F3J South Africa

Lausanne’s Damp Squib

2008-04-05T14:38:00.001+02:00

Uncle Sydney’s CIAM gossip - April 2008

After all the arguments about chopping 50 metres off the F3J towline length, FAI’s 2008 CIAM meeting in Lausanne rejected any change. Talk about a damp squib - more like a lead balloon - the RC -Soaring Committee spent barely two minutes on the radical proposal. No talk about the pros and cons, no discussion about “what-ifs”, the technical committee found no reasons to apply any new towline ideas to the international rules because the change had not been tried out at any proper “big” competitions and therefore was not proven. One in favour, 12 against and one abstention, that was that!

Belgium’s proposal to penalise any pilot who lands his model leaving the tail stuck in the air was given equal short shrift, three in favour, nine against and two abstentions. It was withdrawn, and as some joker pointed out, “we don’t want pilots turning up with tailless models do we!”

Best CIAM news for me is that France will host the next F3J world championships in 2010, and the likely venue is Arbois where the French have held their recent Eurotour events, a lovely location with super food and abundant fine wines! That will be a treat and super incentive for pilots to fight hard for their national team places.

F3B is to get a new name - “radio controlled multi-task gliders.” The launch line for F3B and F3J can only be moved between rounds should the wind direction change. F3K handlaunch gliders get official FAI status at last, both for seniors and juniors competing separately, with the first Eurochamps to be held in 2010, and the first world championships will follow in 2011 either in Sweden or Croatia.

Back to F3J: all of the sensible proposals for splitting the last two metres of the landing circle into 20 cm divisions worth one point each; a refly for crossed lines blocking launches and 100 point penalty for not removing lines after launch - (more headaches for timekeepers and CDs); reducing the frequency spacing between transmitters to 10 kHz below 50 MHz and 20 kHz above 50 MHz; and the new matrix rules; all were passed and are applicable from January next year.

Some gossipers might blame Uncle’s column for helping to create the furore on 100 metre lines, and to those who feel annoyed, my apologies. Discerning readers might also recall the words: “Nobody I know is sure whether the committee really wants to see the change or whether they are offering the proposal to get Jojo off their backs.”

The facts are that the proposal for shorter lines was put on the agenda by the RC-Soaring subcommittee itself, not by a national committee. An e-mail was circulated last summer asking committee members if they wanted it on, and they did, and then they chose six months later to reject it. The danger with this sequence is that it will discourage serious advance debate on agenda items proposed by the subcommittee in the future.

I am reliably informed that no CIAM meeting for many a long year has sparked such advance speculation, and if interest in the machinations of FAI in Switzerland results, then that cannot be bad. Whatever, shorter lines are certainly dead for a long time ahead! Sooner or later, the question of F3J winch launching will be back.

Short line feedback

Much of the short line feedback coming my way has been interesting. David Hobby, Arend Borst and several other high-flyers reckoned that everybody has to follow the same rules, so what does it matter. Not surprisingly, they are confident and content to leave the rules to CIAM. Several pilots became excited about the model design changes which would be sparked by the need and ability to launch faster. One was convinced that the change had been promoted by manufacturers wanting to promote the next generation of models. Of course nobody would seriously follow that line. Many pilots were far more were concerned about collision dangers and discouraging newcomers to F3J.

Peter Zweers was keen to test pilots’ skills and suggested that the number of helpers should be limited to two. If a pilot chooses to use two towmen, then he forfeits his spotter and needs to launch himself. The official timing system would need to give more information to the pilots, for example there could be a five minute signal, and beeps or 10 second announcements over the last minute of the slot.

Another novel idea I liked came from Arend Borst, not that he thinks that it would get much support. Make a 0.5 metre circle on the landing spot and the pilot stands there. To gain a 100 point landing the pilot must catch the glider by the nose - only the nose! If he loses his balance or stretches too far and steps outside the circle, then he loses 10 points for one foot out, and all his points if two feet step outside. If the glider hits the pilot other than the nose catch, then he scores zero. If he opts not to stand in the circle, then the maximum points he can earn is say 98 and down for every metre away from the circle. Should the pilot need to come in at speed, “coming in hot” as Arend puts it, and feels it is not safe to catch the nose, then he walks away and spears the glider in the circle for 98.
Who says F3J could not be a spectator sport!

Guy Mertens from Belgium wrote a chatty letter covering many aspects of the sport from his earlier days flying and organising thermal contests to today. Ideal F3J rules should promote the competition as suitable for everybody, rich and poor, young and old, the home builder and buyer of ready-to-fly. He wants to see the end of “speared” or “dorked” landings - a glider should glide into a landing. He would do away with reflights with only two exceptions, when someone flies on the wrong frequency or the contest organiser is at fault.

