As usual, a great time was had by all in our first Regional Finals in years, even under some of the worst weather we have had to deal with all season long. Weather played a factor all 3 days of the contest. Friday was rainy and a bit breezy, Saturday started out a bit rainy but the rain moved out and we dealt with 20+ mph winds with much higher gusts all day and Sunday was one of those days that could easily fool you just by looking out the window of your hotel room. While it appeared to be nice and sunny, the temps were very cool, if not downright cold (I had frost on the van in the hotel parking lot). There was a breeze in the morning which turned into 15mph winds later on. So here we go.

Thursday:

I arrived around 3:30pm and noticed about 15 pilots all setup and practicing. While a bit on the cool side, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and getting used to the lay of the land. It took a bit of time to get used to either landing “in the slot” or coming in over the trees. In any case, it seemed as though people were landing long and over-shooting the runway. By the time practice was finished, pretty much everyone was starting to nail the landings. Practice ended with everyone scattering to their respective hotels.

Friday:

Due to some late arrivals and not being able to get any practice in before 9:00am (club rules dictated no flying before 9:00am) about a half hour was given to the pilots to get their thumbs warmed up. At roughly 9:30am a pilots meeting was called. John mentioned the game plan for the day which included discussing the weather, which by the way was very much overcast with light rain falling all around us but not on us, just yet, while the cloud cover made it difficult to even see your plane, let alone tell what it was doing. Due to possible rain showers at any time, the pilots meeting was cut a bit short. Wheels up commenced shortly before 10:00am and shortly thereafter we were greeted with our first rain shower. These things went on throughout the day, forcing pilots to land and run for cover, except for one time. Alex Davis was about to end his first sequence when a shower hit. He was given the choice by the judges to continue or land and he decided to continue. Very shortly after starting his second sequence, it really started to rain much harder and instead of landing, he finished the sequence. Luckily nothing shorted out. The day ended with 2 full rounds being flown.

Saturday:

Saturday started out a bit cooler than Friday and just a hint of rain, but the wind was beginning to pickup and once again, the cloud cover was making it difficult to see just what your plane was doing. Again, after a brief pilots meeting, the day started at 9:15am with the first of two rounds of unknowns to be flown in this contest. To make it more interesting, during the pilots meeting, a a question came up about dropping an unknown. Since the contest policy leaves this up to the CD, a vote was called for and by almost unanimous vote, no unknowns would be dropped. What this did was allow the unknowns to carry more weight in the sense that if you really blew your unknown, you were probably not going to do very well. This meant that the competition would remain tight all weekend long. With the wind the way it was and the cloud cover not helping matters much, we were able to get in another 2 rounds as well as the unknowns. The save of the day goes to Jake Ruddy. While coming out of a maneuver inverted, he met up with Frank Puccio coming out of his loop. Basically Frank came out right on top of Jake so here you have Jake and Frank, wheels to wheels and Jake just a few feet above the tree line and inverted in high wind. When I say a few feet, I mean very few feet. At time it certainly looked as though Jake was in the trees and one mistake on either pilots part and it was going to be a bad day for everyone.

Flying ended right at 5:00pm. This gave plenty of time for everyone to go get spruced up for the dinner John had setup for us at a local restaurant called the Hideaway. We ended up with a total of 34 people showing up for dinner and since each table was being placed on a separate check each table was given $20 towards the total table bill. The evening ended roughly around 10:30pm with everyone once again heading back to their hotels for the evening.

Sunday:

Sunday started out a bit chilly but barely a cloud in the ski. You could tell that people were a bit worn out because on Friday and Saturday, the field was fairly packed by 8:00am. At 8:00am only a handful were at the field with most everyone else showing up at 8:30am. The day started out a bit slower than normal but wheels up was around 10:00am with the second round of unknowns, followed by the final round of knowns. Once again everyone dealt with wind but compared to the previous 2 days, it felt like a breeze.

At the end the knowns, Freestyle was setup and flown. Though Neil came in first, Alex showed us that even the best Freestyle pilots have bad days when he decided that it was time to re-kit his fathers 33% Cap232. It was a sad moment for me since I love Caps but the funniest part of it all, if there is such a thing to destroying a plane, was that one judge actually gave Alex a perfect 10 for presentation of maneuvers. The judge explained that he destroyed it in a spot that was clearly seen by all watching and there was no doubt he executed it perfectly because there were very few big pieces of wood left. Even though it happened at a very low altitude, I do not think I've ever seen a plane blow apart like that one did.

While I was calculating the Freestyle scores, John Banks handed out the custom awards he had done for the Woodstock contest and proceeded to start announcing the winners of the regional contest (not the regional winners). I was a good distance from the point where everyone was gathered so I cannot say exactly what was said or done, but I did hear loads of laughter, which actually was the norm for the whole weekend.

