Written by:
Sam Gaglio
Contest Director

2007 Sin City IMAC…….where did it start?

Over 1 year ago I was the coordinator for the Las Vegas IMAC held at the Willie McCool North Las Vegas Field. At that time I decided that I did enough of the leg work to make the contest happen that I might as well get my CD license. This really isn’t that hard. I went to the AMA webpage and downloaded the forms and rulebooks. You take a short test and send in your $20. After that was accomplished I picked the date of the contest and tried to fit in between all the contests in the SW region. While all this was going on I contacted many many many companies for sponsorship of the contest. This part was very labor intensive but with 26 sponsors for the contest I believe it was worth it.

My goals early on were this.

1) We had 19 sponsors last year and I wanted 20 this year
2) We had 65 pre-registered pilots and had 58 show up, I wanted to have 60 this year
a. With at least 10 pilots per class
3) I wanted a RTF kit in the 50cc to 150cc range for the pilots
4) I wanted an ARF to raffle to online and spectators (more in the hobby!)
5) And most of all I wanted the best pilots in the region to fly!

For those that don’t know, IMAC starts right around December when they release the KNOWN sequences for the 2007 season. At any given contest you can expect to fly your known sequence 2 times each round on Saturday with a total of 2 rounds. That gives you 4 sequences. You then are handed your UNKNOWN sequence that you must not practice in flight or simulator. You fly that sequence one time in round 3 on Sunday. Then round 4 are 2 known sequences.

The 2007 Sin City contest had 66 pre-registered pilots going into the week before the contest. I’d like to thank www.letsflyrc.com because they made this process very simple to see who was registered and what frequency they were on and if they were willing to judge. The IMAC website has been a little behind this year since Anna Wood has stepped down from updating the site. This new site emails the CD anytime a new pilot registers or deletes their account.

As the CD I reserved the field for the contest, had the prizes delivered to my home, and ordered trophies for the contest. I waited on the trophies until we had 50 registered pilots so that I could be sure the entry fees would cover 1st-5th place. I also wanted to give something different to the pilots. I chose Free Standing Plaques made of Acrylic with a slight blue tinge. They have a flat bottom so they can stand on a mantle or desk instead of being hung up on the wall.

I also organized, with the help of the Propnuts R/C club and Rebel Squadron R/C Club a cleanup day the Thursday before the contest. We pulled all the brush near the runway and in the overruns. We swept the pits and spectator area and moved tables so that pilots and planes would have more room. Thursday morning during the cleanup had 31mph winds but by 1pm the wind had died to about 5mph. This was an omen of things to come.

Thursday—

We had several flyers arrive on Thursday to start practicing. During my 3rd flight of Sportsman practice on Thursday I was doing an inverted push to vertical when my airplane threw the prop and spinner. I leveled the plane and killed the engine. The plane glided to the runway and floated off the runway and landed in the now clean desert. My left wheel pant became cracked and the plane received no other damage. Infact the back plate to the spinner was still on the plane. The prop was recovered and had gouges in the hub but no other damage. The spinner was not found. All the bolts were sheared off in the hub. I borrowed a prop from Vegas Local and Basic Pilot Warren Cross and Tom Powell gave me a spinner to use for the contest. IMAC folks are some the most giving people in the hobby. They would rather you fly then sit and watch, and they will give you the shirt off their back if it helps. Shawn Berkheimer who was staying at my house for the contest helped remove the sheared bolts from the hub. MadMax Duncan also showed up that night with the Tuna Boat in the back of his truck.

Friday—

As the CD I took Friday off from flying to answer questions of the flyers that came early to practice and to start some pre-registration so that Saturday would go quicker. That morning in my garage/workshop Shawn replaced the Tuna Boat tail wheel with an R/C Blimp Tail wheel.

The wind was calm in the wee morning hours but as the day moved on the winds picked up. By the afternoon we were seeing steady 15mph winds but they were straight down the runway. A look at the future cast was not good. It called for cold temps and strong winds for Saturday with a possibility of rain. Sunday was looking good. More and more people showed up throughout the day and I’d estimate that we had about 30 pilots practice on Friday. Friday night was the “STEAK NITE OUT”. From last years contest schedule I owed fellow (last year Basic) Pilot Howard Pilcher a steak dinner for letting him beat me in too many contests. I paid up at Outback steakhouse on Friday Night. It was a good relaxing time with great friends. Later that night the winds were hollowing.

