Copyright ©: 1999-2000 NFKA

Ocean Shores Fighter Kite Competition - June 5th, '99

Subject: Ocean Shores Kite Festival Fighter Update
Date: Sun, 6 Jun 1999 15:56:14 -0700
Howdy!

What a great way to start the kite festival fighter kite season!!

Jeff vs. Ron - Rich Judgeing

  On Saturday of the Ocean Shores Kite Festival, we had a wide range of weather conditions!! Winds from 4mph to 17mph, cold winds, rain, mist, and, believe it or not, beautiful sunshine, blue skies and warmth! A little bit of every kind of ocean weather! Saturday was the scheduled fighter kite competition.

I got inside
Just won't touch this

  The fighter kiters that competed in the line touch competition all had to fly in virtually each of the wind conditions from 4mph to about 17mph! Needless to say, it was not an "easy" game to play. However, all flyers seemed to have a ton of fun flying and as is most often the case, the flying was lots more important than who wins the points or the competition!

Jeff vs. Ron - Rich Judgeing

  After all, that is what fighter flyers love to do, fly, fly, fly!! It is especially fun when you can fly with friends, like we did on Saturday!!

Tom, Marlin, Ed, Rich, Jeff, Dennis, Bruce, Ron, Steve, I'm on the camera and Jim got there late

  Ten flyers entered the line touch competition. We did a round robin; each flyer flys 4 points against each other flyer and the total of the points won for each flyer is added up and the high score wins, etc. The round robin was not completely finished, as some flyers chose not to fly any longer or had to leave before it was completed, etc.

  However, since the majority of the flying had been completed, using the points that were accumulated, the top 3 scores were determined for 2 separate categories. Novice and experienced. The Novice was defined as a flyer who has not won an award in previous fighter competitions. Experienced have won fighter awards in the past.

The winners for Novice category are

1st Tom Humphrey
2nd Ron Lowry
3rd Rich Hurd

Winners of Experienced category are

1st Bruce Lambert
2nd Jeff MacInnis
3rd Jim Wilson

  One interesting observation I made of the kites flown by all the flyers is that each flyer flew kites made by himself or made by one of the other flyers present. The only exception was one flyer used a mylar Indian kite in a few of his matches.

Where's the line? Jim Wilson

  Another observation made and expressed my many flyers is the issue of line touch judging in difficult visual conditions. During much of the day, there were bright light gray clouds as a background against which judges had to make line touch calls. In these conditions, the lines are virtually invisible. So the judges were not the best people to determine when a touch was made and who won the point. The flyers' integrity of calling the touch made against them was the most effective and accurate method of determining the point. Maybe we should judge more of the line touch competitions that way!

  There are additions to the NFKA fighter flying schedule! Yup, more places to have fun flying with other fighter flyers!! Brian will have the additions posted on the website in a day or so. The flying season is really here!!

Dennis vs. Jim Tom & new member Steve Childers

  By the way, if you would like to include reports about fighter kite event results in your area or to list scheduled fighter kite events in your region or area on the NFKA website, please email the information to Brian and he will be happy to include your information!

  We all enjoy hearing about each others experiences flying fighters, so how about sharing yours!! 

Flyn'&Grinnin',
bruce