The 15th annual Tulsoar Last Fling of Summer was a three day contest held on September 20 through 22, 1996. Friday was the hand launch event, which was a new addition to the format. Two meter was flown Saturday morning followed by the first two rounds of unlimited in the afternoon. Sunday there were to be three rounds of unlimited, followed by a fly off for overall champion and an awards ceremony. The contest was not as well attended as last year, but a competitive group put on a pretty good show. SLNT was represented very well by four fliers.
Bill Maserang and your reporter drove to Tulsa Friday morning for the hand launch which was held in the afternoon to provide for travel time. The format was five rounds often minute time slot with progressive tasks such as five two minute max followed by three three minute max, and two four minute max with a few variations. An interesting form of zip start was provided for those not wishing to fling it. This consisted often feet of rubber with twenty feet of braided line. The unique parts were that each zip start was limited in rubber stretch by extending thirty feet of the line down the middle of the rubber tube so that the rubber could only be stretched until the string pulled tight and no further. Additionally, each zip start kit came with a spike with a wooden block glued on top for anchoring in the ground and a handle with a hook for attachment to the anchor ring on the rubber to allow for the timer to hand hold the anchor end of the launcher. This would allow a flier and his timer to roam around the field in search of good air, drive the spike into the ground at that point or launch using the handle, then move to another location for the next launch. Very few of the nine fliers took advantage of the mobility of the launchers though eventually several of the zip starts were anchored at various locations around the field, and were shared by fliers based on where they landed or wanted to launch. Those using the zip starts consistently had better flights than those thrown, so the devices were not successful as equalizes. The air was not generating strong lift and the wind built and grew colder as the afternoon progressed so that very few long flights were achieved. The trick was getting a good launch and riding it out for as long as possible without giving up too much ground to the wind so that the plane could be recovered for the next flight. Your reporter was fortunate enough to win flying his Skeeter, and Bill Maserang took second with his brand new Monarch.
Henry Bostick and Mark Williams arrived in Tulsa Friday evening to join the flying Saturday morning. Dale Nutter held his usual reception Friday evening at his home which is always a treat. The morning Saturday was very pleasant with light breezes predominantly from the North and winches set up for a wind shift to the South that never came. Landings were runway style that were switched to up wind after the first round. The task was precision duration with the time set at the beginning of each round by the CD.
The times were intentionally set to be long to challenge the fliers. The scoring was based on one point per second plus 100 points for the landing. This placed an especially high premium on the landing points. For example, the task for the first round was seven minutes, which meant that a perfect flight would be worth 520 points total, of which 100 points or 18% was landing points. Most of the tasks were 10 minutes which made the total 700 points with 14 % from the landing. By comparison, a more normal contest scoring scheme for SLNT is 1OOO points for making the time, plus 100 points or 9 % for the landing. Normalization was done for the entire two meter event and for the unlimited event for combining scores for an overall championship that did not include the hand launch part (darn it).
Mark Williams finished third and Henry Bostick got fifth place in two meter. Bill Maserang stalled his Banshee on a down wind turn on landing in the early rounds and could not continue the event. Your reporter had fun.
Sunday dawned windy and got windier. At least the winches were pointed the right way. Wave lift over the river to the South of the sod farm and beyond was the dominant means of making time for those whose eyes and airplanes could reach out to where the wave went up. Two rounds on Sunday were added to the two rounds from Saturday to determine the unlimited event. Dale Nutter won the unlimited event with Henry second and yours truly sixth. Bill Maserang was 11th and Mark Williams 14th.
The top fliers based on the combined results of the two events then launched for a ten minute fly off for the overall. Mark and Henry were in this group. Of the five, three were down in less than three minutes and the fourth was down in less than four. This left Henry alone in the air burying Dale Nutter, the leader from the combined scores, and the others to take the overall with over eight minutes. Henry was of course too gracious to gloat over the outcome.
At the awards ceremony, a major portion of the hardware was carried off by the proud contingent from your SLNT. This event is always enjoyable and well worth the trip. A special bonus was to see the majesty of a native bald eagle in the wild soaring free over the field. This is a very special bird and symbol of our great nation and it is great to see such tangible evidence of its comeback.
T.M.
