|
Introduction
The TOC was perhaps the most rewarding (but difficult) competition
I have ever participated in. It's impossible to come up with a
single word to describe it. For sure, I will remember the experience
for the rest of my life. It was every bit as exciting as I had
imagined. I knew the amount of effort it would take- so I was
somewhat mentally prepared. It took every little bit of energy,
every resource I could muster to pull through it. This short story
documents my experiences and may give you just a little bit of
insight in terms of what it is like competing in the TOC. I always
wondered what it would be like and it always seemed like such
a mystery. I thought that perhaps I could offer some of my views
to give you what I had always wondered- what would it be like
to be a TOC pilot.
 I'll
start off by thanking just some of the people and sponsors that
have played a part in me making it to and through the TOC. A special
thanks to Steve Stricker and Peter Goldsmith for your valuable
insights and advice. Thanks to Bob Santos and the great folks
at Action Hobbies for building the CAP, Kevin and Rocco at Aeroworks
and AJ Lee for building the 39% Edge 540, Klaus Nowak of Quadra
at for selling me the engine, Mike McConville of JR
for sponsoring the radio equipment, Dennis Kirby of Kirby's
Kustom Graphics, AMSOIL
2000 for the oil, John Krohn (Quadra/ Edge lead, engine mechanic),
Tony Szczur/ZZ Enterprises (electrical/lead mechanic), Brian Shipp
(help with covering/cowl/paint), Dale Hubbard (shipping box),
Alex Bruhn (caller/emotional support), Yuri Higuchi (mechanic/music),
Bill Glaze (Las Vegas Connection/staging area), Lloyd Henrichs
(airplane/emotional support), Branwell (Virginia area engine guru,
more emotional support) and most of all, my wife Beth who did
90% of the coordination and administrative stuff to get me in
the right place at the right time.
CHAPTER 1 The
Lakebed Experience (Welcome to the Country Club)
Well, after returning from the U.S. Nationals in July, I had to
get the 46% CAP finished off then trimmed, bugs worked out, boxed
up, and shipped to Vegas (each a story within itself), it was
time to fly out to Las Vegas. My father and I were greeted by
Bill Glaze on the 30th of September at the Las Vegas International
Airport. When we got off the plane at about 10PM it was 96 degrees
outside. I packed a lot of cold weather gear, as I had figured
it would get cold there (thought I had mistaken until the following
week, that is). Bill was a real blessing in that we did not know
anyone in Vegas and he showed us around the area and treated us
like kings. We stayed at Bill's that Saturday night.
On Sunday we drove about an hour outside of Vegas and linked up
with racing legend John Krohn and Tom from Pegasus Hobbies. John
had mounted the engine on the Edge plane using tubing construction
similar to full scale aircraft engine mounts. There is no conventional
engine box on the Edge. The mount ties to the 4 corners of the
front bulkhead, which is strengthened through the stringers to
tie it all together. (there is a picture on the Desert
Aircraft Website) We spent that entire Sunday afternoon taking
planes out of boxes and assembling them in the hotel parking lot.
It felt like 100 degrees outside. Misery. It was quite windy (gusting
to 35 I was told). There was some shade near the parking garage
where set up our staging area. It also blocked most of the wind.
We took a drive out on the lakebed and confirmed the obvious-
yes it was quite windy.
 Monday,
the 2nd of October rolled around; we packed up and went out to
the lakebed to practice. Now, I have been flying for something
like 22 years and I must say that I have never experienced anything
so miserable in my life. The temperature was between 95 and 100,
wind blowing 15 to 30, dirt, dust, hot sun... We did not eat.
