23rd Annual Worldwide Free Flight Postal Competition Results

by Caley Ann Hand

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who participated, and who assisted me to get this event off the ground. I’ve only been flying free flight off and on for about 10 years. Needless to say, my knowledge is very meager, and without your help, I would have had a much more difficult time of handling the Postal.

We had 25 participants flying in 18 events. The results will follow, but I wish to apologize if I did not include your participation in a particular event. I basically followed what you sent me, with a few exceptions of where I could safely include your scores in more than one event with the same model airplane. I believe that next years Postal will be a lot smoother.

Now I can tell you that I will not be continuing the handling of the Postal after this year. I have had many problems physically, and in other areas of my life, and I need to devote more time to getting those areas fixed, or corrected. I have been fortunate enough to have another, more knowledgeable and experienced person volunteer to take over the reins of the Postal. This person is Gary Hinze. Many of you may know him from his work with the web pages, “Endless Lift”. Gary has already created a special page on those web pages. Here is what he wrote for his announcement for the 24th version of the Postal:

Hello fellow Aeromodellers,

The Worldwide Postal Competition will be continuing for its 24th year. Twenty one events may be flown locally at your convenience within a one year time window. The Internet permits us to have a worldwide event in the spirit of a friendly local club contest. For details, see the description and rules here:

http://www.endlesslift.com/24th-worldwide-postal-competition-2015-2016/

Feel free to forward, post or publish this wherever you think it may be seen by interested parties.

Gary Hinze

AMA 29828

San Jose, California

Please give him your full support. He will be making changes to the events flown, which you will see on the web pages. I believe his reporting system will be easier also.

Again, Thanks so much for your support these past two years.

Sincerely

Caley Ann Hand

Results

There were no entries for Freewheel Rubber, Novice Stick Fuselage, Novice Built Up Fuselage, Novice P-30, FAC Low Winged Trainer, FAC Golden Age, FAC Modern Military, FAC Pioneer Scale, FAC Jimmy Allen, FAC Old Time Stick, FAC Old Time Fuselage, FAC 1/2 Wakefield, FAC 2 Bit + 1 OTR Fuselage, FAC No-Cal, FAC Jumbo Scale, FAC Giant Scale or Tiny Gliders 6″ HLG.

Reports from the Field

I wish to share a few photos and comments from a few of the participants of this years Postal.

First is a picture from David Wagner out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, who flew his 24 inch wingspan Found Centennial in the FAC Modern Civilian event. What a wonderful looking model, and it flys as good as it looks.

The next photos are from Jeff Newton of Lytham St.Annes, Lancashire, England. One shows him with two of his models, one of which he flew in the Postal, a 36 inch Odenman Hi-start glider.

The other photo is of it circling happily above the flying area, a local school playing field.

From Dick Douglas, Oakland Cloud Dusters CD. “The OCD held their latest Lagunita contest and tried out new events for us, which were 20” Rubber, E-20 electric, and 6” Catapult glider. Firstly, “Lagunita” is roughly translated as Little Lake in Spanish. Frequently it has water in it, but in these drought years it has been fairly dry. The lake area is kind of small and is ringed by trees so max flights are held to 60 seconds. If a contestant has three 60-sec maxes, then he flies one 60-sec “time-target” flight and the one closest to 60 sec wins. Your rules say keep going but that isn’t possible here. So, keeping that all in mind, here are the results to be entered in your postal competition.

Ates Gurcan flew into an Oak Tree on his first flight with Sky Bunny. Fred Terzian landed in a puddle with his Sky Bunny on the second flight and the wings came apart.”

Members from the Oakland Cloud Dusters, L to R, Haoyang Wang (winner), Manuel Cisneros, Bill Vanderbeek (2’nd place), Fred Terzian, Ates Gurcan, and Ben Tarcher, hold their Sky Bunnies they flew in the Lagunita Contest. Two events were the Sky Bunny and Tiny Gliders.

Lagunita is on the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, California. For more about OCD, click HERE.

Graham Perceival, of Grantham, England flew his events, one on November 9th, 2014, and the other April 3, 2015. He writes: “The flights took place on a field around 20 miles from home. The November day was particularly memorable for the time of year, as it was sunny and warm, with only a slight breeze. This is not what we expect here in November. In contrast, the April day while still showing a slight breeze, was dull and damp (mostly drizzle). The clouds were very low. Clearly the air was still helpful, and my scores don’t usually come out like that.”

8″ Tiny Glider

Thanks again for the help provided.

Sincerely

Caley Ann Hand