Let the Outsmarting Continue

“Let The Outsmarting Begin” has become our tagline whenever SturgeUrge and I launch a boat into salt water. Originally, we’d chime in together when our panga was pushed into the surf out of La Playita, the sleepy fishing village 25 miles east of Cabo San Lucas on the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula. It turns out we’re experts at outsmarting ourselves.

SturgeUrge and I have a deep and long history of going to Plan B after a scratchy day of fishing…of course, the next day it’s wall to wall Plan A. Yes, even our Mexican pangueros shake their heads in dismay…simple fishermen from a country that doesn’t do Multi-Tasking see the folly of SturgeUrge and TruckeeDave…

It doesn’t have to be a team effort either…as I demonstrated all by myself Sunday in the Valley Of Speed. Imagine my surprise when the Air Races ran ahead of schedule mid-day Sunday. The Unlimited Silver Race ran the exact ten minutes ahead of schedule that I needed to make it out to The Fenceline in time to get set up to roll video of the race.

Instead I pulled over across Red Rock Road from the Silver Lake Volunteer Fire Department Station, a half a mile as the crow flies from the racecourse, and shot the video from the driver’s seat…no tripod needed…I rested the pistol grip of my camera shade gizmo on my left hand which sat on the driver’s side windowsill. Out of the wind, the radio play by play recorded perfectly along with the images.

I didn’t bother to deploy the “Ansel Adams Wedding Veil”, and I headed back into Lemmon Valley after the race to pick up a few things and a tank of gas.

I made quick work of my list and was back out to the Fenceline an hour before the Unlimiteds were scheduled to take off.

Well, somehow the show went from 10 minutes ahead of schedule to an hour behind schedule in the blink of an eye! I busied myself refining the camera gizmo…

Back at the DaveCave Saturday evening,  I had downloaded and viewed all my captured video fromSaturday at the races…not the most professional camera work, but the major flaw was the omnipresent wind noise. The racing was good so the noise didn’t really register…probably due to my dehydration and fatigue at the time.

With time on my hands waiting for the Show Program to catch up with reality time, I decided to build a windscreen for the stereo microphones on the new camera.  I’d brought the extra weather stripping from the gizmo project, and with my new “titanium bonded” sewing scissors, I cut up tiny pieces of the weather stripping and built a little castle around the camera’s mics…it worked like a charm!

When the Breitling Gold Race finally came down the chute, it was more than worth the wait. Strega lead Rare Bear and September Fury onto the race course. Strega was never headed, but that’s only part of the story. Rare Bear paced the P-51 for four laps with Shuttle Pilot, Hoot Gibson hot on the Bear’s heels in September Fury. Precious Metal was a solid fourth and sounding fantastic. On lap four, Precious Metal didn’t come around and I asked “Where’s Precious Metal?”

Mayday came the answer. I looked up and saw Precious Metal flying wing and wing with the Safety Plane. One guy said PM lost a landing gear and everyone groaned “Oh no!” Moments later the show announcers said the P-51 lost a landing gear door…whew!

Rare Bear hung with Strega until he pulled up and a mayday was called, but I said: “The Bear is just coolin’ her down” Rare Bear struggled all week with overheating issues, and she was good for only 3-4 hot laps before the temps got out of hand.

The post-race commentary allowed that the Rare Bear crew pulled an all nighter redoing the cooling and spraybar systems. The Bear runs a Pratt & Whitney R-3350 Air Cooled radial engine. To reduce drag, they’ve tightened up the engine cowling, upsized prop spinner, so not enough cooling air reaches the cylinders. To compensate, they’ve added a water spraybar system that blows water onto the oil coolers. They didn’t get the kinks with the spraybar system worked out so they pulled out to save the engine.

Rare Bear made some circles above the course and landed without incident.

When all was said and done, Strega recorded her eleventh Reno Championship. There was no talk about retiring her as there had been all week.

The traffic out of the Valley Of Speed was light again. I heard a snippet on the news that the crowds were down this year. They attributed this to the late word that the Show would go on.

When I got home Sunday evening, I downloaded and viewed my video. Here’s where the outsmarting made itself obvious. The wind screen “castle” worked great, the ladder and monopod worked great too…one problem…your cameraman still couldn’t track the action.

Had I deployed the Ansel Adams Wedding Veil I’m sure my results would have been better… Let The Outsmarting Continue!

As I write it occurs to me that I should get a better tripod with a video-friendly fluid head, and equip it with a laptop shelf and view the action on a 15.5 inch screen with a homebuilt sunshade instead of a 3 inch screen on the camera! To quote Homer Simpson: D’oh!

I’ll edit the video and post it on the CorduroyPlanet YouTube Page later this week, and the still photos will go up on CorduroyPlanet’s Flickr Page this week.

