District 7 Pattern

DISTRICT 7
2007 Contest Review

2006 Scores

2005 Scores

2004 Scores
2006 Past Contests

2005 Contests

Contest Calendar

PRIUS UPDATE: I've had the Prius now for 6 months. Based on last years gas expenses for the same time period, $1,623.16, and this past 6 months gas expenses, $540.39, the Prius is living up to my expectations - as it fits my plane and all cargo needed for flying. This is not a Prius ad, only a fact. I know others, Tom Messer, is saving good money also with his Yaris. Others are doing the same. If you are considering a new airplane travel vehicle, I'd recommend any one of the small cars - that fits your plane. I find I used the voice activated commands quite a lot. The GPS built into the car is a nice feature.

SAC Training this Saturday - be there, be square!

Whittier Results... It was close, waiting for the last round, in a few classes. Chris F won the Raffle, a new Inspire 90, then his 'number' came up again, and like a true gentleman, he 'passed' on another pick letting someone else get a prize. Doing the gas pool at Whittier was a cooperative effort. Hyde Mounts sent $50, Adian Wong contributed, CD Lynn and Ralph DePalma matched each others contribution, Fliton contributed an airplane and Bob Smith glues sent in a box of CA. Bob G, and his ZQ, had a wing tube fail in a snap, it went in hard. **** There seems to be a trend developing over the definition of maneuvers and how they should be flown. We need ONE definition, not two. You would think the rulebook is clear, but interpretation of some maneuvers are different from pilot to pilot and judge to judge... and there in lies the problem. It will be interesting as we approach the District Championship to see how this works out. Also, we need consistent judging or our sport will fail. We can not continue to have family members judge other family members, and as important, we must all agree what a maneuver should look like.

	FAI	Masters	Advanced	Intermediate	Sportsman
1st Place	Troy Neuman 4000	Jerry Budd 4000	Noah Yaney 4000	Mike Greear 4000	Tak Takayama 4000
2nd Place	Jim Kimbro 3783	Chris Fitzsimmons 3949	Jarvis Johnson 3917		Paul Crittenden 3965
3rd Place	Steve Hanna 3722	Jon Carter 3932	Bob Gillespie 3846		Robert Beaubien 3839

HERE is a servo pot from an electric pattern plane after 588 flights. It seems to be warn a bit but still good for another 200+ flights based on current wear patterns. Just FYI.

OAKDALE 08

You know, if you have flown at the Nats, and you make the finals, everyone has 2 planes. Here is Derek and Adrian showing us their backup planes for the uncomming Nats. I was told they flew these in 2 rounds at Oakdale, just to make sure, if the planes are needed at the Nats 08, they will be ready. Unconfirmed results of that round is that Derek took 1st and Adrian was 3rd. Seems the planes are flying well!
Still no 'official' results, but this is what I heard. Craig Blodgett had radio issues on Sunday, he packed up and took his kids to the Zoo! He now has his 2.4G in the plane, and it's working fine so far. Jim K won FAI, Derek was 2nd and Adrian was 3rd. In Masters, Chris F won, Matt Kimbro, in what I heard was good flying, was 2nd, and the Sheriff was 3rd. Kevin Sung won Advanced. Not sure of other results.. but soon I think. Oh, Everyone got in 4 flights except Masters, who settled the contest on 3 flights, scoring the best two.
A Special thanks to Ralph DePalma for helping with everyone's gas - a large expense for anyone traveling any distance and Luke Peng handling the scoring. Also, Bill Sneed came out to Judge, thanks for these efforts! I know Dick Belden, the CD, appreciates everyone's help. sc

Chris and Jon get some gas money!

