Houston, Tx.

We fired up the WAZE and headed for Houston with only 3 planes in the Hyundai. The traffic was moderate to heavy for the entire trip. We found the La Quinta after a few detours. After checking in we went to the field. It's huge. 4 circles, two concrete and two grass. The concrete circles were poured in one shot, no seams. About 82 feet in diameter. The center pilot spot is a separate unit with a seam around it. Still the flying surface has no seams to bump into. On contest day I managed to find a dip though. It took a quarter inch off each prop blade. The winds were reported by the official weather station at the rifle range nearby at 14 gusting to 29 all day. Real tough flying but no one damaged a plane. I flew the Gypsy in the Classic event to a second place finish and was really burning a flight in in the Profile event with my Nomad design when the fuel line came off the needle valve assembly at the finish of a maneuver with three more to go. All I needed was a 25 point score on the three remaining maneuvers and an extra 25 for completing the pattern in the proper sequence and I would have won. I settled for third based on my first round score. On Sunday the winds were light and steady, just right for flying and the scores improved a lot. On my first flight I got a better score than one of the other guys that put me in 4th place for that round. In the second round I tied with the same guy for third place. The tie was broken based on the first round score and that put me in third. So a second and two thirds is good. The trip home was the same traffic all the way. Luckily there wasn't any accidents in the East bound lanes. West bound had two and one slow down was because of rubberneckers. The wreck was on the parallel access road. We unloaded the car at home and went to Big Mike's. I got some good tips on my flying and put them to use right away which got me the third place in Profile. Another tip was I should have used a higher nitro fuel with the heat and winds. I tried that this morning and I couldn't get enough fuel in the tank. I very carefully filled it and upped the rpm's and got in the full pattern with the required two laps at the end. At home I rearranged the vent pipe in the tank so it is at the highest spot in the tank and now I can get 4.5 ounces in the 4 ounce tank. I did the same thing to the tank on the Nomad+ also.