2007 Pattern Nats -- Live from MuncieWednesday, July 18
5:30 PM
The AMA is publishing a daily newspaper in print and online: NatsNews. All of today's results should be online by tomorrow morning.
Amy Wilson from the Muncie staff was working on special T-shirts for this year's participants:
She says that Derek asked for an extra-special T-shirt for himself:
Higher Plane Productions is videotaping the FAI F3A competition in high-definition video. They will also be releasing a DVD of the Electric Tournament of Champions that took place indoors in Toledo in April. They have several gigabytes of RC videos online.
Notice the high-def lens.
Fred Midgett is in the foreground; his son is
filming from the stands in the background.
The sky cleared and the 10-15 mph wind was a welcome relief from the heat. A couple of pilots at site 1 got time penalties--coping with the wind may have been slowing them down.
Overheard on the sidelines: "That fellow is flying kind of sloppy now. I'll bet he's only practiced this schedule a dozen times. All he has to do is fly well enough to make the semis. Then he'll kill us, as usual."
1:00 PM
I've retrieved a bunch of photos from Rusty's camera (easier said than done) and uploaded them without captions here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/martin.moleski/Nats2007
Time to steal some of the salads that Rusty's wife packed in the fridge for him. I imagine he and his gang ate on the way back from the Secret Practice Field and are already getting set up over on site 1 for the afternoon.
12:10 PM
Just getting everything set up at Team USA Mobile #1--Rusty Dose's land cruiser.
I've got a wi-fi connection courtesy of AMA headquarters and am starting to sort out pix and videos from last night and this morning.
Contest headquarters
Rusty sells a sweatshirt for FAI.
Team USA Mobile #1.
Inside TUM #1
OK. Time to upload this, then see what the schedule is for this afternoon.