High Plains Shoot Out – Sterling, Colorado June 6, 2004

June 6^th dawned in Sterling hot and windy.  The winds were quite strong most of the day, but that did not stop the hardy pilots from suiting up to complete their missions.  Sean Galt and Justin Honaker flew in from Southern Killafornia for the SSC action, so SSC was flown in the morning.  At times the winds were so strong out of the south that you could hardly make any head way at all.  I saw one plane, Sean’s P40 I believe, with several streamers hanging off of it barely doing more than a hover, but still I could not catch it and relieve it of some streamers.  Did I tell you that the wind conditions made flying SSC TOUGH all day long.  For those of you who were in Paris, the wind in Paris was nothing compared to what we flew SSC in, in Sterling.  There were pilots from California, Sean and Justin, Nebraska – Rick Miller from Omaha, and the rest from Colorado.  Pretty good turnout for a little town in north eastern Colorado.

 Six rounds of SSC were flown with 9 pilots all up before lunch.  Marv Ferdig had the Mitch Eaves CD on the Boom Box, and that kept the rounds moving.   Dennis Owen did an outstanding job of Line Marshall all day long.  Some of the family’s brought out an outstanding BBQ lunch which was quickly devoured by the hungry pilots and judges.

 The SSC scores looked like this:

Randy Hodges          1200

Sean Galt                    1088

Tom Neff                     1020

George Kerr                 824

Justin Honaker           788

Marv Ferdig                 754

Rick Miller                    624

Bill Messner                260

Andy Taylor                  20

 On to Open B.

 Open B started after lunch with the same strong hot winds that the morning SSC had to deal with.  The Open B planes handle the wind much better than the SSC birds do, so its only factor was to keep all the action at one end of the field.  Open B action was hot and heavy.  There were 11 pilots and no frequency conflicts, so it was all up again for the afternoon.  Rich Perry opened up with a first round score of 360.  Tom Neff scored a 460 in round two, 540 in round 3 and 604 in round 4 to take a commanding lead.  Mid-airs were abundant in Open competition.  In one round I had two mid-airs, neither of which knocked me out of the round, and a collision with the top wire of the barb wire fence.  The fence won, but I could not find very much damage on the plane, so it was ready to fly the next round.  As the afternoon progressed, the winds calmed a little, and by last two rounds there was hardly any wind at all.  That is a double edged sword.  The wind died down, but the temperature kept going up, and with out the wind it felt hotter as well.  Nothing to stop the hardy bunch of high altitude pilots though.  The carnage was a little higher in B than SSC, and the attrition rate was pretty high.  Brett Sugamele (Smelyal8r) had a mid-air with Randy Hodges which knocked his Smack II out of the competition in round one.  Brett had worked with Randy all week to get ready for the meet.  Since Brett did not have a lot of his own stuff yet, the two of them were sharing.  How ironic that the mid-air that knocked Brett out of the competition would be with the one who is trying to help him the most.  By the end of the day 9 of the 11 were still in the air fighting. 

At the close of competition, the Open B scores were:

Tom Neff                    2036

Rick Miller                  1116

Rich Perry                  1064

Randy Hodges         1010

Eric Shafer                   982

Andy Rutkosky           912

Andy Taylor                 820

George Kerr                 660

Marv Ferdig                  508

Brett Sugamele           140

Bill Messner                 Well we won’t mention it.

What was of Open B at the end of the day

 It was a hot day in Sterling.  The competition was hot, and the weather was hot.  When we were getting ready to leave, the thermometer in the van I was riding in said it was 101 outside.  That is pretty warm for Colorado in early June!

 A big thanks goes to the Sterling Miniature Aircraft Association, it members and families for a great day of combat.  Marv Ferdig did a good job all day of keeping things moving and Dennis Owen handled the tough job of line marshal with ease.  Thanks to everyone involved.  It was a fun and safe day of combat.  It just doesn’t get much better than this!

Submitted by 

George Kerr

Last changed: 06/09/2004

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