HI Everybody,

Wow what a great time. I showed up at the field at sunset friday night just in time for a steak dinner and beers with Melissa and Mike Hester. I camped under the full moon with wild coyotes going crazy all around the airport. Kind of spooky but really a great place to camp.

The NARCA field is a perfect place for a pattern meet, a really nice grass strip, it is actually a public airport. The box is pretty much wide open with a small tree line on the left side. We where looking into the sun until about 10:30, then the only issue was intense heat. I bet it was close to 100° by early afternoon. The local club really came out to support the meet, lots of really nice guys. We had to slow things down a couple of times while some full scale models needed the full length of the runway for takeoff or landing.

This was my second experience judging, I think I judged 5 rounds of intermediate. Between flying my rounds, calling and coaching the new sportsman pilots, judging and hydrating, I never got a chance to get my camera out, sorry Brian. I know there where others shooting so hopefully somebody reading this thread will post some pictures.

There was a lot of really great flying going on, Jon had an excellent meet, he and Gary where going head to head in Intermediate all day long. Larry put together some excellent rounds and came up to take 3rd place, congrats to all!

I really got a good look at the Intermediate sequence. I am guessing I judged about 40 flights in total. It really is a good thing for sportsman pilots to judge, as you learn so much while doing it. And I am really looking forward to judging more at Cullman. As soon as the flying was done I refueled and did a number of flights practicing some of the Intermediate maneuvers. That triangle loop is a blast.

While I was flying Lamar came over and invited me back to his house for a jump in the pool and to check out his shop, I was totally impressed at his operation. The way he builds his fuselages is really cool, You all know I am building a couple Black Magics right now, but I kept thinking how cool it would be to have a Black Magic fuse done in nomex with Lamars method. After a dip in the backyard pool, Lamar, Vicky, Melissa, Mike and myself all went out to eat. After dinner I drove home to Atlanta and was in bed by 1 am. That was a busy and fun day.

Where was Marcio and Jim? I was really hoping they were going to show!

see you all at Cullman!

Dean