Hammerfest Contest Update!

To our new Hammerfesters, welcome! Registration is closed now so our little family should be complete.

First of all…thanks to all of you for the outstanding display of enthusiasm to this point.  The turn-out is quite impressive.  This is literally three times our usual participation!

To those of you who registered over the past weekend I have included all of the updates that have been sent up to this point below this e-mail.  They should answer most of your questions.

If you have a Free I also need your Free Program ASAP.  If you need it to be signed I am a Judge so just send it to me and I can sign it for you.

I am also attaching the “FINAL” order-of-flight/volunteer roster.  As before, please look at it carefully and make sure your name appears where you expect/want it to both in terms of flying and volunteering.  If you have any questions or concerns please contact me and we can make changes.

Exciting good news for Decathlon Drivers…we will be awarding the ACA Medal to the highest scoring Decathlon pilot at our contest.  It is a nice piece of hardware to take home!

Now to the bad news, since every silver lining contains a cloud.  The way above expected participation has led to a couple of concerns…hangar space and daylight to fly.

I know many of you are concerned by my words on potentially having to tie-down on the ramp.  I am too.  We have two hangars available to us (for those of you who are previous Hammerfest participants, they the large one we always have and the bay hangar we used last year).  We may also have limited tertiary space in the local maintenance shop depending on their status.  We will stack those spaces as creatively as possible.  If all of the airplanes do not fit we will first solicit volunteers to tie-down .  If we don’t have enough volunteers we will sort that out real-time.  We will arrive at the solution that hurts the fewest people’s feelings possible.  I think we won’t get to this point, I just need you to be prepared for the eventuality.  Now go remove the tie-down rings from your airplane so I can’t make you leave it outside.

My second concern has become hours of available daylight.  At the top of the flying rotations I have roughed out the times I hope to get them done in.  As you can see…we run out of daylight, as sunrise is 0745 and sunset is 7 PM.  As of now my ideal world game plan looks like this…

Friday: 0700 Morning Brief, 0830 first pilot diving into the box, Primary/Intermediate #1 0830-1130, LUNCH 1130-1230, Advanced/Sportsman/Legacy #1 1230-1530, Primary/Intermediate #2 1600-1900, if we get ahead of schedule and have daylight remaining we will fly Advanced/Legacy

Saturday: 0700 Morning Brief, 0830 first pilot diving into the box, 0830-1130 Advanced/Sportsman/Legacy #2/3(?) (IF Advanced and Legacy flew on Friday evening we will entertain the possibility of fly-climb-fly again to get three flights for Sportsman which shifts lunch and Primary/Intermediate to the right), LUNCH 1130-1230, Primary/Intermediate #3 1230-1530, assess daylight/pilot/volunteer time remaining and decide from there.

All of this is subject to (and certain to) change as we get into real-time execution.  I would absolutely love to get three flights for everyone and if we manage to be extremely efficient we may get there.  On the other hand all it takes is one weather delay and this is all out the window.  Flexibility is the key to aerobatic contests.  And indecision is the key to flexibility!

Please call/text/e-mail me with any questions or concerns as we move forward.

Again, thanks for your participation and I look forward to seeing/meeting all of you in Llano (from an appropriate distance).

Fly Fun!