Author: Dave Garwood
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/02
Page Numbers: 18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25
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Midwest Slope Challenge 2003

Dave Garwood

Slope soaring in Kansas? Yes — Kansas. Although it's surprising to some who may not have flown sailplanes there, it's true. It's windy in the heartland and the topography around Wilson Lake gives us several primo flying sites, and that's why it's been the place of choice for the Lincoln Area Soaring Society's (Nebraska) memorable soaring-event series.

The 10th Midwest Slope Challenge (MWSC) was held May 15–18, 2003, at Wilson Reservoir in Lucas, Kansas. This is the longest-running slope racing event in North America. There were 53 pilots registered, and they traveled from 13 states, England, and Germany. This is clearly a national event, with significant international participation by a couple of former USA Heartlanders who now live abroad.

One of the great joys for me in attending the event is the time spent in rural America. Lucas is a town of 450, and it gives us slope fliers a warm welcome when we come to town. There was rain on Thursday — enough that we couldn't fly the scheduled event — so the Lucas movie theater opened expressly for us and showed a matinee of The Core. I don't think this would happen in my hometown.

Race pilot Marley Palmer became interested in slope soaring partly because one of our regular flying sites is a pasture on her family's farm and partly because Alden Shipp, "the Johnny Appleseed of slope soaring," has been coaching her in radio-control flying. That week in May was also Marley's high-school graduation.

Of the 17 seniors in the Lucas-Luray Cougars' graduating class, those who were college bound had been awarded $125,000 in scholarships. That's something else I don't think happened in my village.

Another of the MWSC's appealing aspects is the opportunity to talk and fly with designers who are showing their new models. This year's introductions included Mike Bailey flying his Mike's Models 3-meter Fox scale glider, Larry Blevins flying his Magnum Models F-5 Tiger slope jet, and Joe Chovan flying his TufFlight Predator. (TufFlight is the only maker of EPP — expanded polypropylene foam — fuel-powered combat kits.) Also flying were Joe Falconer with his Falcon Air 2-meter scale Fox and Denny Maize racing his new Pole Cat Aeroplane Works V-tail Hammerhead one-design racing-class sailplane.

We also flew with AMA Soaring Contest Board Chairman Doug Barry. In addition to being a good stick on the slope and the thermal field, he's one of those people who gives much more than he takes. Doug volunteered to run the Foamie Warbird race, thus letting Contest Director Loren Blinde fly in his own contest for the first time in five years.

Events

Thursday — a warm-up day — began with a light wind blowing up the east side of the main hill and plenty of flying until rain interrupted for a few hours. After the rain stopped, the breeze stiffened and 20 or more pilots flew, with more arriving each hour.

Friday we woke up to rain — lots of rain. The combat events were postponed and we went to the movies. When the movie let out, the skies had cleared and we flew at Palmer's Pasture until dark.

Friday after supper we tried to return some hospitality to local residents by staging a model air show in Lucas at the local airport. George Voss planned, organized, and honchoed this event, which included control-line flying, electric-powered slow flyers and hotliners, fuel-powered combat matches, hand-launched and winch-launched thermal-duration gliders, bungee-launching slope gliders, and a free-flight helicopter. Attendance was estimated at roughly 150, and it was so well received that I would not be surprised to see more model air shows at future MWSCs.

As tough as weather conditions had been Thursday and Friday, Saturday was worse. The sun came out, but the wind died. There was good direction but poor velocity. The course was set up for the One-Design Race. The event was started, but in most heats most airplanes could not finish the course, going down for lack of lift.

Rules were modified to base the heat on the most distance covered, and it turned into an "all up, last down" event. Todd Martin did the best, appreciating Joe Hosey's strong-arm launches.

On Sunday, all was forgiven for the tricks the weather gods had played on us for three days. Loren Blinde called it "the best and busiest day in the history of MWSC." We had smooth and steady 20 mph winds straight into the hill throughout the day.

In the morning we flew both foamie combat events: flying wings and foamie warbirds. Roger Brining beat all comers to become the Wing King, and Joe Chovan outflew all of the other warbird jockeys.

Unlimited-class racing began in the early afternoon, and it turned out to be some of the best and most hard-fought racing we've seen in years. Many heats were won by inches, and in other heats experienced pilots flew into the dirt, battling it out on the final lap. Jim Porter showed us how to concentrate on flying and have a good time all the while.

The last event was the Foamie Warbird Race. It was so heavily anticipated that crews and the crowd went nuts when we finally got to fly it in good lift. The models looked awesome tearing around the pylons, and even those that hit the pylon (which happens much more often than you'd guess) can often be launched in the next heat. Greg Smith flew to victory in this one.

I have covered the events in brief, mainly because I wanted to leave space for photographs. If you want more information about the event, you'll find roughly 300 photos on SlopeFlyer at www.slopeflyer.com. Much detail is available on the MWSC web site at http://home.att.net/mwsc.

You can also check out New York Slope Dog Rich Loud's report in Flying Models magazine at www.flying-models.com and Loren Blinde's article in R/C Soaring Digest — the last pure slope specialty magazine — at www.b2streamlines.com/RCSD.html.

Dave Garwood 5 Birch Ln. Scotia, NY 12302 Dgarwood@att.net

MWSC 2003 Sponsors

MWSC 2003 Results

Flying-Wing Combat

  1. Roger Brining (Great Bend, KS) — Windrider EPP Bee
  2. Steve Dworsky (Lincoln, NE) — Cavazos Boomerang
  3. (tie) Randy Mohr (Holyrood, KS) — Trick R/C Zagi 3C
  4. (tie) Duane Jenkins (Wrightsville Beach, NC) — Cavazos Boomerang

Conventional Aircraft Combat

  1. Joe Chovan (Syracuse, NY) — own-design Me 109
  2. (tie) Joe Hosey (Wichita, KS) — DAW Foam 51 Mustang
  3. (tie) Todd Martin (Wichita, KS) — DAW Foam Me-109
  4. (tie) Alden Shipp (Lucas, KS) — Aerofoam F4U Corsair

One-Design Race

  1. Todd Martin (Wichita, KS) — CR Aircraft Fun-1
  2. Greg Smith (Milwaukee, WI) — CR Aircraft Fun-1
  3. Joe Chovan (Syracuse, NY) — CR Aircraft Fun-1
  4. Denny Maize (Landisburg, PA) — Pole Cat Aero Hammerhead

Unlimited Class

  1. Jim Porter (Germany) — NYX F3F Carbon
  2. Greg Smith (Milwaukee, WI) — Brian McLean Extreme
  3. Paul Wright (England) — Milan Demcišák Brisk
  4. Mike Bailey (Maize, KS) — own-design 40

Foamie Warbird Race

  1. Greg Smith (Milwaukee, WI) — DAW Foam 51 Mustang
  2. Joe Chovan (Syracuse, NY) — own-design Me 109
  3. Mike Bailey (Maize, KS) — own-design Sea Fury
  4. Todd Martin (Wichita, KS) — DAW Foam Me-109

Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.