Day 1 results

Unlike previous contests, the early updates won’t translate to points, since each 
contestant can fly in any order they want. It should be interesting, though, to see how 
everyone’s doing from day to day, whether the early leaders hang on, and how many 
contestants can keep flying through the last day, starting with only one model and an 
identical backup. We’ll post two flights per day.

Most contestants chose to go after the lower risk altitude, OSL and drag races early on, 
though Bruce decided to chase the early air and fly a parachute duration for flight #2. Bill 
Cooke got off to a rough start--his "safe" OSL flight failed to deploy the chute, pranging 
model #1 right off the bat. Not only did that cost him flight points for the event, but he's 
now got to cross his fingers and hope his backup model can make it through up to 7 
flights. This would have favored a strategy that flies each event once, then cycling back 
through for the second flights on the altitude and duration events.

There were some very interesting flights on day one. Todd broke the half mile mark, 
taking the early altitude lead with one of the heaviest models in the meet. His excellent 
OSL came in under 8 feet away, only to be edged out by Bob. Bob’s OSL entry also has 
the distinction of being the lowest impulse in the field, using a MicroMax. Claude opted 
for angling the rod away from the target, and probably needed a little more wind to place 
in the event. He’s hanging in 4th right now, but far enough back that it’s not likely to 
stand. 

Rookie David Allen roared into an early lead with an amazing 4796 foot altitude flight. If 
he can hang on to first, that’s good for 100 contest points, and it could be tough for the 
field to catch up to him. Dave also managed to beat out Bob Cox in Spot Landing by a 
little over an inch. You really can’t do much better than that for the first day.

In one of Bob's favorite events, drag race, his time off the rod was just a touch behind 
Claude, but Bob might have made up for that with careful rod angle selection, landing 
well inside the pack on distance to the rod and still claiming longest duration so far.