HEMET 08

For you Nor Cal guys, timing on ths trip is right at 6 hours w/o stops. Jon and I arrived around 11:30am, left at 5am. The wind is howling from R to L - so reverse flight direction for us. Tomorrow is 'suppose' to be a nice day with temps in the high 90's with lighter winds and reverse direction. We'll see! The Hemet field and the entrance to the field. After a long day of driving, Jon is pooped and need to catching his beauty sleep rest. He claims this helps him fly better and is a secret to his upcomming outstanding scores!
Before I get into some details of Saturdays flying, Harry Gould was acknowledged today for his continuous support of RC activities throughout the last 40 years (or so). Greg Frohreich presented Harry, along with Harry's lovely wife, a small award for all Harry's contributions to RC.
Ok, it's Sat, 6am.. we are heading to the field to get the tarp set up and secure a place in line for the 8am pre-fights. There is no wind, it's about 75 degrees out - at 6am! Pilots start arriving shortly after we got there. Here are some pictures... Steve Kaneshiro gets a little help from Tak Takayama, Noah Yaney and his Father, and faithful mechanic prepare for a flight, , Wayne Lovett and John Contreras get things ready, Team Kimbro gets ready.. Chuck Hartman shows off his plane! Alex Shim and is plane. Taking some note, there are 3 sets of Father . Son teams here today; MacAfee's, Kimbro's, and Yaney's.. good to see. At the pilots meeting Rusty gave Chris Fitz got a special award from Rusty Fried - take a look at Chris's KF column last month.
The contest is over, we are on the way home, but not without incident.. seems our radiator hose decided to spring a leak just up the Grapevine.. which caused the transmission to overheat, so we had no power and we were starting to overheat the engine also! Scott called Chris F, who was a few miles back. We were in the far right lane with Flashers going, Chris pulled in behind us and followed us to Gorman near the top. We opened the hood and found the hole. Bought a Bike patch kit and 2 metal hose clamps.. we were on the road again in 45 min or so.. Chris followed up just in case.. but all was fine. I can say now, we made it home fine wtih this "McGiver" repair!

FAI Masters Advanced Intermediate Sportsman

1st Place Steve Hanna
3951 Jerry Budd
4000 Noah Yaney
4000 Mike Greear
4000 Tak Takayama
4000

2nd Place Scott Covey
3934 Chris Fitzsimmons
3877 Scott MacAfee
3810 Chris Johnson
2788 Greg Meierhoff
3846

3rd Place Jim Kimbro
3923 Jon Carter
3759 Bob Gillespie
3804
Wayne Lovett
3846

What is interesting here (to me) is that Jerry Budd was clearly the dominate flyer given the competition he flew against. All three place winners, and the 4th place pilot, Rusty Fried, are all preparing for the Nationals in a few months. Jerry seems to be a well-oiled machine at this time. Also, I believe everyone won at least one round in FAI - and you can see how close it was. Steve is doing a great job coming from IMAC and will be a threat at the D7 Championships. We all better bring our "A" game, it will be a great battle for sure.

Provided by Chuck Hartmann - Below are Google Maps links for some of the So-Cal contests.
Riverside .... Hemet .... Whittier Narrows.... Lancaster

NAPA 08

	FAI	Masters	Advanced	Intermediate	Sportsman
1st Place	Don Atwood 4000	Chris Fitzsimmons 4000	Scott MacAfee 4000	Kevin Sung 4000	Michael Fan 4000
2nd Place	Derek Koopowitz 3823	Jon Carter 3944	Bob Hixson	Dave Wick 3897	Dave MacAfee 3976
3rd Place	Adrian Wong 3802	Luke Peng 3732		Ron Davies 3544

20 pilots registered, 18 finished the contest. Atwood had some problems with the ESC - he's now flying Adrian's backup plane and winning. Each 'won' round increases the rental price by $20 / flight! (Adrian basically flew for free) Don shows us his 'winning form' which we have to contend with all year! Koop zero'ed a few maneuvers and had general problems with the brain - but we know he'll be improving. And, FAI pilot, 'Wings Level Wong', shows us his landing technique. Weather was excellent. Oh, Roy Speights lost a plane, seems the wing bolts were not secure, the wing twisted 90 degrees on the 2nd to the last maneuver and in it went. Sorry Roy! New Flyer Michael Fan came from behind to win Sportsman in his first contest. Guess he's here to stay! Kevin Sung also turned in a good performance in Intermediate but must up his game for later in the year. Like Peng came in 3rd place in Masters, and I happen to know Luke, Kevin and Michael fly together. Whatever they are doing is working.. but keep the focus on, we need more points at the D7 Championship. Welcome to FAI Mr. Frank Capone.