It was too hot to have an appetite. My lips were parched, my nose
was bleeding; I did not sweat. We drank a lot of water, and just
tried to survive. Culture shock in the first degree! We got the
Edge together and fired it up. Well, the Edge is powered by Quadra
150. Yes, a Quadra 150! We spent about 45 minutes adjusting the
carburetor trying to get it to run smoothly, especially around
the mid-range, but I was not happy with it (there is a happy ending
if you keep reading on…). It had a bad hesitation around the mid-range
(turned out to be a bad carburator). We richened up the low end
and it helped some. John really wanted to see the plane fly and
I figured, "Gee, we are in the middle of the lake bed, space everywhere,
why not." I took off and flew around some, landed, made some adjustments.
Now when I landed it was so windy that the plane rolled backwards
after it stopped! I took off again- this time I noticed John was
taking some pictures, so I did a knife edge pass into the wind.
As I was doing this I asked John, "How much time do you think
I have before I'm out of gas?", just as I pulled around downwind
and began pulling up into a hover. I lost discipline. Dead engine.
S.O.L. Now, I was probably 50 to 60 ft high with plenty of speed
(ground speed that is) so I pushed down and thought that I was
going to be ok. I must have been going about 40 mph, but with
the wind at 30, I think my airspeed was something like 10. Well
the lakebed was hard and very unforgiving. It severely damaged
everything forward of the tailwheel collar. Thinking back, I love
remembering John and Tom's reaction. They were in utter shock.
"Welcome to the TOC", I thought…this is not for babies. We picked
up the pieces and packed the Edge up for the day. After spending
the last three weeks getting the plane ready to go, John and Tom
could
not commit to re-building the Edge, so John took the engine and
mount back to Los Angeles to check over and straighten. My father
and I would have to rebuild the Edge ourselves. My father looked
at me and asked if I wanted to bring the 46% CAP out to fly. I
was not about to bring out the CAP and fly after this! As tragic
as this might seem, its more common for a TOC competitor to crash
in the weeks leading up to the contest. Some of the stories I
heard about the other competitors make my situation seem about
on par or actually very favorable. I know that Bill Hemple lost
his backup, then it was reported during the first morning of the
contest that someone had broken into his van and stole among other
things his wing and stab for his primary plane. He had nothing
going into the contest. He used Ivan's backup plane. Sebastiano
lost both of his Katina's before the event. So that was my first
day of flying. What an opener.
You have to understand
that in the weeks before I went out to Vegas I had not been getting
much sleep. Just getting everything taken care of at work (so
I could take 3 weeks leave away from my project manager position),
getting the CAP flight worthy for competition, making all the
arrangements such as hotel, airlines, delivery companies, rental
vans, etc. (mostly done by my wife, thank goodness) prior to getting
out there took most of my energy. So from this timeframe forward,
the day of the week, month, year, and century were pretty much
non-existent. There was no such thing as TV, no politics, no weather
checks, no gambling, nothing. Maybe some prayer when I had the
energy, and boy did I need it. There were exactly two categories
of time we had-flying time and maintenance/rebuilding time. Eating
and sleeping were just necessary functions to enable us do the
first two.
 ay
two was windy as usual. To avoid a repeat of the day before, we
ran the Q- 200 in the parking lot to make sure that it would run
ok at this new altitude/atmospheric condition. We did not have
to touch the needle at all and the engine ran great. We saw Chris
Lakin, who had arrived about the same time as us. We set up our
practice area about .7 miles from Chris. For the first week it
was just the two of us. Well we got about 10 cautious flights
on the CAP that day. Lets just say that I had a lot of energy
to fly, having not practiced in about 2 weeks leading up to this.
Practicing in this much wind was really hard, but by now I was
mentally ready for it. I had heard about these "Vegas Winds" and
knew I had to get proficient flying in them. The winds were forecast
at 15 to 25 that day. We started work on re-building the Edge
that night.
Day 3.
We wanted to get out early before the wind picked up to its blistering
pace. After about 3 flights the wind picked up to 15 to 20. Now,
there always seemed to be maintenance items as well. It's hard
to describe all of them but just little things that were needed
to keep the plane going. I think we would spend about 2 to 3 hours
each day on maintenance/checking, rehearsing sequences, writing
out call sheets, etc. Think about it this way- take your flying
season and compress it into two and a half weeks. Think about
all the maintenance and repairs you do etc. and you can get a
sense of the amount of effort it takes to keep the plane flying.
