District 7 Season Championship Finals

Time flies when you are having fun!  For the 2^nd time this season, a total of 23 pilots embarked on Arvin, CA, located 15 minutes south of Bakersfield.  The season-ending championship was held at the Bear Mountain Fliers Club, a beautiful flying site with a matted runway, covered pit area, and electricity.

Despite cloudy skies in the morning, weather turned out great with blue skies and a light breeze in the afternoon on both days.  The contest was a blast with 6 rounds of outstanding flying in all classes with no mishaps!  Perhaps this was due to the fact that all fliers were well-fed.  Jon Carter and Bill Wallace generously provided Chili and hot dogs for lunch each day.  On Saturday night, a camp fire cookout provided a delicious tri-tip dinner with all the fixings thanks to Mike, Jean, Dale and his wife along with good conversation and camaraderie.

Now on to the important stuff J The results of all classes:

In Sportsman/Sportswoman we had two pilots coming into the championship finals tied in points.  It would come down to “winner takes all.”  Jean Greear with some outstanding flying took 5 out of 6 rounds winning the 2010 Championship.  Lawrence Tougas did not make it easy for Jean applying pressure in all 6 rounds.  Congratulations Jean, our 2010 District 7 Sportswoman Champ!  Up next, with a total of 3 pilots in the Intermediate class.  Jacob “Young Gun” Boracca was already ahead in points to take the championship and competed taking 4 out of 6 rounds.  Pedro Brantuas chased Jacob during all 6 rounds, winning 2 rounds.  Great flying Jacob and congratulations on your 2010 District 7 Championship. 2^nd Place was awarded to Pedro.  Newcomer Mike Eberle took third place.  In Advanced, three pilots had a chance of taking the championship based on the overall points.  Dale Olstinske was intent to take the championship back to Northern California and he did just that by winning 5 out of 6 rounds thereby ending Mike and Jarvis’ hopes.  Bob Gillespie finished in 4^th place.  Congratulations to Dale for his outstanding flying and obtaining the 2010 Advanced District 7 Championship.  Masters being the largest class as usual, with 9 pilots in attendance, Tony Frakowiak, Kris Fitzsimmons, and Jerry Budd each totaling 100 points going into this final contest.  With Tony winning the first 3 rounds, Kris taking round 4, Tony taking round 5, and Chris Atwood winning the final round 6.  When the dust settled it was Tony Frackowiak winning the contest and taking the 2010 District Championship.  2^nd Place was awarded to Chris Atwood, third to Kris Fitzsimmons, followed by Jerry Budd, Greg Frohriech, Jon Carter, Bruce Brown, Bill Wallace, and Jim Oddino.  FAI, with 3 of the 5 pilots in contention for the championship with 100 points each, Matt Kimbro, Don Atwood, and Steve Hannah.  It would be another “winner takes all.”  Matt Kimbro put in some excellent flying taking all six rounds as well as the 2010 FAI Championship.  Don Atwood followed first place winner Matt.  Steve Hannah took third, followed by Jim Kimbro and our very own NSRCA President, Derek Koopowitz.

In closing, with good weather and a well-run competition it was a great ending to a perfect beginning.  A big thanks to the Bear Mountain Fliers Club for the use of their great field.  Thank you to Jon Carter and Kris Fitzsimmons for CD’ing and co-CD’ing this year’s District 7 finals.  Thank you for all the hard work.  A special thank you to Preston Knepper of the Tailwinds Flying Club for scoring the contest, giving Mike and Jean the opportunity to concentrate on their flying. 

Hope to see you next year during the 2011 season. 

“Keep those wings level and watch your Box!”

From the Southland

Jarvis

SCORES:

North/South Shootout

South Takes The Win!

SPORTSMAN/SPORTSWOMAN

4000.000 1st Jean Greear ( 2010 Dist Champ)
3937.563 2nd Lawrence Tougas

INTERMEDIATE

4000.000 1st Jacob Boracca (2010 Dist Champ)
3958.126 2nd Pedro Brantuas
3754.510 3rd Mike Eberle

ADVANCED

4000.000 1st Dale Olstinske ( 2010 Dist Champ)
3898.470 2nd Mike Greear)
3841.341 3rd Jarvis Johnson
3733.615 4th Bob Gillespie

MASTERS

4000.000 1st Tony Frackowiak ( 2010 Dist Champ)
3914.097 2nd Chris Atwood
3903.387 3rd Kris Fitzsimmons
3858.719 4th Jerry Budd
3629.369 5th Greg Frohriech
3544.669 6th Jon Carter
3532.266 7th Bruce Brown
3506.483 8th Bill Wallace
3395.109 9th Jim Oddino

FAI

4000.000 1st Matt Kimbro ( 2010 Dist Champ)
3821.471 2nd Don Atwood
3783.646 3rd Steve Hannah
3726.370 4th Jim Kimbro
3577.629 5th Derek Koopowitz

"Call your box"

Jarvis Johnson

From the Southland

FINAL SCORES:

No Sportmans

INTERMEDIATE

4000.000 Pedro Brantuas
3876.213 Mike Stroup
3871.825 Greg Meierhoff
3689.422 Mark Bidar
3537.740 David Saenz

ADVANCED

3978.483 Jarvis Johnson
3971.558 Steven Dente
3948.933 Mike Greear
3806.627 Tak Takayama
3728.619 Bob Gillespie
2700.401 Jim Bronowski

