Final standings after 10 preliminary rounds (1 throw-out):

	
    1. Phil Barnes       8894
    2. Oleg Golovidov    8835
    3. Rus Bennett       8795
    4. Tom Kiesling      8678
    5. Doug Pike         8488
    6. Adam Weston       8255
    7. Don Vetter        8254

    8.  Denny Maize      7906
    9.  Dick Proseus     7782
    10. Brady Baggs      7615
    11. Erich Schlitzkus 7598
    12. Kevin Sharbonda  7483
    13. Buddy Roos       7436
    14. Rick Walba       6780
    15. Todd Griffin     6738
    16. Doug Barry       6446
    17. Peter Jensen     6336
    18. Ken Marks        6327
    19. Andrey Piskarev  6283
    20. Breck Baldwin    5252
    21. Sang Kim         2602
    22. Frank Matthews    122

Final standings after the fly-offs:

    pilot              points    plane
    ----------------------------------------------
    1. Oleg Golovidov  11,723    Taboo XL
    2. Tom Kiesling    11,643    own design
    3. Russ Bennett    11,447    Taboo XL
    4. Phil Barnes     11,350    own design
    5. Adam Weston     11,043    Encore/own design
    6. Doug Pike       10,869    own design
    7. Don Vetter      10,710    own design

Below are several messages that were posted to the RC
soaring exchange and/or SAL newsgroup that will hopefully give you a better
picture of the contest.

Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 20:02:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: Oleg Golovidov 
Subject: ECHLGF 2003, XC event results

A quick write-up about our XC event today...
We are all back from the field now, some at the restaurant having
dinner, some at home (me including). The weather did not quite cooperate
today - low overcast, very breezy, light drizzle from time to time. We
had fun nonetheless!

The day started for me early with driving to my club fellow Brady Baggs
who has 2 pick-up trucks and leaving my car there. Brady and I drove 2
trucks to the field where Dick Proseus was already doing some warm-up
flying. We set up the big tent, and in the meanwhile more people showed
up for the XC fun-fly. Despite the gloomy weather we had more than 10
people on the field, with about 8-9 people ready to try the
cross-country course.



The day started slow, nobody really wanted to fly until Dick Proseus
started catching fast passing thermals and went on course. Brady drove
the truck for Dick, and soon the first result was in. Dick made the
1.8mi distance in 15:28 and had to do 7 relaunches on course! You can
tell the conditions were not easy but the mark was set, and more people
assembled their planes and started flying on the field, trying to catch
a thermal and get on course.

The rules were such that for every relaunch on the course the pilot
gets a 5 min penalty. This allowed a pilot to continue on the course and
get a result instead of going back and starting over. 2 more people went
on course, Erich Schlitzkus and Russ Bennett, but both could not improve
on Dick's time, with 9 and 8 relaunches on course.

Phil Barnes showed up at the field and went right into the battle - he
went on course without even checking the route first. Phil improved the
best result by about half a minute - still 7 relaunches. It was obvious
that the only approach to the task was to get into an air bubble on the
field and fly as far as possible on the first launch. Then simply launch
high and drive fast hoping that another bubble will keep the plane in
the air a bit longer and allow the pilot to drive a longer distance in
one launch.



I spent a lot of time throwing the plane on the field trying to find
that one thermal that could take me as far as possible on the first
launch. The thermals were weak and breaking up very quickly. With 2oz of
ballast the plane just did not climb at all. And I knew that I would
need the ballast for the second part of the course going upwind. After
many launches, interruptions in the flying because of the drizzle,
re-charging, and going on course twice just to return back in 1 minute,
I finally decided to take the next thermal and just go for it, because
the time was slowly running out and I did not have any results. Brady
volunteered to be the driver, and after 2 unsuccessful attempts and
returning back soon after leaving the field, I finally caught a light
bubble and we went on course. As I said before, the tactic was simple -
launch high, jump on the truck and get going as fast as you can, hoping
for some positive air on the way. On my fourth launch while running
around a house I realized that the plane is not coming down - lift! I
started circling in lift while running and jumping over a ditch, jumped
on the truck when Brady drove around the house under some high trees and
caught up with me, and we kept driving like crazy.  I finished the
course in 5 launches total! The whole exercise took only 7min 31sec!

Phil Barnes immediately recruited me as a driver and we soon went on
course. Using the same tactic of launching high and driving fast, Phil
was able to finish the course in 6 re-launches and 7:42. Russ, Dick,
Erich, Don Vetter, Brady all went around the course, but could not
improve the best result. The conditions were quite difficult and at
times drizzle forced us to hide under the tent.