No workshops, no special tools, just work with what you have available
to keep the plane flying. Almost all maintenance was done on the
lakebed. If you want the full experience of the TOC preparation
in person, be a mechanic for a TOC pilot. Here is a plug for George
Asteris' contest in NJ last June. I got first place in F3A and
as a result I won a cordless dremel tool. I used that dremel so
much on the lakebed….I am very happy that I had it. Thanks George
and thanks to the sponsors who donated all the prizes at that
pattern contest! That dremel was a lifesaver for me.
Day 4
Cold and semi-windy conditions. I realized how valuable that cold
weather clothing was! Now I was mentally ready for the wind and
everything, but it changed direction on and got cold. I had to
mentally adjust again. We got in about 3 flights then it started
to get really windy but we kept flying. With a thunderstorm blowing
in, it then got so windy we were lucky to get the plane in the
van without it blowing away. Now, we were told by so many it does
not rain much in the desert, so we sat there to wait out the thunderstorm.
Well, it rained, rained, and rained some more. The clouds were
not moving. We observed that it looked sunny to the north so we
decided to drive up to the TOC field and check it out. Now here
is a real scary experience- driving across a dry lakebed when
its soaking wet. I have never driven on anything so slippery.
It was like ice but worse. Any small movement of the steering
wheel would cause the back of the van to fishtail. Slowly decelerating
to keep from skidding, it took us about 40 minutes to get out
of the lakebed. We got up to the TOC field an hour later and it
was beautiful! Sunny, light breeze. Nobody was there. Now here
goes was my first impression of the TOC site- As we drove up,
mud everywhere, gloomy looking, terrible smell from the rain and
a local waste treatment facility, and small from the vantage point
of the parking lot-- my bubble was burst! No bleachers, no stadium
effect, no grand tents, just a couple of gray cement shelters
and some small t-ball stands. Where was the glitz? Where was the
glamour? After checking out the runway, green grass and pit area,
I realized that it was a very nice flying site…We flew a couple
of times, headed back to Bill's to continue work on the Edge 540.
Bill was nice enough to lend us his garage to work out of to rebuild
the Edge.
Day 5.
We figured the lakebed was still too wet so we went up and practiced
all day at the TOC field. We drove up and got out of the van.
There were about 10 to 12 local fliers there. Then what I experienced
was the most bizarre feeling in my life. As we walked up to the
shelter, everyone was staring at us…a couple of the guys said,
"Do you speak English?" Now I am soft spoken, and based on their
tone it sounded a bit sarcastic, but they kept asking, "Do you
speak English?" Now I was really feeling like we just came from
Mars. Finally, I repeated several times "Yes, I speak English!"
I think it took till the third time before they would believe
us. They were used to foreign competitors arriving a week or two
before the TOC who cannot speak a word of English. We spend the
next several hours getting acquainted with the local flyers and
it was a real treat to hear their stories of past TOC s…
Lots of treasured memories they had. They shut down the field
so I could practice, but I insisted that they keep it open and
fly, as I did not want to disturb things. They made me feel very
special and I'll remember that forever. Keep your dreams alive,
Randy and Allen! I met up with a guy going to an IMAC contest.
His name- Jon Ridpath. We flew a few times and I coached him some.
Hope it helped. He later made me a little model airplane. It was
more than a stick model to practice the sequences with; it was
a miniature model of my CAP! Mike Caglia gave it to me at the
airplane processing, saying that it was passed to him during that
IMAC contest. I held on to that airplane and used it all week;
it was a very special gift. BTW, for info, he sells the "Aerobatic
Training Tool" mini kits for $15 and you just glue them together.
You can contact him at jridpath@dcaccess.com.
 Last
week of practice
TOC
Logo edited from Desert
Aircraft
|
