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Scores                                               Photos

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The Alabaster Pilots sent a Get Well card to Bruce Underwood and Jim Johns,
both if whom are recovering from back surgery.
L-R: Norman Bonnette, Jimmy Russell, Duane Wilson, Jeff Owens, Warren Oliver, Charie Johns,
Fred Robertson, Sean Robertson, Ellis Newkirk, Dan Jackson, Anthony Blair and Bill Dodge.
Holding the sign - CD Dave Phillips grand kids Maddie and Will

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Well, the Alabaster SPA contest is in the books for this year, and we had some up and downs, as always, guess that's what drives a CD crazy. First of all the weather guessers were telling us temps were going to be in the mid 90s, with a heat index of 105 deg. with a small chance of rain. Turns out we had a nice cloud cover and a 5 to 7 mph wind that kept the day a little less than miserable!! The field was in great shape thanks to Danny for cutting it right before our contest and it was perfect !!

The pilots started coming in on Thursday, with Ellis Newkirk, Jerry Black, Jamie strong  and Charlie Johns being some of the first to arrive. After a short hanger session with everybody doing the meet and greet thing, the airplanes came out and practice began.

Saturday morning started off with my wife Peggy getting everybody signed up, with a couple of very noticeable people missing, Bruce Underwood and Jim Johns, both recovering from surgeries. All the guys sent a heart warming hello and get well soon to them both. Registration goes very smoothly due to Peggy and her keeping everything organized, and I don't have a clue to what I would do with out her help. She is very good at taking money also! We had a total of 17 pilots which I thought was a great turn out for this time of year.

After a short Pilot's meeting to go over the necessary rules, the flight order was ready for the 9AM start as predicted. I found out something that may be helpful to other CDs I never once gave out the flight order as they all looked where they were on the board!  We set the two flight lines up with Novice, Sportsman and Advanced on flight line one and Expert / Senior Expert on flight two. Don't know how or why but it went smooth as could be !! Great Job to all. We got in 4 rounds for the day as was expected and every one was tired and ready to take a break from the heat. As soon as we stopped flying, a monsoon moved in and washed out the rest of the day! We all blamed it on Warren Oliver as he as going to do some practice flying and had to land due to it raining!! Little did we know the flying was over, as Sunday came around with a 200 foot ceiling of fog and no wind.

A couple of the guys went up to see how thick it was, and lost their plane at the top of a small loop..We waited around as long as we could, thinking it might clear. After looking at the weather radio from the airport telling us it was not going to lift right away. I then had to make a decision to call the contest! I know everybody came to fly but it just did not work out for us .

We had 4 contestants in Novice with Dan Jackson taking First Place followed by Dr. Fred Robertson in second, Anthony Blair in third, and Norm Bonnette in fourth.

Sportsman only had two contestants  but was the closest battle on the board! Charlie Johns took first over Duane Wilson 2978 to 2974 for a total of 4 points separation.

The Advanced class had a total of three contestants with two of the young gun's going at it like they have in the last couple of contest ! Jimmy Russell won this time 3000 with Jim Strong in second at 2916 followed by Bill Dodge 2808 !! 

Expert was our largest class with a total of five contestants with Jerry Black taking the win 3000 to Jamie Strong a close second of 2934 and Warren Oliver in third at 2884. Steve Drake was fourth at 2782 followed by Ellis Newkirk at 2700. Good flying guys ! 

Senior Expert had three pilots entered with Jeff Owens taking the win with perfect scores across the board !  Your truly was in second with having everything under the sun go wrong - from the from half of my motor coming off to losing one aileron then the muffler coupling broke, and lost muffler pressure, engine died and a dead stick landing again. What can I say! Keith Watson signed up and did not fly, but we were very glad to see him and I hope he can get back to flying soon.

We had a couple of airplane kits along with some goodies from Sullivan, Sig and Balsa USA that Jimmy Russell had donated for us to give away! The two airplanes were won by Warren Oliver and Jim Strong!

With all of this being said I must bring up our two grandchildren Maddie and Will along with Anastasia (Anthony Blair's daughter) for all the help with running the score sheets ! They did a great job in-spite of the heat.

It was a fun event and I'm looking forward to next year! If ya didn't make it this time we will look for ya next year.

Dave Phillips, CD

jAlbumHere

Final Scores
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