Dedicated to those that build and fly wood R/C Sailplanes
Wood Crafters Photo Album and Report
The 5th annual Wood Crafters event is in the books, the fun meter was pegged and I saw lots of smiley faces. This event offers something for everyone, but the best of it is the friendship and camaraderie we all share.
Thursday and Friday most folks flew the ladder and the longest flight task, others flew the Scale aerotow events and some flew just for fun. We use electric retrievers on our winches and they were kept humming from start to finish. Jack Smith and Rick Miller have operated the winches from the very fist WC and do a fantastic job. The Friday night dinner guest speaker was Ken Bates, his subject was "Converting Sailplanes to Electric Power". Ken supplied hand outs for future reference, he was highly informative and we all learned the golden rule for powering a sport sailplane. Thank you very much Ken. As a side note, Sky Bench will have Ken's Windlord design kit (flying wing with huge wing area) available and Ken is going to build his with electric power.
Ladder winners, L-R, First place: Joe Albridge, Second: Chris Jett, third:
Greg Smith.
Longest Flight winner: Joe Albridge
Some may say, Wood Crafters is just a bunch of old guys with woody sailplanes, but if you look at the above pixs, it is obvious this isn't true. The fact is, all the people that help this old guy make this event happen are the oldie but goodie group and the flyers are on the relatively young side of the age scale.
Wood Crafters receives absolutely no press coverage from the Magazines, little support from clubs, even most of the participants don't mention it on the internet, but the people keep coming back year after year. There is a growing number of clubs sponsoring woody events and I hope this continues.
Saturday and Sunday is the Grand Championship contest and the end of four days of scale aero tow. Whereas it was on the windy side Thursday and Friday, Saturday and Sunday were beautiful with blue skies and easy flying conditions. We flew eight rounds of 8 minute duration with the usual 25 foot landing tapes and had four size classes. The total number of entrants in all four classes was 63.
Thursday morning, bright and early, eager faces waiting for Jack Smith to
set up the winches and retrievers from my fun box van.
Ken Bates is always first to be ready to fly.
Gary Bussell's tow plane.
Ian's tow plane.
Bill Grenoble; what am I supposed to be doing ???
The very early birds arrive Thursday, watch Jack unload my fun box for
awhile and then ask........where is the coffee?
Sanford Searl's Sagitta 900
Ray Working the Ladder event.
The Jett family, L-R: Pat, Ed, and Chris.
L-R: Gary Bussell tow pilot, Ken Shaw, Gordon Pearson checking his Pionyr,
Ian helping (he is a great) and Dave Shaw keeping it level.
Gary and Gordon doing their thing.
Joe Albridge launching his Bird of Time.
Greg Smith working the ladder event with his Challenger.
Ray congratulating Bud Green with his OLY ll for his choice of sailplane,
actually, Bud has many woodys in his hanger.
This link will open Bob Kartman's photo web site. Plenty of pix, but with a little less quality than Bob's originals which will appear on this page soon. Use the "Watch DOT Photo Show" to create a slide show of Bob's pix. You can order prints of your favorite photos from Dot Photo that should match the quality of Bob's originals.
http://rkartman.dotphoto.com/CPViewAlbum.asp?AID=3521335
Thanks Bob
Ray Hayes
http://www.skybench.com
Home of Wood Crafters
Bob Robertson launching his Grand Esprit.
Wings level, perfect launch technique for a
woody. Pix is one of many by Bob Kartman
with his telephoto camera, the buildings in the
background are a thousand feet away.
Looks like a gathering at the Pelican's Club in
Port Richey, FL with all the tropical shirts plus
Bruce Herider is wearing a Tangerine T'.
Most guys took there turn at the winches, at times, knowing the air was down, but what the heck, it is all about fun.
Tom Scully launching his Challenger.
It has been a real pleasure watching
Tom become a premier pilot starting
from a Mid South contest back in
the nineties. He is also and outstanding
builder of woodys. Hats off to Tom.
Paul Weise checking the competition.
Ray and his Challenger, hook it up and launch.
Some have asked what the number 29 on the
side of the Challenger is about. I built this
Challenger for the AMA Nostalgia contest
before Wood Crafters was started and wanted
to make it as NOS as possible, so it has a Kraft
Radio sticker, an old NSS (National Soaring Society)
decal, and my old 29 East Coast Soaring Society
membership number dating back to the very
early seventies.