MASTERS

3992.682 Jerry Budd
3987.827 Krishlan Fitzsimmons
3836.999 Greg Frohnriech
3749.255 Jon Carter
3642.943 Bruce Brown
3628.758 Bill Wallace
3547.945 John Contreras
3460.261 Tim Attaway
3341.595 Steve Kaneshiro
3170.554 Chuck Hartman

FAI
4000.000 Steve Hannah

There has been a fair amount of discussion locally here at our pattern contests this year about the declining number of pilots. Various theories have been put forth; bad economy, strange weather, general burnout … and I believe that they all do play a role in our declining attendance. The 1 day contest CD’d by Luke Peng (Assistant CD Kevin Sung) for the Tomcats club at the Santa Clara County Model Aircraft Skypark gave a great example of how to turn this around. First; Luke and the other pattern flyers at the Tomcats club have been practicing there every Saturday morning for most of the year. They are always friendly and willing to assist and talk to the sport pilots at the club. As a consequence, there were 3 sport pilots who attended the contest (two of whom were flying in their first contest ever!) I spoke with all of them after the contest and they all had a great time and are planning to attend more contests locally. Second; several of the local IMAC flyers had expressed some interest so they had been receiving lots of “encouragement” from all of the local pattern guys so we got 3 IMAC flyers. The end result of all of this local recruiting effort was that there were 23 pilots at this 1-day contest! This is only one short of the largest contest we have had in the district this year. The other positive was that we had 5 pilots in Sportsman and 6 in Intermediate! It is very nice to see large participation in these classes as they truly represent the future of pattern.

On to the contest!

We had a low overcast in the morning so we couldn’t get started till ~ 10:30 when it lifted. After that we had crystal clear blue skies with 10 to 12 mph breezes. Luke and Kevin kept things moving so all classes who wanted to were able to get in 4 rounds by 5:00PM. There was nice flying in all of the classes but I wanted to mention Jacob Boracca in Intermediate. I don’t think he has lost a round yet this year. Also noteworthy were Jon Bruml in Advanced and Chris Fitzsimmons in Masters, they both flew very well and easily won their classes. Matt Kimbro really showed a smooth and precise flying style in winning FAI. Matt went back to the Nats this year and made the finals in FAI, not an easy task at all! Congratulations Matt!

Scores

Sportsman

1^st Shawn Berkheimer          2934

2^nd Dave Shirley Jr                2799

3^rd John Ribble                      2264

4^th Carlos Tripodi                  2043

5^th Michael Fan                     2000

Intermediate

1^st Jacob Boracca                 3000

2^nd Ron Davies                      2841

3^rd Maurice Culverwell          2738

4^th Joe Alves                          2597

5^th Chris Belden                    2477

6^th Daniel Culverwell 2191

Advanced

1^st Jon Bruml                          2000

2^nd Terry Walker                    1790

Masters

1^st Chris Fitzsimmons           3000

2^nd Jon Carter                        2755

3^rd Luke Peng                        2736

4^th Bill Sneed                         2724

5^th Don McCullough              1846

FAI

1^st Matt Kimbro                      3000

2^nd Don Atwood                    2907

3^rd Jim Kimbro                       2824

4^th Tom Messer                     2668

5^th Adrian Wong                    2493

Thanks,

Jonathan L. Carter

The weekend of June 5th and 6th, the Phil Kraft Memorial attracted 18 pilots from across District 7. They embarked on the flying grounds of Whittier Narrows, located just 15 miles east of Los Angeles.  This tournament pays tribute to one of the legends in RC modeling, Mr. Phil Kraft.  The 10th competition in the 2010 flying season.  We had great weather with temperatures in the high 90's.  We were able to put in 6 rounds and pass out trophies by 2:30 pm on Sunday. With no Sportsman flyers present and only 2 Intermediate pilots, Alex Shim and Mike Callas, who had a great battle throughout the weekend with Mike taking Round 1 and Alex the next 5 rounds and the win.  In the Advanced class, 5 pilots tangled all weekend long with no clear winner until the very end. With 4 pilots each winning a round, "big" Mike Greear came out on top passing Tak Takayama with a mere 11 points.  Bob Gillespie took 3rd and myself ended up in 4th place, seven points behind Bob. With 8 pilots present in the Masters class, it was once again the Tony Frackowiak "show."  Being quite dominant, Tony won all 6 rounds.  Jerry Budd put in some great flying but unfortunately the rudder cable broke during round 4 and almost cost Jerry his plane when landing hitting the safety fence breaking off his wing ending his day. Greg Frohriech also put in some good flying to finish in 2nd place with "Sir" William Bill Wallace, working his way up to 3rd place.  Bruce Brown followed with Steve Kaneshiro, Jerry, Chuck Hartman, and Leon Robison. In FAI it was once again the father and son team of Jim and Matt Kimbro.  Going at it with tooth and nails with Matt flying his new Visa electric, for the very first time at a contest.  Matt was able to take 2 of 4 rounds in P-11 and 2 of 2 rounds in F-11 winning by just 20 points over dad with Bill Sheets holding the 3rd spot.  A Shout-Out, to Lynn Burks for doing such a great job CD'ing the contest.  Also a thank you to Jean and Mike for the scoring and to the Whittier Narrows modeling club for the use of their field.

So until the next contest, "You call that a Snap"