August 23r, 2009

August Fun Fly

Terry has been a Propbuster for several years, but this was his first stint as fun fly director. Several weeks ago, he asked exactly what his responsibilities were. We all told him that donuts pretty much sealed the deal and anything beyond that would be a bonus. Terry went well beyond the donuts -- which were very tasty.

On Sunday, August 23rd, eleven Propbusters showed up on a warm and breezy morning to take part in the festivities. Terry outlined three fun fly events; loop, roll and land, a taxi event, and a two minute fly. I had admonished Terry a few days before that one of our long time Presidents -- who’s name shall remain secret -- traditionally wins the two minute fly. To even the playing field a little, Terry put a roll of the dice at the end of each flyer’s attempt in each event. The two numbers rolled were multiplied together and that score was either added or subtracted from the flyer’s time. The dice roll worked like a charm. It not only evened the field, it somehow managed to bunch up the scores dramatically. This naturally led to a lot of good natured cat calling and voodoo hexing at the dice table. Eleven Propbusters went through the 3 events in about an hour and Terry added a forth event to the mix since we had plenty of time left. The fourth event was a 20 second climb, engine shutoff and glide to touchdown for time.

In the first event, the two minute fly, Terry confused us even more by adding three maneuvers that had to be flown during the course of the flight. This was quite a challenge while trying to silently count to 120. All eleven competitors were surprisingly close to two minutes. The winner, Ken Gatzke, had a time of 1:59, narrowly beating out a 2:02 from Darrell, a 2:04 posted by both Doc and Denny, and a 1:57 from yours truly.

The next event was the loop, roll and land for time. Gene Jobjen eked out a win here with time of 24 seconds and then proceeded to roll a 2 on the dice to give him a total of 26 seconds. Ken Gatzke and Denny Bernal had 27s to tie for second. Darrell Cassidy made third with 33. I managed to roll a 36 -- the highest score possible to put myself in last place.

The taxi drill was around 3 large cones set on the runway about 75 ft apart. This turned out to be more of a challenge than expected. Several flame outs occurred half way through, but those planes were allowed a second attempt, Terry Rambo scored 40 seconds for first. Ken Gatzke was in second with 52 and Clancy scored 57 for third.

The added event was a 20 second climb and then engine shutoff. The longest glide back to a touchdown was the winner. Darrell Cassidy, using is well worn Cherokee, posted a respectable 2 minutes, 11 seconds with his old, old Cherokee. Denny Bernal went 2:11 for second, and Zac Roller scored 1:55 for third.

When we tallied up all the results, Darrell Cassidy was the winner. Darrell was awarded a cap signed by full size acro pilots John Klatt and Kirby Chambliss. Through some unusual score keeping, Terry Rambo, Jim Tiller, Doc McGuigan, Clancy Kingsbury, Gene Jobgen, Ken Gatzke, Bob Olson, Zac Roller, Ken Corrin and Denny Bernal were all tied for second, although I am forced to tell you that Denny outscored Zac Roller by 3 points at the end. The only reason this is notable is that Denny shared Zac’s radio to fly his Sky Raider. Denny said ‘Some of the good stuff must have rubbed off.”

A great time was had by all. Thanks so much to event organizer Terry Rambo. You did a great job. The only penalty for doing a good job in this club is that we will ask you to do it again next year. Sorry about that Terry, but consider it our compliment.