You might take a look at www.loadedtv.com or LiveAirShowTV.com in the meantime

Saturday Stuff

I took my sweet time getting out to the Air Races today. I awoke fairly stiff from marching around the pits all morning Friday. I blew out of the DaveCave before 9AM, to pick up a package from the Post Office, pick up some vine-ripe tomatoes from Spud’s Fruit Stand, and hit the hardware store for some nuts and bolts for my camera shade thingy.

As luck would have it, Mr Landlord was in town and we spent a half hour talking all things digital…cameras, iPhones, iPods, mothers who resist computers even though they’d find them right up their alley once they learned their way around the things.

I was kinda worried because the wind was ripping in Truckee…I could only imagine what was happening out at Stead.

I put all the pieces together and took the new unit up to the street where there was full sunshine. My gizmo worked like a charm. I wouldn’t need the black veil as long as I kept my cowboy hat shading my bright, smiling face.

Even with fill flash you can read the screen!

Even though my results were better than expected, I rigged the black cloth with black duct tape and stick-on Velcro…call it a contingency plan…I was headed out to the High Desert after all.

I loaded up the ice chests (Grocery shopping before the Gold Heat) packed the car, and showered before heading down to the library to check the winds at Stead via the library’s free WiFi…SW winds at 18 MPH…the races were a GO, so off I went.

I had travel time plus an hour and a half before the Gold Heat began, but given the wind, I thought I ought to get close enough to hear the FM broadcast of the show, so I crested the hill into the Valley Of Speed and hit the new Taco Bell drive-thru.

While I enjoyed my crunchy tacos, I listened to the show commentators and compared the goings on to the schedule I printed from the RARA website. They were wrapping up the Jet Heat, which was on the schedule after the Unlimited Gold Heat…adjustments were made…I postponed the grocery shopping and headed out to the Fenceline.

Things were a little more crowded than Friday, but not as bad as I expected. Luckily my timing was perfect…I set up my 6ft step ladder, rigged my tripod, and watched the F-18 demo and the NAVY Heritage flight.

My neighbors who were by now well done from baking in the high desert sun since Wednesday, had too much fun catcalling me…”Down in Front”, “You’ll blow over, Dave”.

They weren’t kidding, the wind was fierce, though not enough that I was in any danger of being blown off my perch. I ran some test video, and everything looked A-OK. I would have used the black veil if the winds were reasonable, but I thought the flapping material would screw up my sound…as it turns out, the stereo microphones on the new camera picked up the wind noise in a big way.

The Gold Heat didn’t disappoint. Strega lead from Rare Bear, who lead September Fury. Strega was really pouring on the coal, and the three leaders didn’t back off until the fourth lap. Precious Metal lead the also-rans, but sounded as awesome as ever.

Strega won it going away, posting an average speed of 472.642 MPH. I expect Sunday’s Breitling Gold Race to be a barnburner. I don’t know if Rare Bear was sandbagging…or if the Bear knows he’s got nothing for Strega. Professional courtesy perhaps? Team Strega announced that they’re retiring the multi-time Reno Gold Champion after this year’s races.

I don’t have a favorite, all I want is a hard fought race with zero maydays, that has a pass for the lead.

Gentlemen, Have A Race!

 

Impressed

Race 7, Strega was very impressive Friday afternoon. Again she is the class of the Unlimited field. Race 77, Rare Bear stayed close for two laps before backing off to save something for Saturday and Sunday.

All these years and I still don’t know why they say Race –Number- instead of Racer – Number-…

I watched the Unlimited Heat Gold 2A from The Fenceline after spending all morning inside the show. I wanna say it’s been twenty years since I’ve been inside…I even plunked down for a pit pass. I watched the Unlimited Heat, Medallion 1C, from the flightline edge of the pits.

I walked around the pits for three or so hours…lots of eye candy for airplane buffs. I shot 128 photos and four videos before settling into the grandstands at show center to video the Unlimited Bronze Heat 1B. I ran out of camera battery on lap five…oh, well, but it lasted long enough to see the Spitfire fly-by.

Precious Metal's Griffon business end

I left the show after the big birds ran and headed into Reno to do some errands. As I was hoofing it up Stead Blvd to the Boy Scout parking lot, the US NAVY F18 Super Hornet began it’s demo flight…good thing too…I didn’t have my stash of ear plugs with me!

My first stop was the Home Depot. I had an idea for my camera viewed hood project. I browsed the plastic pipe aisle in the plumbing department…no joy. I asked an employee: “Gutters?” He sent to the right place and a downspout fitting fit the bill perfectly. Off I went.