As an Oldie, I am sympathetic to the wish to attract all pilots who enjoy thermal soaring. In the UK, up to 40 or so regular F3J pilots who travel to most league events wherever they are held, but that is usually within 200 miles of London. But in Kent, to take one county for example, Barcs thermal contests attract 50 or more competitors regularly, many of whom have the ability to win team places.

Larry Jolly and Arend Borst repeated a serious complaint which should have been addressed by a new rule this year. Launch positions for pilots in the flyoffs should be moved along three places after each flight. Far too often air conditions make it easier to latch onto kind air on one side rather than the other, and the 150 metre plus distance from one end of the flight line to the other can easily mean missing the bump. This same problem applies in the preliminaries where some matrices tend to place some pilots at the far end too often and vice versa.

Grateful thanks to all who got in touch.

Turkey’s Big Event

Turkey’s budding junior pilot Esra Koc and super host Semin Kiziltoprak who can’t wait for the Big Event this summer.

As I write there are 86 days to go before the 2008 F3J World Championships. News of who will be going, and more sadly who will miss out this year, will wait for nearer the time, plus the predictions of course. If you have WC team news and gossip, please let me know.

Before then, next week, I shall be flying to Turkey and Adapazari for the first of this year’s Eurotour contests, hoping this time that this beautiful and perfect flying field will not suffer the stormy rains which beset last October’s champions’ championship causing the event to be abandoned after three rounds. 2008 will be a world championship to remember - don’t miss it!

Long live the King!

Sandy Pimenoff, stepping down after 40 years, in typical positive mode

Lausanne saw the retirement of CIAM President Sandy Pimenoff, or as I prefer to think of him, FAI’s King of Aeromodelling. He has dominated that job for the last 40 years, and CIAM is unlikely to be the same again, although he will still make his presence felt as president of honour.

I cannot claim to know Sandy as a close personal friend, although I have known of him and his contributions to our sport for nearly 40 years. I met first at Upton for the first F3J WCs, and again in Corfu. In Lappeenranta 2002, his home country, we and the team managers chatted and skinny-dipped after a proper woodburning sauna which left everyone smelling like kippers for three days after.

My first encounter was through the writing of Ron Moulton in RCM&E in 1971 when a party of Europeans flew over to Doylestown in the US to fly in an AMA organised international F3B championship consisting of pylon racing and thermal soaring.

Sandy took with him a Graupner kit of the then new, and later to become the legendary, Cumulus, a 2.8 metre two channel soarer, with balsa covered white foam wings and a plastic fuselage, one of the first ARTF. Snag was that the model was not yet ready to fly, and although everyone was drooling over the various parts on the plane flying across the Atlantic, he still had to iron film on the wings and fit the radio, which he did in the motel.

First he had to persuade AMA to drop their home-baked rules which did not conform to FAI, then he entered the glider contest, one of 12 competitors. And he won. After the first round in which he had enjoyed a remarkable flight longer than any of the others, a big rainstorm swept across the field and that was the end of that. A legend was created.

(For those with long memories, Brits Geoff Dallimer and Dave Dyer were in the contest, Fred Militky from Graupner demonstrated and flew for 30 minutes with a twin electric motor pusher glider, and Dieter Schluter working with Kavan rocked the US hosts with a RC model Cobra helicopter.)

Sandy was born in 1937 and has flown models since 1952. Four times he was Finnish national champion in free flight power. His first encounter with FAI was as an observer in 1961, climbing rapidly to CIAM vice-president in 1965 and president in 1967. He has been jury member for more than 30 FAI championships, and has been awarded FAI diplomas and medals in 1977, 1986, 1991 and the Gold Air Medal 1996.

Anyone who has served on a model flying club committee will know what a thankless frustrating and impossible job it is. What can it be like to meet a couple of times a year with 30 to 60 delegates from all over the world, with vested interests and often absolute ignorance of most the many specialist forms of model flying, with all the different languages and an agenda so long that doesn’t allow any item more than a couple of minutes? What does it take to keep tight control and the admiration of almost all for so long?

Well Sandy has done it. I do not know how. I have heard him speak in many languages. I have seen him being tough in a rowdy meeting of arguing team managers. I have listened in 2002 when he feared passionately that the US and UK would initiate military action in Iraq. He is a remarkable man and our sport owes him respect.

So, the king is dead. Long live the king - the new man is Bob Skinner from South Africa. Long live the king -- but not for 40 years again please.

CIAM get-together in 1964 with then future President second row central, with 44 years yet to go and already smiling! Spot UK legend “308” Henry J Nicholls, front third from the left. Prizes for naming the others.

