April Fool Results

Don Pruitt · Post by **Don Pruitt** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 10:33 am

Our friends from north of the Mason/Dixon Line threatened before the contest that they were going to bring down some cold weather with them to try and freeze out the good ole boys from GA. Well, I think that they overdid it this time.

Friday night the temps got down to 29 deg. And the winds were 20 mph gusting to >30. It was so bad that the Easter egg hunt over at Stone Mountain was canceled due to weather and other unforeseen circumstances.

The day started out kind of slow because my laptop would not function in the freezing weather. The mouse wouldnâ€™t work, the touch pad wouldnâ€™t work, and I couldnâ€™t even read the data off the floppy drive. I finally had to crank up the little red truck, turn on the heater and move all the equipment to the front seat so that we could get the data entered in the matrix etc. After the delays we finally got started about 10:30.

We had 23 in the matrix with about 1/3 of the field being non-RCCA members who are all local guys (and girls), who fly just for fun and are not interested in NPS points. The top half of the lineup represented the top flyers in the country and that was definitely reflected in the final scores.

The wind was in our faces all day and as expected it was hard to keep the planes on the other side of the CEL. I noticed early on that I couldnâ€™t make any turns toward the pilots line because when I got my wings 90 deg. vertical the wind made it very difficult to stay in the combat arena. I believe that everyone got warnings and some received penalties for crossing over the CEL. I will have to say that in all my flying experience I have never seen so many penalties for flying/landing/crashing behind the pilotâ€™s line. I thank my lucky stars that no one was hurt during the event. We definitely dodged the bullet on that one. By round three there were suggestions from the club president that we should consider canceling the remainder of the event for fear of someone getting hurt. The winds did moderate a bit after lunch and the temps eased up in the 40â€™s and the second half of the day was not quite as bad as the first half.

Unfortunately I didnâ€™t get a chance to take any pictures until the end of the day and that was the time that my stinking camera decided to stop working. I will have to rely on some of the other guys to post pictures.

My congratulations to Dave, Lee, Tim and Mark for taking home the hardware. It just goes to show that the cream always rises to the top.

Post by **boiler** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 10:56 am

I had as much trouble getting home in my exhausted condition as I did flying at Hilltop. My planes exceeded my piloting talents that day. I dumb thumbed several times. I did have a fantastic time at Don Pruitt's meet. He kept apologising for the weather which was beyond his control. He had a super meet on a very challenging day. The Hilltop gang always makes you feel at home and the BBQ at Famous Dave's on Friday really filled a number of tables. My wife is ready for me to go back so I can bring her some more ribs home. I truly think she would prefer that to me bringing one of those fine trophies home that the great pilots took with them. I did question Don's thinking on the way to the field that morning. He stopped for ice to put in the pop coolers. I know there will be plenty of photos since cameras were snapping all day. Thanks Don, Phillis, and all the Hilltop crew for a fine early season get together of a fine bunch of people. Of course Don thinks that we Yankees brought that nasty stuff down with us. What is really the truth is we were escaping the much nastier weather up here. I drove on ice for the last 15 miles before getting home.

Dawg · Post by **Dawg** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 11:12 am

A big thanks to all the out-of-towners for making the trek to HillTop. Also, thanks to all of the local pilots who braved the frigid/windy conditions to make this a wonderful day of Combat action.
Nice to make new friends and see all the older ones. Hope to see you all again real soon.

Thanks to Don, Phyllis, Bruce and the other HillToppers whose work made this run as smoothly as it did.

For our local newcomers, the SkunkWorx will be open for repairs and new builds. Just give me a call and we will get things sorted out...

And by the way, I ain't skeered of no PINK airplanes.

Post by **boiler** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 11:19 am

Yes Dawg, you ain't skeered of any pink airplanes and the rest of us aren't skeered of any orange airplanes since Derwood didn't fly. He must have been the one what was skeered.[;)]

Alex Treneff · Post by **Alex Treneff** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 12:41 pm

I had a great time at Hilltop (like always), even though it was a little on the cold side!

Don, I took a ton of photos so once I can get them sorted out and uploaded I'll post them here.

