We have set a date for our first Senior Pattern event. It's October 8, 2011 at Texas Wings Flying Club. With some help from the Fort Worth Thunderbirds (who have put on this event for a few years now) we hope this to be a great success.

We are following the same guidelines as Thunderbirds to make it simple for our first event.
Pilot registration 8am - 9am.
Contest begins at 10am.
SPA rules apply to patterns and aircraft (I don't think electrics will be allowed yet).
Classes are B-Novice, Novice, Sportsman, and Expert.
Awards for each class will be presented at the end of the day as well as a pilot's raffle.
The entry fee is $20 which includes lunch and one raffle ticket but additional raffle tickets may be purchased.
At this point I know one of the raffle items is a fiberglass 60 size Dirty Birdy and possibly the 60 size fiberglass Cutlass if I can get it molded by then. I have contacted other vendors and we are waiting on responses so stay tuned for more info.

The main goal is to meet others, learn more about the classic pattern days, and have a great time. This will not be a formal event. If you thought about just coming to check it out then bring a plane that has the maximum engine size of .61 two stroke and .91 four stroke and fly in the B-Novice and try it out. (There are some other basic rules so let me know if you have questions). A Tower Kaos or World Models Intruder are two great airplanes to start with (on the Kaos a .46 is way over powered so if you have a .40 size then you'll be fine). If you've never done this before we will help you. We could even meet you the day before so we can go over the maneuvers. If you can do a loop, a roll, and a stall turn then you've got most of the skills you need so come out and give it a try.

If you are interested in competing please let me know by PM on RCU or email: http://txwings.com/?q=node/9 That link will take you to our club page and click on my name Tim Reed and it will open up your email account to send an email. Then I will add you to the email list that was started in this area so I can get an idea of how many pilots there will be.

We still have to get the Event's Calendar approved by club vote next month but I don't expect any problems with it.
The other event organizers and I are very excited to host this event. We are a sport club and we are really easy going so I think everyone will have fun.
For those that are traveling and are interested in pylon racing there is a pylon race at the Golden Triangle club on Sunday so let me know and I'll get the contact information.

I'm there! The Thunderbirds contest was really great and I'm looking forward to flying this time with my Kaos.

Me too! Your field is the closest to my house!

Cheers,

Blake

Cool, you two are already on the mailing list (the same one Thunderbirds is using). I have some interest from Houston and Austin so that's going to be fun.

Tim

Can't wait ! Had the best time ever at T-birds event

Kaos is very close to being ready to fly!

Update. We have a few more weeks to go before the TX Wings event. http://www.seniorpattern.com/contests.htm Since the summer was so hot we had to put off building the drawing and raffle prizes because the small parts I did make this summer was curing before I finished laying them up [X(]
Hopefully we will have them done for the event or shortly after. (Dave, I should be doing your Cutlass at the same time). Tony did finish one of the Dirty Birdys and it flies great. I was hoping for a Dirty Birdy and a Cutlass for the pilot drawing and raffle but they will both be Dirty Birdys. I'm finding it very difficult to get support from vendors even though I sent out letters in May so that's why we've included two Dirty Birdys with the other prizes.

This is our first event so we are making some mock runs to prevent some hiccups. We have concessions wrapped up. We are finalizing volunteers and judges still but we have many candidates and this should be wrapped up this week.

Lindy tells me there will be 5 pilots from Oklahoma, maybe 1 from Arkansas, and a few more from South Texas so we should have around 25.

Plaques will be given out like at the Oklahoma and Thunderbird events (maybe Tony or Blake will show us their 1st place plaques they got at the Thunderbird's event).

It is a grass field so if you have small wheels you might get some bigger ones

All proceeds go to the field to help support our membership drive.

Thanks, Tim

It is a nice plaque [8D] Looking forward to the event! By the way, the Dirty Birdy looks fabulous. Good job on that project.

Thanks Blake. I think the Phoenix 6 and the Cutlass will be great planes too but I should be finished with my DB soon. It's curious to see how they all fly. So far we've flown the Super Kaos, Atlas, and the Dirty Birdy.

Tim

Don't sweat the Cutlass, Tim. I won't get to it until later this year.

[X(]
I'm really excited and impressed with the "spirit" being generated in Texas, especially this past season.

It wasn't that long ago that I went to my first SPA event "just to watch", and before I knew it, President Bruce Underwood had me talked into forking over $25.00 entry fee, and I was competing....competing?? Oh man...I'm not so sure I wanted to do that and look "stupid" in front of everyone.........but now it's too late to change my mind.

OK, my first round. Bruce's son was called over to demonstrate the pattern, and how it should look. It looked perfect, (I'll take his scores). Nothing all that hard really...half the maneuvers you do anyway every flight, (take off, three loops, a couple rolls, flying straight, turning, then flying back along the same path...that's not too hard. Well anyway, my caller helped me start the plane and carry it out to the runway, and all of a sudden I noticed my hands were shaking. There was something "challenging" about performing maneuvers in front of two judges...it made me want to practice more, and made every flight have a purpose. Back to the story....I increased the throttle, and the plane roared, then veered off straight into the weeds. [X(] My caller looked at me like I was from "lower podunk". Anyway, that was the start of my illustrous SPA career back in 2005. We have all been there.

