Here are a hundred or so more pictures from Saturday’s spectacular Baylands Battle of the Bay event.
See Slow Sticks of every hue, dramatic crashes, focused competitors and exotic contraptions.
I’ve posted brief captions which you’ll see in slideshow mode.
Not sure what this is all about? Read Saturday’s BBOB report, and enjoy even more pictures.
The longest day of the year was also one of the hottest: 101° at Sunnyvale.
But the heat didn’t deter determined flyers, who packed the two proximate Pickleweed Place parking bays by 8 a.m.
After all, today was the BBOB: Baylands Battle of the Bay, Pete Lane’s annual celebration of the Slow Stick.
Last year in The Baylands Battle Bash, I wondered why the word “Bay” occurs twice in the title of the event. This year I learned the reason: so Pete Lane can call it “BeeBob,” as he did several times during the day. I had thought it was “BeeBeeOhBee,” which is much less cool.
[This post is obsolete. The new gallery software was too temperamental and I’ve taken it offline and restored the old, reliable, gallery.]
With the help of a robotic script and all too much fiddling, I’ve copied all 750 or so the Ups & Downs photos into the new Photos section.
Why bother with this upgrade?
Mainly because I now have more publishing flexibility, including the ability to publish albums within albums. So, for instance, I moved the Return of Pickleweed Red and Fast Boats albums into the 2007 Photos: December album.
The other day, Al Alongi asks me to help him with his Slow Stick. We check and adjust the control surfaces. The right aileron is sloppy—it settles on a slightly different center point after each deflection.
That doesn’t seem like a big problem, since the error is small. We can adjust with a slight twitch of the transmitter stick.
Al is an old-time flyer just getting back into the air. He’s a little rusty and he’s looking for the perfect starter plane.
 |
| See more pictures here. |
The wind rose on Thursday, from calm at 8 a.m. to 20 m.p.h. at noon, with gusts to 25 m.p.h. At around 10 a.m., Bic Tran is flying his two-day-old Mini Mag around the Great Meadow.
The wind has crept up to about 12 m.p.h., not quite hissing through the trees, but quietly shushing out of the north northwest.
Bic’s first plane was a Slow Stick. He built it carefully and learned to fly it well over the course of three months.
But he was bored with it. He sought more of a challenge. He wanted ailerons.
New Colors. Browse 1306 pictures in the Photos section, updated Jul 3.
Air Transport (3/16/08)