Hello. My name is Chris Khosravi. I'm a junior right now in high school and I'm starting to search for a college; thinking of AZ State. I'm a competitive diver, and as you can see, I like to fly Pattern also. I'm currently in District 6 and competed in sportsman once (got 1st) then moved up to Intermediate, got 1st again! I'm going to continue with intermediate for this year then move to Advanced next year. I checked out the district 7 website and it seems like you guys have a pretty big team. I would like to join you guys in the future. Hope to see you at a contest this year. (note: Bill Wallace is in contact with Chris).
ALSO **** Michael Fan, a new flyer in San Jose, and attending his first contest in Napa this weekend, has just received his US Citizenship! I flew with Michael on Thursday (sc) and he's trying hard. Kevin and Luke with no doubt take Michael under their wings and teach him the tricks of the trade. Michael, welcome to pattern and the US

Training Day 1
A success for those who attended. We flew 'wings level', talked about trimming, and had a nice lunch.
Be sure to attend Training Day 2, coming to a field near you!
And, for anyone interested in working on a YS.. Derek gives a few tips!

Riverside, 4/12

Once again the Pattern gods played with us at Riverside. This time it was the wind, on Saturday morning as the gusts started right away at 15 - 20 mph. The CD, Lynn Burks, took a vote, and it was decided to wait until after lunch to see if they would die down. The wind reached a high of about 28 mph at 1:00pm, and then started to subside. We finally started about 2:15pm and proceeded to get in 2 1/2 rounds, only quitting when it got too dark to safely fly. On Sunday, the weather broke and we were treated to a glorious day with little to no wind, although the temperatures got into the mid 90's. We wound up flying 5 rounds and everyone seemed to be having a great time. We welcomed back an old pattern friend Steve Hannah to his first contest since finding his way back from the dark side (IMAC). He did a great job in FAI flying a new electric Pinnacle. Another interesting development; Matt Kimbro jumped from Intermediate, where he was the Dist 7 champion, to Masters. And to make matters more depressing, he wound up 3rd, beating us old codgers who have been in this class for a while. That�s sure great for Matt's ego, the rest of just made excuses! Looking at the scores, Tony and Mike had a lot of fun is Intermediate! Gillespie gave a clinic to the other Advanced Flyers! Mr. Masters, Rusty, continues to show what 35 hours of practice per week can do, and Kimbro and Greg F looked to have a nail-biter going on in FAI. Other than that - it was thankfully a very safe and incident free event. And we did have 21 pilots which is heartening. We had the usual high turnout in Masters, which made for marathon judging for some of the guys - ask Jerry Budd sometime about his idea to help this situation, it actually was very interesting. Our next contest down south is at Hemet on the 17th - 18th of May. Hope to see you all back for that, and maybe we can get some of you guys from up north to come down and enjoy our southern hospitality. Hemet is a great location and the club does a good job for us. See you there.
Here are the results.
Sportsman
1. Greg Meierhoff 3991
2. Wayne Lovett 3866
3. Tak Takayama 3851
Intermediate
1. Tony Watkins 3996
2. Mike Greear 3946
3. Chris Johnson 2360
Advanced
1. Bob Gillespie 4000
2. Jim Bronowski 3805
3. Steve Kaneshiro 3749
4. Jim Brown 2419
5. Jarvis Johnson 971
Masters
1. Rusty Fried 4000
2. Kris Fitzsimmons 3953
3. Matthew Kimbro 3768
4. Bill Sheets 3702
5. Bill Wallace 3697
6. John Contreras 3561
7. Lynn Burks 3401
8. Chuck Hartmann 3314
FAI
1. Jim Kimbro 3977
2. Greg Frohreich 3962
3. Steve Hannah 3845

"Jim Kirkland's Trimming Procedure. Published April 1971" as written up by Ralph DePalma. Background: Mr. Kirkland won two Nats and was on the US FAI team. In 1972 he was the teacher of a teenager named Rhett Miller..Prior to the 1973 Nats Mr. Kirkland passed away..And sixteen year old Rhett Miller, coming out of no where, won the Nats..And Two more..And flew in the Worlds Championship..Then disappeared into pattern forklore..

