I will say that we had a great event. 33 pilots representing the 9 states (that’s right 9 states) of Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Arkansas, Illinois, and Colorado!!!! That is South East, South Central, South West & North Central.

Things started rolling on Thursday when 3 pilots showed up. On Friday afternoon we had wonderful weather and I counted 27 planes on the flight line. 2 Lines were 8-10 planes deep until dark. Following Friday practice, the whole gang came over to my house for fresh grilled sausage, hamburgers, and crawfish fettuccini. Then we broke into the home brew and only one person got sick!

Saturday went smooth, we forced in three rounds of knows with 33 pilots and 2 flight lines. Flying was non-stop and competition was fierce in all classes. Unfortunately we did have two crashes, one due to dumb thumbs and the other due to an in-air wing failure. We tried for a Saturday afternoon freestyle but just couldn’t get it in.
After the Saturday flying, we then moved the party over to Phil Oubre’s house for boiled crawfish. We boiled 150 lbs of crawfish and about 10 gallons of corn, potatoes, sausage and onions. Everyone enjoyed the food and the atmosphere next to the swimming pool.

Sunday’s weather was less than perfect. Very low cloud cover kept the planes down until 11:00. By then the decision was made to not fly the unknown and end the contest with Saturday’s 3 known rounds. Many had 10+ hours to drive and flying the unknown would have pushed the contest well into the afternoon. We did manage to get the freestyle done though! Great flying all around.

Awards were completed shortly after the freestyle and everyone was on the road for noon! Nearly every pilot walked away with a little something thanks to Hobbico, Smart-fly, Desert Aircraft, Jtec and Fromeco. George Davis won the $250 Fromeco gift certificate and then put it back in the pile for someone else to take home. Way to go George! Dale Lathem then walked away with the Fromeco certificate and Kurtis Waites won the G3.5 flight simulator.

I want to thank everyone who attended. You guys helped make the event a success for the club. We look forward to hosting you guys again next year. Let us know if there is anything we can do to improve.

I also want to thank all the club members who helped with concessions, flight line duties, plaques, scoring, etc. We could not have done it without you.

THANKS!
Ryan