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Flying begins at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. The weather may become a concern by the weekend. The weather guessers are beginning to talk about wind and the possibility of rain for the weekend. Everyone think dry!
The Pilots/Aircraft page has been updated with only a few more to be added tomorrow. Thursday's Unknown and Known sequences are posted on the sequences page.
Till tomorrow...
Wednesday, October 18th, 4:20 p.m.
The Unknown Round is complete and the Freestyle is in progress. Almost everyone has come out swinging in the Free. Most have been down on the deck as if this was the Sunday final with everything on the line! Chris Lakin was first up in the Free and set the tone with a blender that put his tail through the tree tops! He flew out of it with no ill-effect, but it certainly get everyone's heart pumping. Gerald Neel experienced a peculiar moment in his Free when his engine ran backwards for a few seconds in flight! It couldn't have happened at a better time. He was on a slow downline when the smoke could be seen billowing back forward through the prop. At the bottom of the line it flipped back to normal rotation and Gerald continued through the rest of his program as if it was intended all along.
The Unknown round finished up with only one serious incident. Stefan Fink's FiberClassics G-202 threw a prop blade while in level flight at a mid to high throttle setting. The plane shook violently with the instant imbalance of the partial prop blade. Stefan was able to shut it down and land successfully but the vibration had already done its damage to the all-composite airframe. The motor box was torn nearly off the plane, with further damage to the tail-post, ailerons and a shattered canopy. We'll have photos later this evening. A great example why not to stand in line with the prop during engine runups! Stefan declined to fly the Freestyle round to use the time to setup his back up plane, a FiberClassics Extra 330.
More details and photos will be posted later tonight.
Wednesday, October 18th, 1:45 p.m.
TOC 2000 got underway this morning under clear skies and calm conditions. The first flight was at 8:15 a.m. The Unknown was flown first, with the Known in progress now, and a first look at everyone's Freestyle to come this afternoon.
Bill Hempel had a rude awakenning this morning...overnight someone had broken into his trailer and stolen the wings and stabs of BOTH his primary and backup aircraft! Ivan Kristensen has kindly lent Bill his backup aircraft, an Edge 540. Bill's first round this morning--the Unknown--was his first flight with the plane.
Peter Goldsmith broke a muffler on his big Cap about mid-way through his Unknown sequence. Not knowing what had happened, he aborted the remainder of the flight in favor of playing it safe and protecting his equipment for the later rounds.
Scores for the first round are posted below. The Known is in progress now and will be posted as soon as the scores are published.
More, including photos later.
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