Contest Flight report- Multi Round Madness

April 5, 2003

Elsberry, MO 

 Our open meet, originally scheduled for Feb 15th and postponed because

 of snow, finally got off the ground at Elsberry on April 5th. The morning

 came after a week of beautiful sunny, 70+ degree weather to, you guessed

 it... gray skies, cold and windy conditions! But, not too cold or windy to

 stop 3 die-hard competitors from battling it out on the fields of Elsberry.

 The Masters of Mayhem (aka T-421, John Buckley and Bruce Weidner) ,

 Dave Welch, and Dave Woebkenberg signed their CB-170s and prepared

 for a day of mad competition. Dave Woebkenberg in case you didn't

 know, is a member of Launch Crue, and drove in from Holland, IN to

 attend our little contest.

 First event up was predicted duration. MOM put up the first flight on a

 Big Bertha with a B6-4 predicting 30 sec. The time came in at 19 s. for a

 disappointing score of 36.7%. Dave Woebkenberg put up an Alpha on a

 B6-4 predicting 45s and posting an actual time of 42s for a nice score of

 6.7%. He was feeling pretty good about this until Dave Welch came up.

 Dave, making his competition rocketry debut, smoked his competition

 putting up a flight on a C6-5 predicting 50s and posting a flight of

 EXACTLY 50s for an amazing score of 0%!! Dave then went over to the

 Sport range and tried to smoke the RSO table when his rocket, flying on

 a G64 reload, blew out the forward closure, and came screaming in behind

 the RSO table belching smoke and flaming propellant. The flaming

 wreckage was promptly stomped out by crack RSO Jeff McCoy. See

 Dave, you should have listened to me and come over to the contest range

 and put up a B PD flight instead! So the final standings for Predicted

 Duration:

 1st: Dave Welch 0%

 2nd Dave Woebkenberg 6.7%

 3rd Masters of Mayhem 36.7%

 Next event up was 1/4A SD MR (thats 1/4A streamer duration

 Multiround for the comp neophytes in the audience). Dave Woebkenberg

 and MOM decided to fly this event first as it was still fairly windy. We

 reasoned that we wouldn't have to chase models very far in spite of the

 wind. Dave put up 3 flights with times of 20/25/14s using a tiny little 13

 mm model off a launch lug. MOM put up 3 flights of a somewhat bigger

 model using a fixed head piston launcher, posting times of 26/23/12s.

 The final standings:

 1st Masters of Mayhem 61s

 2nd Dave Woebkenberg 59s

 A close contest!

 By this time the wind had calmed down somewhat and had shifted around

 to the NNE with occasional lulls. The sun was shining and the thermals

 were active! Bruce Weidner (MOM#2) was skeptical when I told him

 this. Look Bruce, you can see the thermals, see the heat rising off the

 field, them are thermals said I (MOM#1). Bruce said You cant see

 thermals said Bruce. He then mumbled something about invisible naked

 ladies and wandered off. Anyway it was time for the killer event of

 Multiround Madness, B parachute duration, multiround. In this event you

 can make a total of three flights but you only get to use two models! That

 means that in order to make that third flight, you have to get one of your

 flights back. There is also a maximum flight time of 240s. Anytime

 beyond this doesn't count. Anyway, again MOM and Dave Woebkenberg

 were the only participants, Dave Welch declining to participate as noted

 above. For the first flight both MOM and Dave tried to get a flight back

 using tiny 12 inch parachutes. Dave put a Viking on B6-4 and posted a

 time of 151s, a nice flight but with a 10 mph wind guess what, that's about

 1/2 mile downrange! Sheesh! MOM put up the next flight with a 18 long

 model out the tower but no piston 117s. Also a ways downrange. We had

 a good line on both models and went out and searched using a GPS but to

 no avail in spite of an hour spent. For the second flight Dave put up a

 flight in an Alpha on a B6-4 with another 12 chute in hopes of getting it

 back but posted another flight almost as good as the first, 131s. And

 another model lost downrange to the wind. MOM decided to go for broke

 with 30 inch black plastic parachute, flying off a floating head piston

 launcher with a B6-6. The result was a nice straight up boost and perfect

 deployment of the chute. And the model caught a nice thermal, floating

 up and down until it drifted out of sight. The first timer lost it at about 5

 minutes but Dave timed the model out until just shy of 8 minutes! A

 beautiful flight and end of the contest! Now I need to build that

 dethermalizer for NARAM! The final results for B PD MR:

 1st Masters of Mayhem 117/MAX/0 total 357s

 2nd Dave Woebkenberg 151/131/0 total 282s

 And finally the points. It should be noted that we had to downgrade the

 meet to a local contest since we did not have the required 5 contestants.

 1st Masters of Mayhem 272

 2nd Dave Woebkenberg 192

 3rd Dave Welch 80

 And finally thanks to Dave Woebkenberg, who drove here from Indiana to

 participate, and to everyone who allowed me to drag them over to the

 contest range to serve as timers your help is appreciated!

 And, Lila, the results are in the mail!

 John Buckley