Feb 9-10th 2008 - Lancaster - read about it here! and pictures below on this link

YUMA Contest / Results

For the second annual Yuma Aeromodelers Pattern contest, the weather gods decided to give us a break from last years heat, so we ended up with 2 days of beautiful 70 - 80 degree weather. Unfortunately, even this was not enough to bring out a crowd - we only had 12 pilots. This is the same amount as Lancaster - I hope this is not a long lasting trend. The classes were pretty well represented, with only FAI having a lone competitor - the ever consistent Greg Froherich. The weekend went very smoothly with John Contreras and Dave Dehart doing another bang up job running this fun contest. Even with the unique noon time migration to the opposite side of the runway (due to the sun), we got 4 rounds in on Saturday and finished by 5:00 running 1 judging line. On Sunday the final two rounds were completed, scoring finalized, and awards given out by 11:30. This allowed an early start on the road back home for most competitors. No major mishaps were reported, but we are all going to have to chip in and buy Robert Beaubien a pair of off-road tires for his DJ - I think he went off the runway into the dirt on every landing, but John and Dave appreciated the mowing he gave the weeds alongside the runway. All in all, a great time was had by all, and we were happy to hear that in spite of the low turnout, the Yuma club will have this event again next year. On a final note - the Riverside contest is coming up in a couple of weeks (April 12-13), so lets try and reverse this low attendance trend, get out there and support the clubs that give up their fields for the weekend. I look forward to seeing you there.(Bill Wallace)
Here are the numbers - (Click on the CLASS to see the winners)
Sportsman
1. Tak Takayama 4000
2. Robert Beaubien 3841
Intermediate (this is a great Picture!)
1. Mike Greear 4000
2. Chris Johnson 3546
Advanced
1. Ken Melbye 4000
2. Jim Brown 3697
3. Jarvis Johnson 1154
Masters
1. Jerry Budd 4000
2. Bill Wallace 3562
3. John Contreras 3441
4. Lynn Burks 3297
FAI
1. Greg Froherich 4000

The 27th annual Sun Valley Fliers
The 27th annual Sun Valley Fliers R/C Championships is now in the books. With 32 entrees from US, Canada and Mexico. We had 3 people from Canada and one constant came from North Carolina another came from Mexico. Our weather was perfect on Saturday while we had a little sprinkle on Sunday morning. The winds were light both days, the pattern Gods smiled upon use.The SVF had a great showing with Robert Beaudien took 2nd in Sportsman, in Advanced our Ken Melbye took 1st, Brad Schrimsher took 3rd in advanced, in masters Rusty Fried took 2nd, in FAI Troy Newman took 2nd while Greg Froreich took 4th.
I tried something new. We offered all classes 6 rounds plus 2 rounds of FAI F09. Of the 6 guys in FAI 4 wanted to fly F09, the 4 flew the first round. Something happened and the rest of the FAI guys wanted to fly F09. So they agreed no to fly the sixth round of P09 and made it a 5 round contest then they all flew the second round of �F�.
We had a great Saturday after flying BBQ. We served hot pizza for lunch on Saturday and sub sandwich for lunch on Sunday. With coffee and donuts in the morning, if any one went starved it was there own fault.
Horizon Hobbies gave the club a DX7 radio and JR hats as prizes, Bob of Smart Fly donated 7 high quality regulators. We had some NSRCA dvd�s and 2007 team shirts we used a prizes. Everyone got a prize.
- Rusty

FAI Masters Advanced Intermediate Sportsman

1st Place Jason Shulman
4000 Jerry Budd
4000 Ken Melbye
3989 Tony Watkins
4000 Greg Meierhoff
3990

2nd Place Troy Newman
3944 Rusty Fried
3968 Jarvis Johnson
3940 Mike Greear
3835 Robert Beaubien
3897

3rd Place Chad Northeast
3817 Dennis Suding
3601 Brad Schrimsher
3781 Ricardo Arcibar
3331 Wayne Lovett
3801

4th Place Greg Frohreich
3679 John Contreras
3510 Jack Keiser
3712 Chris Johnson
2659 William McKinley
3414

5th Place Nedim Bek
3110 Bill Sheets
3506 James Brown
3157 Jerry Plyler
2276 Lary Field
3338

6th Place Robert Venables
3089 Bruce Brown
3390
Mike Miller
957

7th Place
David De Hart
3347

8th Place
John Wisniewski
3289

9th Place
Lynn Burks
3250

10th Place
Loe Kitila
3089

11th Place
Ralph Depalma
2153