Jim Johnston writes;

Dear Ron

Enclosed are L.I.F.T's results for the Spring Challenge and our apologies for the tardiness.

We finally got a flyable day and a pretty good soaring it was, 50 degrees and sunny. The wind was cold but only at 5 - 15 mph. Good lift was present most of the day even with the cold 15 mph winds.We did reasonably well in spite of little flying time this Spring. 

Ted Groessner, you know about with his machine-like precision flying was again our high point man. Pat Sullivan you don't know much about. He is an excellent consistant soarer who flies only in contests which usually is only 6 times a year. He flies longand has great eyesight. His 100 inch Duck is one of the older versions, perhaps 6 years old and obviously he flies it well. Speaking of old airframes, Bob Robinson, a former National Champion, brought out and flew a Grand Esprit which he built in 1973. It still flew very well.                                                                                                                    My miserable performance sticks in my craw big time!!  The 100 inch Duck is myall time best airplane but I crashed it in Florida when I blew a stab on launch. It had flown very well down South for about 75 flights and performed well against 3Metre ships including a Supra. It was quite badly damaged and I repaired it when I got back home. I flew it only once before our IPC day and it seemed to fly fine in the calm conditions. My first flight Saturday was in calm air and it flew fine but the wind started to come up during the second round and it was almost unflyable. Same with the third round. I added approx 1/6 th of an ounce of lead to the nose and changed the "neutral"decalage to more dowm trim which seemed to help. The last two rounds were far easier to fly. I have been at this game for 34 years and I am apparently a slow learner. ( Ain't we all?") One must treat a damaged and repaired airplane like a new model and trim it properly with numerous flights. I did not have the time to do that and suffered the consequences.

Arrgh, enough of my sob story!!!

Thanks for indulging out tardiness, we are most appreciative of you taking over the guidance of the IPC, it is important to us, thanks.

                                                                                                                                                                                                             Best regards and good lift, Jim Johnston.