Carrier Results and Commentary

The Knights of the Round Circle club again hosted Navy Carrier along with their many Stunt classes and Scale at Whittier Narrows.  Beautiful California weather held for most of the day except for a few gusts for a short time. Gas prices at $4.27 for regular may have held the entries down this year.  There were three Carrier classes: 15 Profile, AMA 36 Profile and Sportsman Profile.  Three classes and three different winners – life is good! 

  At our SoCal contests, Sportsman Carrier is limited to non-slider planes that otherwise meet AMA 36 Profile rules. The intent is to encourage new pilots to try Carrier but with a less complicated plane if they so choose. Those planes that do have sliders simply have them locked.  When the pilot feels confident enough to enter the AMA class, all that is needed is to activate the slider.  The Sportsman class also accepts Skyray planes (with 36 engines).  While entrants in AMA and Sportsman Profile aren’t allowed to cross-enter in other areas, we encourage it.  Consider Sportsman as a class for Larry Richard’s type planes (too new for Nostalgia) with modern engines.  It is nicely placed between Nostalgia and AMA rules.

Rob Wright’s Sniper (modified very nicely to resemble a Sea Fury) edged out our lone entrant from Arizona in 15 Profile.  In AMA Profile, Burt Brokaw put in a very fine flight with his Eric Conley-designed Me-109T. Even though Eric wasn’t able to make the contest, his legacy lives on.  Bummer to get beat by him even when he’s not there!  I understand that Burt was on his way home from the Northwest Regionals in Oregon where he also won – beating Eric!  In Sportsman, Dave Hull took the honors with an exciting flight.  He builds very well (meaning STRONG) as proven when he demonstrated a perfect 100 point landing at 34 mph. We worked on his throttle after that.  He unlocked the slider for the AMA class but decided to lock it down again to post a safe flight.   Frank Martin tried valiantly to post a score with his Conley-designed Hellcat but his Webra just wouldn’t cooperate.  It sounded very strong prior to launch but sagged immediately and wouldn’t get airborne.  It thought it was a lawn mower I guess.  Possible causes: contaminated fuel, too big a carb, bad fuel tank.  Which was it?  He will be working on it, I’m sure.  One of the challenges of using newer R/C engines is that they are designed to operate with muffler pressure.  The Profile class doesn’t allow pressure which may be a contributing factor to Frank’s problem.  Speaking of “working on it”, I will be adding another line item to my contest checklist. It will say “Lines and Handles, Stupid”.  Maybe next time I’ll remember. Having no pressure to compete, I enjoyed being the Event Director for this group of fine fellows.