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2021 SPA East Masters
The 2021 Senior
Pattern Assn. East Masters was the
culmination of the competition year for the SPA East. It
was hosted by the Johnson City Radio Controllers (JCRC)
on October 9 & 10. As usual, it
was once again a special time for all and a great
contest. Contestants converged on the JCRC field from
SEVEN states - Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi,
Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
Saturday dawned gray, chilly and foggy. Coffee and doughnuts were provided by JCRC to warm the early arrivals. Sun shelters were erected for later in the day which was forecast to be sunny and near 80°.
A nice
surprise was having well known AMA pattern pilot Don Szczur
join us from Virginia. Don is one of the AMA’s Top FAI class pilots
(4th this year at the AMA NATS). He was passing through
and decided to "come to the SPA party" and he put on a "how to
fly pattern" clinic in the Expert class all weekend. He
is one of those guys that represents the pattern hobby
in a humble way everywhere he goes and is a real
treasure chest of pattern championship information
dating from the 70’s to the present day. CD Jerry Black conducted the pilots meeting to welcome everyone and explain the local rules. JCRC member Vic Koenig provided the invocation, then the pilots were assembled in front of the JCRC T-33 jet fighter for a photo. As you can clearly see up top, it was still pretty foggy when this photo was taken. Flying was delayed for about an hour to allow the fog to lift. On a positive note, the fog gave plenty of time for preflight inspections, engine tuning and chatting with old friends. The fog finally lifted enough for the first aircraft to hit the skies about 10 a.m. Four rounds were flown Saturday under increasingly clear skies and warming temperatures. The wind was light and variable all weekend which allowed pilots to choose their direction of flight. The 3rd and 4th rounds were impacted by the sun on the left end of the flight line due to the almost due west facing orientation of the JCRC field. This made left end turnarounds a challenge to say the least, particularly for me. Sunday once again began with morning fog, but it lifted to reveal a spectacularly beautiful day allowing us to have wheels up by 10 a.m. Two more rounds of excellent flying were completed shortly after noon. There were three unplanned occurrences during the weekend.
Thanks to all who
attended and all who helped make the contest a reality.
JCRC members were plentiful throughout the
weekend. My apologies to anyone I may have missed.
Jim Johns and Jamie Strong
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Final Scores
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Senior Pattern Association |
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| Dedicated to the Building, Flying and Competition of Vintage Pattern Model Aircraft | ||
A
few folks showed up on Thursday, with many more arriving
to cloudy skies with occasional rain on Friday. Dave
Phillips, Jerry Black and Bill Dodge brought their RVs
to the field for the weekend. Lots of good practice was
completed on Friday between rain showers. You can see
the leaden skies in the photo at left of Dave
Phillips practicing with wife Peggy calling. There was
plenty of hangar flying, too. 
The day was topped off by
a delicious supper of grilled hot dogs, chips, potato
salad, beans, brownies, sponge cake with blueberry
topping for dessert and drinks courtesy of the
Johnson City Radio Controllers (right). A huge rain
shower came through shortly after the food was served,
but thanks to the wonderful shelter at the Tri-City
Model Airport all were able to stay dry and enjoy their
meal. Folks retreated to the campers and motels for the
evening soon after eating. 
Registration was managed expertly
by Anthony Blair and Skip Weller with 20 intrepid pilots
registering to compete - 4 in Basic, 5 in Sportsman, 4
in Advanced, 4 in Expert and 3 in Senior Expert. Several locals
joined in the Basic class and represented JCRC well.
JCRC club member and scorekeeper Doug Lindauer flew an incredibly
fast little electric pusher jet and an EDF Avanti in
Basic. Both planes were great
fun to watch.
Everyone loaded their vehicles
while the final results were tabulated and
then assembled for the trophy presentations and raffle. The
club had assembled SEVERAL THOUSAND DOLLARS in wonderful
prizes to give away. The photo shows only a small
sample. There was so much stuff that
literally everyone went home with at least one prize. Here's a
list of the donors and some of the larger prizes.