Sydney Lenssen, 4 April 2008

Uncle Sydney previews CIAM meeting in Lausanne

2008-02-28T15:03:00.000+02:00

Do you want to launch with 100 metre lines?
This month’s biggest F3J question is when and if we are going to get
our launch lines shortened to 100 metres. That’s the explosive issue
that 2008 CIAM plenary meeting will decide on 29 March in Lausanne.

Another decision due that day is whether the first two metres of the
landing tape will be divided into 20 cm lengths so that the landing
score can be anything from 100, 99,98 etc. down to 91 before the old
tape scores of 5 points lost for every metre resumes. That proposal is
not likely to be controversial, and the first metre of it has been used
in Holland and Germany for a couple of years under local rules. The
object of the changes is that FAI wants to see are bigger differences
between top scores, particularly in the flyoffs.

The Belgians - and others - also want to see penalties for spear
landings, and their way is to give zero landing points if the tail of
the model is not touching the ground. While sympathetic to the aim, I
don’t see this solution getting a positive vote, simply because pilots
could lose their score even if they land gently and hit an odd lump of
mud or tuft of grass.

What lies behind shorter line thinking?
F3J models and pilots have become too good in recent years. Top pilots
reckon to score 9 minutes 54 seconds plus and hit the 100 spot in all
but horrible weather. Quite a number rarely fail to achieve 14 minutes
54 seconds plus in the flyoffs, although doing it four times running in
calm or tricky air is not so easy.

So the F3-RC soaring subcommittee has proposed an amendment to Rule
5.6.8.7 Towlines, where b) is set to read “The length of the towline
shall not exceed 100 metres when tested under a tension of 20 N.”

Chaired by Tomas Bartovsky, the committee reckons that flight times
will be become shorter and fewer pilots will fly out the working time.
That in turn will put greater emphasis on the skill of pilots finding
thermal lift. Instead of the all-too-common “launch and landing”
competition, the event will turn into more of a thermal hunting - or
“aerodynamic quality” - competition.

The likely result of shortening towlines for F3J is more complex than
that!

*
Tomas Bartovsky, chair of CIAM’s RC Soaring Committee, at Martin’s WC’s.

The committee also notes that shorter lines would allow a smaller field
to be used, and that cannot be disputed. But I am not sure that F3J
competitions are seriously restricted because the organisers cannot
find a big enough field to cope with 150 metre lines.

There is a problem. At the start of every FAI world or european
championship, the early discussion among pilots is how close the scores
will be. Top pilots do spend plenty of effort into deciding whether to
make a two or three second launch to gain an extra point or two. It is
not unusual for all the flyoff places to be within 20 points of the
maximum possible after ten rounds - allowing for one dropped round. But
in all fairness, that is the very nature of F3J.

F3J as a class started as the simplest way to run a thermal soaring
event. In F3B, still the most difficult and demanding contest for RC
sailplanes of this model size, more and more pilots became fed up with
the increasing physical and mental effort - and money - to compete at
top level. F3B still thrives in many countries, it remains the pinnacle
of our sport in my view, but the numbers of pilots enjoying the class
are diminishing even amongst the leading nations.

The answer was F3J, a derivative of the British Association of Radio
Control Soarers Open thermal contests, and official FAI championships
started in 1997. Keep it simple, try to fly out your slots and land
reasonably accurately to gain maximum points, flying “man-on-man” to
reduce the advantages gained between slots when thermal conditions
changed. Pilots often delayed their launches, waiting for someone else
to find a thermal. When does that happen today? In fact by the first
world championships at Upton in 1998, everyone launched on the buzzer,
or even before!

Inevitably when rivalry is involved, the sport moved on quickly. Pilots
wanted to launch quickly and as high as possible. Tow using two men,
speed up the line and zoom to gain extra height, new aerofoils to allow
pilots to cross the skies at speed with minimum height loss, greater
manoeuvrability for precision landings, more reliable towlines and
pulleys. Many of today’s pilots have seen the whole period of
development for it is less than 20 years in total.

Development still continues, albeit at a slower pace. Even five years
ago when the Sharon and Pike Plus and a few others reigned supreme, few
pilots guessed that another generation of aerofoils and better use of
high tech materials would be significantly better and more likely to
win.

What will shorter lines lead to?

First I heard of shortening competition lines was in 2002, the world
championships in Lappeenranta, Finland. The problem of tight scoring
was already apparent, but also a few pilots saw shorter lines as a way
to launch more quickly. Jo Grini was the pioneer promoter, and used 75
metre lines in one or more rounds. He persuaded CIAM to agree to
examine the merits of shorter lines, but they slept on it and nothing
happened at Red Deer in Canada, nor at Martin in 2006 except that the
matter as briefly talked over at the managers’ meeting.