I flew Novice for five years until I finally got "good enough" to "point out", then I moved up to Sportsman this season. SPA has been the best thing ever to happen to me "R/C hobby wise", and every contest is special with its own "flavor". The hardware you take home is just icing on the cake, the REAL prize that you always take home with you are the memories, and the fun with like-minded pilots.

I'm glad Bruce put my feet to the fire and got me involved...it's been the most fun I've ever had in R/C, and I've met the best group of guys you can imagine. It changed me into a "vintage pattern pilot"...competition without spending a ton of money. I liked it so much I wrote an article for Model Aviation in 2006 about my SPA experience, then another one in 2007. I wanted others to know about it.

If you're even thinking, (just a little bit), that this might be fun, you owe it to yourself to come out and try it...you WILL like it. I've seen the story repeated over and over again with dozen of guys since my first year, and they all say the same thing...the same thing that "Capjun" said above.

Duane Wilson
SPA Board of Directors Member
Newsletter Editor

You captured it perfectly Duane. When it's over you feel like you just participated in the greatest thing RC has to offer.

Good news, Hobbico just announced they are supplying some goodies.

My wife is preparing the Dirty Birdy molds for someone's new pattern ship (we use a vacuum and peel-ply so they don't have to be laid up while green) so hopefully I'll get one laid up tonight, and everything else is falling into place (in part with the help of Gary taking care of the lunches).

Tim

Whew, I never knew hosting our own Pattern Event would be so draining but what a blast
It was an overcast day with the wind blowing down the runway about 14 mph but there were not crashes. A couple of engines broken loose including mine when I loaned it to another contestant who almost lost one when his receiver got wet from a fuel leak and was going to have to quit. But I forgot to tell him that it's set up to where you really have to yank on the sticks to get it to move on low rates so the landing flare didn't happen. The engine mount broke clean and that was the only damage.

A new member to our field Lou ran the computer scoring program and with the support of the Thunderbird guys our event, although starting out a bit rough, ran smooth after lunch. There were too many supporters to mention here but I want to say Thank YOU to all.

We had a contestant from Arkansas and one from Mississippi (the Oklahoma guys couldn't make it) and we had 19 contestants (2 of which were 'proxy' pilots). The contestant count was as follows (6) B-Novice, (7) Novice, (3) Sportsman, (1) Expert (who one first by a small margin ). Texas Wings had 2 pilots, Thunderbirds had I think 14. The B-Noice winner was only 9 years old!

We had a couple gifts from Hobbico (thank you guys very much) and we gave away two Dirty Birdy kits (congratulations to Mark Ehlers and Dave Dingman). I'll get some photos up as soon as they send them. We had one DB drawing just for registered pilots and one as a raffle. All donated gifts from Hobbico were in the pilot's drawing and the raffle items consisted of club and member donated gifts.

I can't wait till next year. Happy building season everyone (in the Northern hemisphere).

Tim Reed

Tim, if you don't mind, unless I receive a different version later, can I use this one for the SPA newsletter?

Sounds very familiar and very similar to the first contest we held in Asheville, NC, which was also a one-day event that first year. Your experience is very similar to everyone else running their first contest. We got help our first year from the "boys from Knoxville", and that made all the difference.

The contest the following year was our first 2-day, and we were largely on our own, and had all kinds of problems from the scoring program to judging order etc etc. We ran out of scoresheets and had to print more, and made a lot of "on the fly" decisions, but we made it. We have now held six consecutive contests.

Send me some photos.

Duane Wilson
SPA Newsletter Editor

Billy should be sending you a write up soon. I'll check on his progress.

Tim

I might combine everything into one...I liked you basic write-up.

Duane

Here's a group photo

Our B-Novice winner Parker

We had a great time, and really enjoyed your event. Let's do it again!!! From my perspective it did not feel rough in the begining, just slow. What happened was, two lines were run, and like the Thunderbird contest they had Novice B and Novice together, and Expert with Sportsman. Problem was, combined Expert and Sportsman had four pilots, and the rest were on the other line. It sped up when they moved novice to our line, it moved quick. We really could have flown another round!!!

I know we could have, I was just excited to give those planes away!

Great picture for the newsletter...I can already envision a caption something like, "there is nothing "senior" about SPA" Aerobatic competition in front of the judges is "ageless". What is vintage in design for us is a new, cool design for him.

Duane

As Blake said I moved Novice from the North end to the South and ran Novice and B-Novice back to back to finish the second round. Then Expert and Sportsman ran two more rounds on the South back to back to finish up their 4th rounds while Novice ran their 3rd round on the North and then moved to the South for the 4th. Then B-Novice did the 3rd and 4th on the North end. The day ended with the last pilot in the Novice and B-Novice ending around the same time.
It was hard to tell the numbers of contestants were so lopsided but after making a new list it was down hill from there.

Duane, feel free to put a creative touch on the two write ups to get the picture painted.

If anyone else took pictures please send them to me via the email on txwings.com website under officers.

Tim