Phil went on course again with me as the driver and Don Vetter as the
photographer :-) In the rush of the race, Phil launched his plane right
into the trees in the narrow section of the road, right in front of Don
and I. The plane was severely damaged, so we went back...



Here are the final results of our XC "race":

pilot                   raw time        relaunches      final result

Oleg Golovidov          7:31            4               27:31
Phil Barnes             7:41            6               37:41
Russ Bennett            9:31            6               39:31
Erich Schlitzkus        11:00           7               46:00
Dick Proseus            11:17           7               46:17
Brady Baggs             9:30            8               49:30
Don Vetter              19:29           10              69:29

We are going to fly the main HLG event tomorrow and Sunday.
Unfortunately, the weather forecast for tomorrow is not great again, but
we are hoping for the best. I will post another write-up next week after
we are done. I will also upload pictures to my web-site when I have time
next week. Stay tuned.

Thermals.
Oleg.


Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 20:02:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: Oleg Golovidov 
Subject: ECHLGF 2003 results

I am happy to say that ECHLGF 2003 was a success! I hope all/most of the 
participants will agree with me.

We had very reasonable weather on Saturday - overcast but no rain, and just 
enough lift to make the tasks a little difficult but doable. The weather on 
Sunday was great - sunny, warm, light clouds, plenty of lift. Almost too easy, 
but no complains. There was still plenty of sink to make it difficult at times. 
Only in a couple of rounds during the entire contest we had several pilots who 
maxed out the task resulting in several 1000 scores in one flight group. Most of 
the time there was a sufficient spread of points. But at the same time the 
standings changed constantly throughout the contest which made it more 
interesting. Until the very end it was not clear how the final standings would 
turn out. Russ Bennett was leading after the first day of the contest. Phil 
Barnes was the first going into the fly-offs. In the last round of the fly-offs 
Phil Barnes unfortunately landed out on a 4min flight, which allowed me to 
advance to the 1st place.



We had many memorable moments during the weekend, some very happy and some not. 
Russ Bennett did some exceptional flying and was at or near the top of the score 
table most of the weekend. In one of the rounds, when one big thermal passed the 
field giving everybody an easy 3min max, and then a big sink area settled in, 
Russ took a single low level thermal and kept riding it until he climbed out and 
took another max flight. All of us were watching him and hesitated to join him 
in that weak thermal saving the throws in hopes for a better thermal, but all we 
found was more sink.

In another round we saw Adam Weston land out only about 2 feet short of the 
field boundary after a very difficult 4min flight! That was quite an upset for 
Adam, as he was probably going to win that round. In the last round of fly-offs, 
Phil Barnes and Doug Pike both landed their planes in the woods after they could 
not come back to the field through the sink.



All in all, we all had lots of fun this weekend despite all those usual upsets 
that happen in any contest. On Saturday after an unexpected early finish of the 
planned 6 rounds, everybody wanted to fly more, and Tom Kiesling quickly 
organized an F3B speed task event. That was a great fun and laughs continued for 
an hour or two while pilots took turns flying the "speed course". It was very 
much like a real F3B, with 2 line judges, no-fly zone, penalties, wild course 
entries, even wilder turns, turn cuts, very fast 2 lap speed runs with very slow 
2 lap finishes, and many unfinished 3.5 lap runs :-)

The lunches organized and delivered to the field by Linda Proseus, wife of the 
contest director Dick Proseus, were fantastic. Everybody agreed again that the 
great lunches are yet another reason to attend this event next year.



The raffle prizes included 2 kits, one XP-3 from Denny Maize and Phil Barnes, 
and one Taboo XL, also many small items - servos, gyros, gyro switches, 
batteries, video tapes, etc, from Doug Barry (our main sponsor), Dick Proseus, 
and Quiet Flyer magazine. If I forgot a sponsor, I promise to mention all names 
again on the web-site when I post the pictures! The kits were won: XP-3 by Kevin 
Sharbonda (after Denny Maize won it and graciously declined to take the prize!), 
and Taboo XL by Ken Marks.