Every year around air race time, department stores put their athletic shorts on sale, and every year I stock up, so off the last K-Mart standing I went. I grabbed a six pack of my socks and three pairs of shorts…next stop Fabric Store. I asked some ladies in K-Mart’s parking lot if there was still a Hancock Fabrics Store in Sparks, and they reminded me that they’d moved into Reno proper. I knew where it was, and they said the Wal*Mart near there also had a fabric department.

Off I went…right into Construction Zone Gridlock. A couple of U-turns, Plan B…and Plan C, and a 10 minute trip weighed in at 45 minutes…scratch grocery shopping…

I strode into the Wal*Mart, asked the greeter where the fabric dept was, and found some black fabric, Velcro and a pack of needles. I headed south to find an onramp to HWY 395 North, narrowly missing afternoon rush hour.

Cresting the hill that’s the gateway to Reno’s “North Valleys”, I tuned in the Air race Feed on 97.7FM Yikes! The Jet heat had just finished. Just the F-22 Demo before the Unlimited Heat, and the F-22 couldn’t fly Wednesday or Thursday! Damn road construction!

Blasting off 395N at Red Rock Road, I heard the brute sound of Mil-Spec jet engines, the F-22 was launching! I’m gonna make it! Ten minutes later I pulled into my parking spot at the Fenceline, and with the dawdling pace of pilot introductions, it was another 15 minutes until the Unlimiteds ran.

Once again I learned something new about making movies on the old camera, and when I got back to the DaveCave I found a flaw in the new camera…more about this next time…

Good Times, Bad Times

As excited as I’ve been anticipating getting out to Stead Field for the 49^th Reno National Championship Air Races all week, I’ve also had a little pit of fear camped in my gut, that when I crested the hill on Red Rock Road (where you turn onto Lemmon Drive to get to “The Fenceline”) that I’d be greeted by the Washoe County Sheriffs manning a roadblock and turning all us cheapskate race fans away. Not an unfounded fear given last year’s tragedy and the general state of our litigious society these days…

Well, as luck would have it the coast was clear…Fenceliners would not be denied our week of fun! Granted The Fenceline experience is a far cry from what it was before 9/11, when only some three strand barbed wire fencing kept those too lazy to step over it, off the field of battle.

The 2001 Air Races were cancelled in the wake of 9/11 and the General Aviation grounding while the FAA and the Federal Government sussed out the new lay of the land.

When racing returned in 2002, the dilapidated three strand was replaced by a stout, chainlink fence with three strands of tight, serious barbed wire on top to keep interlopers out.

Still, The Fenceline was our little secret…all 5000 of us Fenceliners! That show is closed now too, but that’s a story for another time. Today was a happy day at the races.

The weatherman didn’t lie, it was just under 90F, and for the mast part the winds were light to moderate.

As I pulled into “my spot” I recognized the neighbors from 2010. New pickup, same old contractor’s trailer, same old wise guys…

I’d timed my trip perfectly, I had just enough time to rig the new camera, deploy my camp chair and chat up the neighbors before Unlimited Heat Medallion 1C came down the Chute.

How nice to hear the old warbirds flying low again! Music to my ears. These are the slowest of the Big Unlimiteds, around 150 MPH slower than the Gold Race Contenders.

I captured it all with the new camera, and eagerly rushed to the car to download and view the HD video…not exactly the wow-factor images I was hoping for. All out of focus except the occasional telephone pole and power lines…

I launched the .pdf of the camera’s  operator’s manual and verified my settings.

Here’s the issue. The sun really. Cameras don’t have the eyepiece that you look through anymore, they’ve been replaced by beautiful LCD screens. Alas in the bright high desert sun, all you see is reflections of the sky, your face, or that blazing yellow fishing shirt you wore for sun protection.

I’ve thought about this since last time I was out in the Valley Of Speed (2010), and every time SturgeUrge and I go fishing. What I need is like one of those antique 3D stereo photo viewers the Grandma used to have…like you see on Antiques Road Show on PBS.

It’s either that or what I call the Ansel Adams Wedding Veil, the black cloth hood that old time photographers with their big sheet film (or glass plate) View Camera.

For now, I’ll cobble something together out of Manila folder stock, some cardboard, duct tape and flat black spray paint. I’ve got the pistol grip with the tripod mount.

I found that if I find a place where the shot misses the fence and powerlines, the auto-focus doesn’t get confused…pity, my favorite four foot ladder is languishing a the Ancestral Digs…

Oh yeah, one last thing…it turns out I’m eligible for the Senior Discount…I’ll be buying a ticket for Friday’s Races…to see the lay of the land, post tragedy, and to get a closeup look at some aviation history.

A discount is a discount, but I’m not sure what I’m feeling about this situation…