Originally Posted by
Dean Bird
My fifth contest in the Unlimited class this year happened last weekend (April 7th & 8th) in Hemet, California. This was my last contest until the World Championships in September. My five Unlimited finishes have been:
Last out of 6
2nd to last out of 5
Last out of 7
3rd to last out of 10
Last out of 3
Flying in the Advanced Class feels like a lifetime ago. My confidence as a pilot has never been lower. That doesn't really matter. We're having fun at the contests. I will fly the World Championships to enjoy the experience and camaraderie with pilots from around the world.
Everyone have a fun summer!!
I finally got the plane back out on the weekend of August 4th to practice for the Advanced class at the IMAC World Championships to be held September 5th - 8th. We had one weekend with the flying field closed due to rain. I'm not used to losing practice time in Arizona due to rain.
I took time off work to practice a few extra days before hitting to road to Muncie, Indiana. On the 2nd to last day of practice before leaving I had an unexpected dead stick. I managed to get it back to the runway safely. Yikes!! I took off the hatch to check the fuel level. The rear zip tie on the fuel tank tray had let go.
Over five years in the desert has made the zip ties very dry and brittle. I noticed a little damage to the instrument panel from the tank moving up on that edge of the tray. It looked like all the fuel lines were still secure. Then I noticed the zip tie had caught the exposed foam edge of the air exit hole on the way out. Aaargh. 
That small area got out in the airstream and took some bigger pieces of color with it and there were cracks on both sides of the damage.In hindsight I can see it would have been a good idea to put a layer of light carbon cloth on that exposed foam edge to give it strength.