Thanks again for running another great contest!

cipoll717 · Post by **cipoll717** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 7:06 pm

Yet another great event at the World Famous Hilltop field. If anyone wants to attend a great one-day SSC event, this is a great place to start. The hospitality is truly southern, and thereâ€™s always a great group of pilots in attendance. The weather was less than ideal, and made flying a challenge. If it werenâ€™t for my attendance at last yearâ€™s February event, I would say this was the worst weather I have flown in. That is not to say in any way this negatively effected the great time I had. The weather, just like the other flyers, made this one challenging and rewarding experience. Like I used to say when people ask me how I survived and had any fun living through Northern New York winters â€œsurviving IS part of the funâ€

Captain America · Post by **Captain America** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 6:47 am

Got home late late last nite. Thanks to the Hilltop crew for having us down. Winds were brutal coming up the hill thru the trees, I think between Midairs, gusts and thumbs I only finished 2-3 of the 8 rounds in the air. Bet I gave up 100 points launching late, motors would not tach consisitantly for me on start up, turned out to be a loose arm on the carb moving around... little things will kill you! Enough excuses...

Good to see everybody again and meet the people who go with the names. We did spot Darwood briefly sat. sneaking around the field in a Wyle coyote sheep disguise!

Don Pruitt · Post by **Don Pruitt** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 8:24 am

I did manage to salvage some pictures out of my soon to be discarded camera.

My thanks to team Treneff and http://TreneffRC.com for their donation of a Battle Axe kit to add to the prize pool. Thanks also go to Wayne Voyles and Stanley Harrison and RC Depot for their donation of their new 70 â€œ combat kit the Air Devil. http://stores.rc-depot.com/StoreFront.bok

Ms Heather Cain gives everyone a big smile as she claimed the Air Devil. Later in the day as we were packing up she said that in the future she was not going to stay at home on windy days but will instead look for those days so she can go to the field to practice. Now that is the kind of attitude that I like.

In the background l-r is Alex Treneff, Wiley Cain , Chris Handagard, Mike & Dave McGinnis and Tim Treneff.

Next on the list was 7â€™ tall Curtis Lentz who was the happy recipient of the Battle Axe.

Note the difference in height between Curtis and his normal size flying buddy Glen Shonkwiler.

Claiming the 1st place trophy is the undisputed leader of the â€œDs of Deathâ€

Which_way_is_up · Post by **Which_way_is_up** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 9:55 am

Don, don't know what the urls are suppose to be but what you've put in currently are not legit. urls. For one thing you can't have spaces in a url address.

Alex Treneff · Post by **Alex Treneff** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 12:02 pm

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Which_way_is_up
 Don, don't know what the urls are suppose to be but what you've put in currently are not legit. urls. For one thing you can't have spaces in a url address.

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Don,

The link is www.TreneffRC.com

We're happy to see that the donated kit will help a fellow combat pilot to fly more combat.

I've got pictures of Mark with his trophy, group pictures, and pictures of all day. I'll post them when I get them uploaded.

Also a special thanks to Phyllis, as she is one of the main workers for the contest. She got the food, she was out in the trees cleaning up streamers, and doing just about anything else that needed done all day.

Which_way_is_up · Post by **Which_way_is_up** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 12:45 pm

No Ed, I don't think you did fix it. And I'm not even sure that if you had put in this http://www.rcdepot.com that it is even the right web site. I tried to search there for "Air Devil" and couldn't find anything. I think Don the only one that can figure out what the right address is.

Don Pruitt · Post by **Don Pruitt** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 2:31 pm

OK, try http://stores.rc-depot.com/StoreFront.bok

cipoll717 · Post by **cipoll717** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 3:56 pm

Hey, I like the original link MUCH better! ( http://rcdepot.com )

Which_way_is_up · Post by **Which_way_is_up** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 4:49 pm

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by cipoll717
 Hey, I like the original link MUCH better! ( http://rcdepot.com )
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Yea, me too but I didn't think it was about getting planes up! [:0]

grasshpr · Post by **grasshpr** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 12:05 pm

Had a great time, thanks to the folks who worked hard to give us a contest. Congrats to the top finishers and well done all you beginners!

The conditions were tough but then you never can control mother nature!