The newest Twister.

With all the rain we have had this month I've had lots of time to build the Twister. As it sits it weighs 39.4 ounces with a Brodak .40 and APC 10.5 x 4.5 in the nose. I built it with only two changes. I trimmed the top of the fin/rudder off (I don't know why it's on there) and added nose ribs to the wing. The balance is really close to the plans without any nose or tail weight. I did ad 0.4 ounces in the wing tip. I slopped on my usual bad paint job and it's ready for the first flight, probably tomorrow morning at South Park. The Brodak .40 is only a few tenths of an ounce heavier than the Fox .35 shown on the plans and is a lot more powerful.

El Dorado spring contest.

We headed north around 0900 friday morning The morning rush generally clears by then. Home to La 415 to US 190 went smoothly. Up US 71 to Alexandria for lunch. We got to the hotel around 1400 and settled in. Saturday morning the usual croud wasn't at the hotel and was in attendance at the contest either. There was still a pretty good showing of contestants. The winds were causing some problems but not too much. The sun was right in the way and I lost sight of the plane on some maneuvers but must have did them right as my scores were good. One guy had an engine fail when the plane was overhead and it came straight down on the engine. A couple more got damaged in crashes but not like the firt=st one. I flew the Oriental in the Classic plane event, the Oosa plane in Profile and the Navion in Warbird. I was first in Profile and third in Classic and Warbird. I was happy with the Oosa plane. On Sunday I flew the Oosa plane in the Precision Aerobatics or PA event. The winds were much lower but the sun was still very bright. I managed to get Second place in PA. The Oosa plane is flying very well. Then there is the raffle. I got a bunch of small parts on Saturday. I ended up with 4 ounces of glue. On Sunday the big items were up and I got the very first item a kit of the Twister. Naturally I startedd building it when we got home.I've won two other Twister kits at this contest raffle over the years. The contest finished up early and we got home around 1700. The nest week was bedlam as we had a MRI scheduled and the leak damage got repaired taking up the rest of the week. On top of that it rained all week finally stopping late Saturday. The park doesn't drain that well and probably isn't usable today. To top it all off we think the visit to the hospital for the MRI provided us with a cold/flu bug.