Tery Target Tow 11/3/2002

Terry Target Tow 11/3/02 - by Tom Hunt

It was a cool windy morning, but it warmed slowly and the winds diminished by 9:30AM when we decided to hold the last "official" Terry contest of the "02" season. 4 Terries were on hand, ready to do damage! Mike (overtime) Glass, Clyde (Colyde) Giest, Bob (9 toes) Erbe, and Alan (why Sunday?) Wander were the combatants. Tow plane owner and pilot- Tom (to many airplanes) Hunt. Roy Thompson was our un-official, official photographer.

5 rounds were flown, 2 were very short as the balloons were cut away from the tow plane rather early in the round. This time the balloons were filled with helium, which of course made them travel far, far way after a cut! It also made take-offs much easier as we did not have to have someone run behind the tow plane keeping them off the ground! Alan Wander Mid-aired three times in Round 4 and the third one was his demise! Pieces littered the field!

No balloons were popped the entire day (by Terries), but almost every round resulted in freed balloons! In the fifth and last round, something very interesting happened. Bob Erbe's Terry was seen to snag the balloon line on the far south end of the field. The model cut the towline between the first balloon and the tow plane. The towline wrapped around his Terry and Bob proceeded to attempt to finish the round as a tow plane! The poor Terry could not compete with a 16 lb 32 cell cub and the Terry, calmly waffled to the ground with the balloons a few feet back trying desperately to keep the Terry in the air. I saw and opportunity arise. The balloons were now floating about 6-10ft off the ground about 100yds away still stuck to the now motionless Terry. I made a quick pass across the top of the Terry attempting to pop one or more balloons. I failed on the first pass, but touched the towline with the wing of the cub. A second pass followed quickly after. Again the Cub just grazed the towline put this time it liberated the balloons! They head skyward slowly. I managed to make one pass relatively close, but they were quite downwind by this time. One more
pass was possible, but I new I was low on battery at this point. On the second pass, at about 200ft AGL, I snagged the balloons (and popped one) and towed them back to the runway! One Terry was still aloft when I returned and it began attacking the balloons again! There was only about 3 ft between the first balloon and the tail of the cub however, and this action was going to be a bit dangerous for both parties! I fire-walled the cub and made some evasive maneuvers to avoid being hit by the Terry. The battery
pack was failing fast, but I still managed to stay aloft longer than the last Terry and made an uneventful hasty landing back on the field. The remaining four balloons popped as I rolled out!

Jim Reid helps prepare for another sortie	Tom's Tow Cub lifts off	Terrys in pursuit of the Tow Cub
Action in the wild blue yonder	More action!	Could this be Alan's plane ?