Saturday—

I showed up around 630am and planned the registration to open at 730 with pilot meeting at 8 and the flying starting at 9am due to the sun off the end of the runway. It was very windy and cold at 730 but we started registration anyway. Only a few people put out planes. At about 830 we had the pilot meeting and postponed the contest until 10am to see if the winds would subside. At this time we had 2 wind meters placed on the flight line. Both had sustained readings of over 15mph and peaks went to 33mph
At 10am the winds were still so strong that they blew over the tripod the wind meter was on. I decided to postpone the contest until noon. I was hoping the winds would subside enough to at least get in one round on Saturday. We had several pilots brave the winds and practice. When they landed, it was like a harrier as they landed with no airspeed due to the winds. We even had a funtana X fly backwards. At noon the winds had still not subsided at all. At this point I decided to cancel the Saturday portion of the contest. We discussed refunding money and retaining enough to cover the costs of the contest if we could not fly on Sunday. There was also discussion of whether or not to fly unknowns on Sunday. The wind prediction for Sunday was 15mph for the morning with it trailing off throughout the day (but it was supposed to be warm!). I made the decision to cancel the unknowns since most pilots did not get to practice at the field and with the winds I did not want pilots to be forced to fly the first flight at a new field in the high winds with an unknown. I decided on running 2 rounds of knowns on Sunday so that we could still drop a sequence. We had 56 pilots out of the 66 pre-registered show up on Saturday. We finished up the registration so that Sunday we could just go fly. After the contest for Saturday was canceled I had a couple pilots decide to go home and I refunded their money. Several pilots decided to fly in the wind and MadMax and the Tuna Boat even did some 3-D.

Sunday—

Sunday came about with the winds still blowing. It was 15mph down the runway with gusts to only 18mph. I decided to postpone Sunday’s flying until 10am to ensure the sun was not in the way and to let the wind die a little. During this dead time I handed out all the raffle prizes. Dean Bird was the big winner of the Dalton Extra 260 Kit. Every pilot and volunteer got at least one prize valued at just about the entry fee if not more. Several pilots asked for partial refunds and some just said that they didn’t want to fly in the wind but keep the entry fee anyway to help support the club. I accommodated everyone that wanted a refund with no hard feelings. At 10am the 36% Katana was raffled off. This prize was open to online, spectators, pilots and anyone that wanted to buy tickets.

Winning Ticket number was "688041" ,one of the local volunteers who ran the flight line won the Katana which was drawn at 10am. By 1030 we had the first plane in the air. Winds were around 12-15mph and the gusts had stopped. The first round went very smooth. I had to rework the judge/scribe matrix several times as I tried to figure out who had dropped out and who was still around. I tried to accommodate everyone so that they could have their normal callers. We ended up with about 48 Pilots flying, while several Basic pilots decided to hold out but stayed to help. During the first round Dennis Charlson in Advanced had a throttle servo go out and he was unable to land the plane on the runway. He landed just off the runway in the desert and ripped his gear out. He was done for the day. Howard Pilcher in Sportsman was crabbing in the wind for a landing when a Basic pilot took off right in front of him. Howard’s caller quickly told him to go around and a mid-air (or mid-ground) was averted. The rest of the first round went without incident as the winds steadily started to die and the temps warmed up.

After the first round I made the decision after talking with the unlimited pilots to move them to another flight line for round 2 so that we could always have planes in the air and try to finish on time. We started the second round. A decision was also made to not release scores so that the scorekeepers could focus on inputting scores so that we could get out early. In the 2nd round we saw Joe Mac Gregor land with a front wheel missing. He had no idea until he landed and the wheel pant scrapped the ground. Only damage was to the bottom of the wheel pant. Dave Anderson came in to land and he lost a tail wheel. As he attempted to slow the plane down the plane turned sideways with too much speed and his landing gear snapped at the curve where the wheel pant attaches. His tail wheel was recovered off the runway though.

The scores were done around 530pm. We had one judging question that postponed the results until 6pm. I verified that the pilots had been scored correctly for pilot/dash panel and the results were finalized.

I cannot give you a summary of each class since we did not post scores prior to the end. But from the pilots running their own score sheets back to the scoring motor home it was clear to see who was in the top of each class.

We announced the results and handed out the trophies. It was a very late evening for a contest as we try to end contests on Sunday by 4pm but the flying was great and both Unlimited and Basic were very close.

The Unlimited Pilots had only 8 pts separating 1st -3rd …..while Basic had only 1.1 pts separating 1st-2nd.

Your winners of each class.
Basic---Jacob Ettensperger
Sportsman—John Murdoch
Intermediate—Ryan Archer
Advanced—Eric Powell
Unlimited—Trent Byrd

The complete results can be found here….http://www.propnuts.org/IMAC/report_results.html
As the CD I’d like to let you know the few things I feel I failed/succeeded at.

