Above is a photo taken from Dan's ship
of your truly heading for Orland.
At our meet we had a number of helicopter games that we played.
In the photo below I am piloting Dan's ship as he is playing bartender.
The way we played the game was there were three empty heavy glass
mugs lined up in a row. The passenger was given a measured amount
of water in a plastic pitcher and then the pilot fired up an lifted
off. The idea was for the pilot to hover to within reach of each
mug at the directions of the passenger. The passenger would then
attempt to pour the contents of the pitcher into each mug in succession
as he/she guided the helicopter as close to the ground as possible
without touching a skid (lost point, you know). The helicopter games
that we played were safe when played by the rules and no one was
ever hurt during any of them. Quite often members of the public
would hear that there were up to 30 home built helicopters in one
place and came out to watch us play.
In this game the pilot had to fly by the "bartenders"
verbal commands and the "bartender" had to lean out of
the helicopter to pour the water. It was a lot of fun and it was
not as easy as it sounds. The rotor down wash made it very difficult
for the water to hit the mug, and most of it would splatter all
over the asphalt. When the pitcher was empty, the pilot would hover
the helicopter back to the parking area and land. One of the club
members would then pour the contents of the three mugs into a measuring
cup and determine the amount of water that was successfully transferred
from the pitcher to the mugs.
The pilot also had to compensate for the weight shift as the passenger
leaned out.
The winning team would get a nice trophy and the accolades of the
group at the Saturday night awards banquet. |