Oregon Aerobatic Challenge-- Molalla RC Association
Grant Sharp's Green Acres Field, Molalla Oregon
Written by Gordon Anderson, NSRCA District 8 Vice President

The 2nd annual Molalla Pattern Contest was held June 25th and 26th. Molalla is located in Oregon south east of Portland. Bill Carder CD'd this event and Meri Anderson handled the scoring program. This was a pretty small event with a total of 10 pilots flying 4 rounds on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. Grant Sharp was our host from the Molalla club and we were treated like royalty by Grant and the members of their club. The field is a beautiful grass strip, and is a great place to fly. The weather was pretty good for this event; in fact it was a bit hot on Saturday.

Grant hosted a BBQ on Saturday night at his house, located right across the street from the field, talk about a great setup! The BBQ was a fantastic feast, pork ribs, baked potatoes, beans, dessert, beer and lots of fun. We had a really great time at the BBQ and was one of the highlights of the contest. Grant also supplied lunch both days, all this for an entry fee of only $20!

As usual most of the pilots were at the field Friday for practice and we all met at the local Mexican food restaurant for dinner. This is getting to be a tradition for this contest.

We were joined again at this contest by Pavel Satarik our new 8th District Pattern pilot. Intermediate had three competitors at this event. Bill Carder was flying very well all weekend. Bill took 1st place in Intermediate after winning 5 rounds. Grant was fighting a stubborn engine all weekend and only completed a few rounds of the event. Grant did win one of the rounds and when he gets his engine trouble fixed he will be hard to beat. Pavel is a strong competitor and Bill better look out at the next event!

We were very happy to see John Gaylord flying Advanced. Unfortunately we did not have any other Advanced pilots for John to fly against. John did have a great time and received a lot of good experience both flying in the contest and judging. We are all happy to have John join the D8 Pattern family!

Masters had 4 pilots.  The competition was pretty close but in the end Gordon Anderson walked away with 1^st place.  The Master pilots are all pretty close in skill level so you never know who will win in this class (unless Brett is flying!).  Mike Lance was fighting a little engine trouble and dialing in his new Brio.

Dave Villwock and Clayton Foster were flying in the FAI class. This was the first event we have seen Clayton at this season. It is great to have him back and we hope to see more of him this season. He did an outstanding job and kept improving all weekend. It's amazing how well he flew this complex schedule with very little practice. Dave was flying his new (orange) Double Vision and did a great job, winning all four rounds on Saturday. Dave broke a flying wire on Saturday and swapped to his backup Double Vision.

Here are the standings for the Molalla event:

Intermediate             1st Bill Carder 4000.00 
                                2nd Pavel Satarik 3823.05 
                                3rd Grant Sharp 2804.56

Advanced                  1st John Gaylord 4000.00

Masters                     1st Gordon Anderson 4000.00 
                                2nd Dennis Cone 3953.16 
                                3rd Rex Lesher 3919.11 4th Mike Lance 3716.32

FAI                           1st Dave Villwock 4000.00 
                                2nd Clayton Foster 3610.11

See you in the pits…