB2U 100.70 (ROG Bonus)
5. Howard Littman F2A 98.99 (No ROG Bonus)