We had a minor mishap with the scoring program, or to be more accurate with the 
assumptions about its capabilities. The program worked great for 1 day contests, 
but I could not figure out how to make it work for a two day contest (and it 
could only do 8 rounds in one day). So we had to resort to manual scoring on the 
second day which introduced a few mistakes into the scores all of which 
(hopefully) were found and corrected. Here are the final standings of the top 7 
pilots who flew in the fly-offs:

pilot           score   plane

Oleg Golovidov  11,723  Taboo XL
Tom Kiesling    11,643  own design
Russ Bennett    11,447  Taboo XL
Phil Barnes     11,350  own design
Adam Weston     11,043  Encore/own design
Doug Pike       10,869  own design
Don Vetter      10,710  own design

Thanks to all of the participants for making the event happen. Thanks to the 
contest director Dick Proseus for organizing the event. Thanks to his wife Linda 
for providing a great lunch on both days. Thanks to our main sponsor Doug Barry 
for his tremendous support of the event. Thanks to all our sponsors for donating 
raffle prizes. Thanks to George Oakey for keeping the scores and doing many 
other things. Thanks to all club members who helped with the contest 
organization.

We need more pilots next year! Come on, California, Texas, Utah, Ohio, ...! 
Where are your HLG pilots?! Please, make plans to attend our HLG festival next 
year!

I will post another message to let y'all know when I upload the pictures and 
full results from the event on my web-site.
Thermals to all,
Oleg.


Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 11:58:11 EDT
From: RCsoarnut@aol.com
Subject: East Coast Hand Launch Classic

DESS guys

  Thanks a million for another great contest and dose of southern 
hospitality:-)  Many more thanks to Dick's wife Linda for organizing another great BBQ 
(the real reason I came out of retirement:-)  Fridays weather wasn't the best 
for the task at hand, Hand Launch XC, but we all had fun and got a taste of what 
XC with a hand launch is all about.  Special thanks to my buddy Oleg for 
being my "horse" all weekend.  It meant a lot to me to get out and fly this 
contest.  Big thanks to Doug Barry for his part in getting the ECHLC started and 
kept running.
  Don't miss this one next year guys. 

Denny Maize
www.polecataero.com
717-789-0146


Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 01:40:01 -0000
From: "kevinsharbonda" 
Subject: Re: ECHLGF 2003 results (DESS)

Just recovering from a great weekend, Thanks O and friends for a 
fantastic hand launch event in Wilson. You guys that are thinking 
about going to this and didn't, have no idea what a great time you 
missed! The X-country thing was an added treat. Lots of good flyers 
in the wings, competition sure to be hot in coming years, so don't 
you old hands rest on your laurels! Till next time....Kev



Message: 5
   Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 20:01:09 -0700 (PDT)
   From: Rick Walba 
Subject: Re: East Coast Hand Launch Classic

After having missed all but 1 handlaunch contest this
season, it was a great thrill to be able to make the
two best east coast events, the C.A.S.A. and ECHLC. I
was present on Friday, but decided to forego
participation in the XC event. I was flying 4ch for
the very first time and spent the day trimming and
practicing. It was great fun to watch though.



Doug Pike of Canada took the "longest drive" award
from me this year, proving that 700+mi is not too far
to drive for an event like this. Especially if you
bring a friend. Doug also made it to C.A.S.A. It was a
pleasure to finally meet one of the Canadian guys. Of
course Adam "Red" Weston easily claimed longest
distance travelled.

My thanx to Brady for lending me a tx when I found out
at the last minute that my 8U was not 4ch compatable
with the only rx that would fit in my tiny SuperGee
pod. Thanx also to all those already mentioned below.

Next season I intend to make all 4 major east coast
contests, as well as at least one each in Toronto and
Montreal. Not to mention Poway and Adam's NWHLC. Hope
to see many more of you there.

Rick


Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 13:45:41 -0400
From: Peter Jensen 
To: soaring@airage.com
Subject: ECHLG report and pictures (finally!)

This is in reference to the East Coast HLG Festival put on two weeks
ago by the good folks in the Down East Soaring Society.  It took me a
few days to collect my thoughts and get back into town (twice), but I
had a great time and would like to share some experiences and
pictures.  Others have already sent out fairly detailed recounts, but
I took quite a few pictures. 

This was actually my first soaring contest of any sort, and I'm
proud to say that I've already started breaking Thornburg's rule #2
(pp 86; "Don't Practice the Events in Advance") in preparation for my
next contest.[1] I had read the tasks and thought about them a good
deal before the contest, but didn't really have a strongly flyable
plane until the day before, so I definitely put myself at a
disadvantage there.

The drive up to Wilson was tempered by a late start and a little
traffic in the Raleigh area, but we got a good night's sleep and had
everything charged up for the first day.