1) I had exceeded my 20 sponsor goal
2) We originally had over the 60 pilot mark, but with the weather this was reduced. I’ll call that a draw
3) I was unable to get a RTF kit for the pilots. I did manage 2 ARF’s and 1 Kit to giveaway but I was unsuccessful in giving away a complete package
4) I did find an ARF to give away in a raffle open to anyone
5) I had about 90% of the best pilots in the region show. We lost a few due to the winds and a couple had to work.
6) All rules were to be enforced, but a scoring issue did not calculate Sound and ACS for any pilot. After discussing with IMAC officials the results were deemed official since everyone was affected exactly the same
7) We actually got to fly!!!!! Wind and all!

I had to make a lot of hard calls over the weekend that I hope most CD’s never have to make but I tried to be fair to everyone that was flying. As you can see there is always room to improve on the contests and each one I go to I try to bring something back either positive or negative. I’m already planning next years contest and will use the lessons learned to make it even better.

As always……these contests wouldn’t happen without the flyers! So I thank each of you for coming out and braving the conditions, being flexible on the weather, not complaining too much with the choices I made as CD and for Judging/Scribing when asked to.

I also want to thank the many sponsors. They support us and we really need to support them! At least send them a Thank You note!

Monster Energy Drink
Custom Foamies
Forgues Research
Dietrich Aircraft
BuyRC.com
R/C Blimp Productions
Aerographix
Wildberry Productions
Dalton Aviation
Flying Giants
Donald's Hobby
Cactus Aviation
Carl Goldberg Products
Lanier
E-Flite (Horizon Hobby)
AirAge Media
Mulligan's Landing (Team Vegas Eatery)
Country Side Home Loans
Sullivan Products
Aerotech R/C Models
Cover Me Wing Bags
Smart-Fly
Redline Oil
Aeroworks
Desert Aircraft
Tru-Turn
AmSoil

Visit this thread for a lot of the great pictures from the contest!
Vegas IMAC Photo Flood!

Sam Gaglio
2007 Sin City IMAC Contest Director

great write up, Sam. Working on getting our club going with there first imac test and tune day in two weeks. Its not a full contest but its a start.

Great post event write up Sam....looks like the event was well sponsored and well attended...congrats!!!

Sam,
I saw how hard you worked and how well organized you were. This was a first class operation from start to finish. You went the extra mile helping me stroe my plane for a week and even putting up with house guests. Due to the weather there were many opportunities for this event to go wrong. Your leadership skills held the whole thing together. It is a good practice to grade yourself after an event. But in the eyes of the pilots who attended you get all A+. Thanks again Sam.

-STEVE-

OPPS, Just saw my new AVATAR with the custom ground prop. Thanks Max, you never miss an opportunity to put a little dig in do you. Remember I haven't bought the 12 pack I owe you yet. It could be good beer if you're nice......

Nice job Sam. You made it the best you could under the conditions you had. Glad I stuck around.

Here's some wind-speed proof....

Great job on the coverage, results, and the photo flood is just the "nuts" Sometimes a picture tells it all. Great job by all who contributed as everyone gave 100% and then some. "No mention" of the Great cook who fed all these hungry guns. Next year, You can starve!! All the volunteers did a great job, as did our "CD" who made known his splendid efforts, God he is such a modest Individual, but hard working. He did make this contest far better than ever before. My jock s off to you Sam G.

I did forget to mention the great cooks.......Thank you for reminding me. The Powell's and Country Side Home loans kept us all fed!


And I'm glad to see that Peak gust of 33! I knew someone got a photo of it.....and thanks Dave......I found my new avitar!

Sammy, thanks for putting on the Vegas event!!! I had an absolute blast hanging out with you, and the Southwest crew! Can't wait until the next one! You did an absolute bang up job.

All that is a lot of work Sweetpea, I know every one appreciates all you do for the event. So why dont you do our Shreveport one....

Originally Posted by JeremyHolt

All that is a lot of work Sweetpea, I know every one appreciates all you do for the event. So why dont you do our Shreveport one....

Jeremy,

I'll most likely get to the Shreveport contest next year after I move to the Florida panhandle. See you guys there!

Dave

One picture I snapped "gleamed" above the rest...

Way to hold in there Sam!! I'm sure it was stressful with all of the on the spot decisions you had to make. I have become a CD and we are going to have our first IMAC contest here in Twin Falls, Idaho on May 26-27. As a matter of fact it will be the first IMAC contest ever in Idaho!! I know that it is out of your region but we would like to see the Las Vegas crew up here. It is only about a 7-8 hour drive from Vegas! BTW Nice ad for the white teeth thang, beautiful smile Max!! See ya all at the Nall next week.

Worm---

I told Jonas I'm there.....just give me the dates and a plane to fly!




heli--I'd like to go but my next contest isn't until Camarillo. I'm taking some time off to relax and practice.