Good Day Today

Parker and Curtis with one of the Romanian team members in front of them and a couple of the French guys behind them.

There was some good flying today and difficult conditions. What makes this space so challenging is that all of the windows you see in the photos allow the sun to heat up the floor and basically create mini indoor thermals that are very difficult to predict. Where there is rising hot air, it displaces colder air that is on the way down. So the launch is critical because you have to climb above all of this before things smooth out at about 8' above the floor. You can also see that we are in a dome shaped building, so where does all that hot air go, up to the top and then starts to spill back down the sides. So for Parker, challenge number one was getting to the top, challenge number 2 was to deal with his model racing to the side when it got up there. Steering at 90' is not something he has had a lot of practice at but he is certainly getting it now. His last flight today was in position to get him one of the top three spots but he ended up bumping the top of the top three or four times and then racing right for the side of the dome. The steer was challenging and he lost some time and altitude in the process. The good news is that he took 5th place in the Dorcol Cup and just over two minutes separated 2nd and 5th place. It is also encouraging that he flew his yellow plane all day and packed it away tonight with no damage. I think he is in a good spot for the week and the start of the World Championships. There is now two days of practice flying and then the WC starts on Wednesday.
Curtis also posted some good times today and followed right behind Parker in 6th place. On the senior team John Kagan finished 3rd with a two flight score of 1:07:32. Only one minute and nine seconds separating the top three spots. Brett Sanborn had one last flight to try and overtake John after a re-flight due to he and Parker of all people collided at the top of the dome and then came down about 30' tangled together before they finally released.  Some tense moments for sure. Brett finished right behind John in 4th place. Steve Brown, the other member of the senior team spent the day working on getting a proper launch sorted out.
Oh and I almost forgot, what about Denis Tyson...thats how they have chosen to spell my name here. Well I am very pleased with my 14th place finish with a combined two flight time of 46:30. Tomorrow I go into support mode and photo/chronicler stuff. We are really enjoying ourselves and look forward to seeing the fruit of the next couple days of practice.

John Kagan on the podium