With only moments to go before the start of the first round, I
managed to break a flaperon servo horn when the pushrod end caught a
bit of grass on a landing.  Luckily, I had spare arms and was able to
replace it and get back into the air with only about 100 seconds
elapsed.[2] Those that got a chance to see my backup plane and all of
the abuse that it has been through would understand why I was willing
to trade a fifth of the round time to get back to flying my XP3.

It wasn't much longer into the second round before I managed to
tweak my wingtip throwing peg and get it loose.  Over the course of a
few launches it finally came loose and went up and away into the
grass, and I'm very thankful to Phil Barnes for giving me some 1/8"
carbon rod and to another gentleman who gave me some tow (could that
gentleman please email me offline?).   Luckily, those were my only two
real mechanical mishaps over the entire contest.

The rest of the email is just basically a summary dialog with
commentary and links to some of the pictures.  There are links to the
three galleries at the bottom of this email.

You can see Phil with one of his models here:
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_am/img_2730.htm

Here Breck is programming up his transmitter for Herring-like but
bagged wing he flew in several rounds:
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_am/img_2727.htm

The flying site was very nice and most obstacles were plane-friendly.
Due to winds most people stayed away from the cotton and bean fields,
and the trees were quite gentle and didn't seem to do much harm to the
few who landed out.  Here's a shot that shows the general terrain in
the morning:
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_am/img_2782.htm

I owe many thanks to Buddy Roos (and Al Pernell) for helping me with
equipment, timing, and everything else. Here's a picture of Buddy
putting one of his TabooXL's together:
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_am/img_2785.htm

Oleg and the crew did a great job keeping people updated with the
scores, and when minor software shortcomings were found I was
impressed with the way the CD and others handled them.  Here's a
picture of Oleg entering scores (first) and then of one of the superb
lunches provided:
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_am/img_2788.htm
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_am/img_2790.htm

Saturday afternoon was also nice, with very challenging conditions for
my level of soaring expertise.  I think I learned a lot from the
flying in these rounds and watching the strategies employed by other
pilots.

A few gliders traded hands; here's a shot of Breck helping Adam P. get
his used DLG from Don Vedder put together:
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_pm/img_2793.htm

The four-servo wing thing doesn't seem to have been much of a fad at
this event; I could have missed others, but the only one I saw flown
was by Breck.  The crow was certainly quite effective.
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_pm/img_2818.htm

Oleg and Denny were great sportsmen together; here's a picture of Oleg
timing/launching while Denny flies:
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_pm/img_2891.htm

My launch height improved by about 30% once Buddy helped me get my
settings and such all programmed well and others offered some tips.
Here are some shots of others launching:
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_am/img_2753.htm
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_am/img_2763.htm
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_am/img_2771.htm
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_am/img_2776.htm
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_pm/img_2879.htm
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_12_East_Coast_HLG_contest/img_3083.htm

Handlaunch F3B was fun to watch:
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_pm/img_2958.htm

Denny's model after a powerful midair (full power launch from Oleg and
another plane wandered into the kill zone):
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_pm/img_2842.htm

Parasitic drag:
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_pm/img_2920.htm

As you can see from this shot of Adam (RED) launching, the weather was
slightly more agreeable (i.e. perfect) Sunday:
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_12_East_Coast_HLG_contest/img_3026.htm

I'll let Oleg caption this picture of Denny:
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_12_East_Coast_HLG_contest/img_3073.htm

The skies were quite beautiful; this is a shot of two planes circling
in lift:
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_12_East_Coast_HLG_contest/img_3084.htm

Here's a picture of three planes going up simultaneously:
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_12_East_Coast_HLG_contest/img_3127.htm

Since it's taken me entirely too long to finish this email, I'll
finish out with one of the group photos I took.  This is the one where
my camera fell over just as the picture was taken:

http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_12_East_Coast_HLG_contest/img_3197.htm


Full galleries are here:

http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_am/
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_11_East_Coast_HLG_contest_pm/
http://www.diff.net/media/2003_10_12_East_Coast_HLG_contest/

Thanks again,
Peter Jensen


1: Thornburg's 'Old Buzzard's Soaring Book'
2: Dymond D60 servo, outermost hole in the standard yellow horn.  I
suspect the failure was caused by my pushrod sticking out and catching
on the grass; I'm going to reinforce the horns with some carbon and
modify my pushrod attachment so there's less junk sticking out in the
front to catch.

-- 
Peter Jensen  ... http://www.diff.net/peter ... jensen@cc.gatech.edu