Once I was done with the Freestyle scores, I joined John in announcing the contest awards. John started out by thanking the sponsors and I'd also like to say that we had a lot of sponsors that gave away some very good prizes.

The sponsors included Ray Labonte of Ray and Robbins Hobby shop. He offered up a brand new Carden/Hangar 9 Yak that was given away in a drawing that only included the Basic pilots. Next, Extreme Flight offered up an electric 50 inch wingspan Extra, Aircraft International tossed in some start sticks, Steve's Aero ponied up some nice stick planes, Smartfly tossed in their usual fine selection of prizes and the list goes on and on. Basically everyone went home with at least one item. Thanks to all of our great sponsors for stepping up for us.

So here were the results as given by the Score program:

Overall, there were 27 pilots flying in the 2009 Regional Finals contest. In no particular order they were: Raymond Labonte, John Banks, Troy Wallace, Peter Nesbeda, Steve Stanton, Charles Davis, Frank Puccio, Jake Ruddy, Tony Bonano, Bill Lairsey, Eric Guilmet, Jim Cyr, Andy Fomin, Alex Davis, Artie Johnston, Tom Chabot, Neil Westdorp, Mathew Fortin, Brian G. Foveaux, Cody Wojcik, Trent Schneider, Justin Getz, Stan Berger, Jim Baker, Lance Murphy, BIll Bouchard and Scott Melville. These pilots flew a grand total of 655 judged sequences.

Basic:

The winning order was: (1) Frank Puccio, (2) Charles Davis, (3) Steve Stanton and (4) BIll Bouchard. They flew 12 known sequences (6 rounds). The scores ranged from a low of 4,783.3 to a high of 8,000 (a range of 3,216.7 points).

Sportsman:

There were 4 pilots in Sportsman. The winning order was: (1) Artie Johnston, (2) Alex Davis, (3) Tom Chabot and (4) Scott Melville. They flew 10 known sequences (5 rounds) and 2 unknown rounds. The scores ranged from a low of 6,265.4 to a high of 8,693.8 (a range of 2,428.4 points).

Intermediate:

There were 9 pilots in Intermediate. The winning order was: (1) Stan Berger, (2) Justin Getz, (3) Eric Guilmet, (4) Bill Lairsey, (5) Jake Ruddy, (6) Tony Bonano, (7) Lance Murphy, (8) Jim Cyr and (9) Andy Fomin. They flew 10 known sequences (5 rounds) and 2 unknown rounds. The scores ranged from a low of 1,556.4 to a high of 8,542.6 (a range of 6,986.1 points).

Advanced:

There were 7 pilots in Advanced. The winning order was: (1) Cody Wojcik, (2) Troy Wallace, (3) John Banks, (4) Jim Baker, (5) Trent Schneider, (6) Raymond Labonte and (7) Peter Nesbeda. They flew 10 known sequences (5 rounds) and 2 unknown rounds. The scores ranged from a low of 4,259.1 to a high of 8,623.3 (a range of 4,364.2 points).

Unlimited:

There were 3 pilots in Unlimited. The winning order was: (1) Neil Westdorp, (2) Brian G. Foveaux and (3) Mathew Fortin. They flew 10 known sequences (5 rounds) and 2 unknown rounds. The scores ranged from a low of 7,567.5 to a high of 8,727.1 (a range of 1,159.5 points).

Freestyle:

There were 7 pilots in Freestyle. The winning order was: (1) Neil Westdorp, (2) Jake Ruddy, (3) Cody Wojcik, (4) Brian G. Foveaux, (5) Troy Wallace, (6) Frank Puccio and (7) Alex Davis. They flew 1 freestyle round. The scores ranged from a low of 569.7 to a high of 1,000 (a range of 430.3 points).

Once again, the tightest competition was for 2nd place in the Basic class, with only 13.7 points difference between Charles Davis and Steve Stanton. These two have squared off more than once this season

My thanks go out to all the pilots that attended the event. All of the officers that were present noticed how much fun everyone was having and at that point we knew we succeeded in turning the region from just a bunch of people that showed up, flew, went there merry way, to one that would come to a contest, have loads of fun and laughs, head out to dinner, have more fun and laughs and then do it all again the next day. Even the wives started doing things together. It was truly a great thing to see.

I'd also like to take the time to thank the RC Propbusters of Salem CT. for allowing us to invade your field for 3 days, actually 4 if you count Thursday practice and to all the club members that came out to help, cook, scribe for the judges, etc.

For the Contest Director John Banks

Bill James

NE Regional Director