Then out of the blue in June last year, CIAM’s F3-RC Soaring committee
was circulated on the line change now up for decision. Nobody I know is
sure whether the committee really wants to see the change or whether
they are offering the proposal to get Jojo off their backs.

If they pass the proposal next month, will the shorter lines be used in
Turkey this coming July? Unlikely according to Tomas; if the proposal
passes, then normally it would be published in the Sporting Code next
January and then apply. Since it is not an urgent change, likely start
is 2009. But there’s nothing to prevent the jury and the Turkish
organisers choosing the shorter line as a local rule earlier.

UK’s tentative reaction is not to support the change at this stage.
They would like to see “extensive trials”, they warn of dangerously
increased pre-launch line tensions and greater chances of models
veering off course on launch. They note that some UK flyers would
support the move but a majority would not, and suggest a more modest
reduction to say 135 metre lines.

There have been trials.

In Norway they have flown several F3J cup events last year with 100
metres to the stake, and according to Jo Grini 19 of the 20 pilots
loved it. Those flying F3B models managed to launch slightly higher
than the F3J models, but the differences between launch heights were
smaller overall, which might be seen as fairer for all.

One serious snag with lower launch heights, and this was also noted in
the Martin discussion, is that a long safety corridor with 15 or more
pilots can put some pilots at a disadvantage when the air is kinder on
one side of the field, and that happens more often than not.

The Dutch have gained valuable experience with shorter lines, and I
respect the lessons they drew as one of Europe’s leading F3J countries.
In 2006 they held a contest with 75 metre lines, not so much as a trial
of possible CIAM changes, but the club organising it was having its
75th birthday!

There was a mix of models, and some of the pilots felt they could not
apply full tension without risking the model breaking. Because it was a
fun event, many were using old lines and suffered line breaks. Line
breaks happened with new lines too. The starts were explosive in all
senses, the zoom after launch was very high, a feature which might have
been exaggerated with the model is much closer to the pilot. Pilots
typically reckoned that launches were 40-50 metres lower than normal,
and the apt description was “catapult start.”

In 2007, the Dutch had a contest using F3B winches with the return
pulley set at 150 metres. The day happened to be pretty calm and most
pilots gained slightly higher launch heights. That trial is irrelevant
I think to the current proposal.

(The Brits have allowed winch launching for three years now, and I
suspect that many if not most countries apart from Germany and Czechia
do the same for national events. In varied conditions, UK experience
found little difference in height between winch and towmen, but after
one season everyone was winch launching because at the end of the day,
we were less knackered! It also showed that some winches were much
better than others.)

Back to Holland: in 2004 several F3J enthusiasts tried putting the
turnaround stake 50 metres from the launch corridor, still using the
150 metre line. So the towmen start running 100 metres from the
corridor. The shorter towline was balanced against very high speeds on
the line and the elasticity of the full 150 metre line. Launch height
was judged to be almost the same as usual, perhaps 10 metres lower.
Launch times were at least one second faster. (Grateful thanks to Rob
Sanders, Frank van Melick, Peter Zweers and Cor de Jong for their
memories!)

Could be that many other teams have tried shorter lines. We all use
short bungies for trimming out new models, and there’s nothing more
satisfying than catching a low level thermal from a hand or short
bungee launch.

If you have views or experience of 100 metre lines or shorter, then
send your information and opinion to Tomas Bartovsky
(tomas.bartovsky[at]vscht.cz), your national committee or FAI
(ciam-rcsoaring[at]fai.org) I’d like a copy too.

My reservation about shorter lines? They will encourage further
sophistication in model design and materials, they will not hinder many
pilots for long in flying out the working time, and they will
discourage newcomers to the sport from even trying to fly with the
experts. KISS - Keep It Simple S-----!

Sydney Lenssen (sydney.lenssen[at]ntlworld.com)
February 2008

Went to Turkey ....

2007-10-17T17:32:00.000+02:00

We went to Turkey, na, na, na, na, na.
by C.Goodrum

About a month ago Michelle called me and said "guess what?"

"Don't be silly, Michelle! I'm busy." I replied. You have to understand that things were really busy at work and chat time was limited. The excitement in her voice was quite obvious however so I was curious now and wanted to know what I must guess. F3J team trials were around the corner and we were struggling to find helpers so it must be something to do with that.

"I've been invited to the Soarist competition in Turkey by Mustafa."

"Really, you're not serious?"

And so the story began. Sorry for the childish intro but it really is an honor to be invited to this competition. The Soarist competition is an F3J invitational in Turkey where people from around the world are invited to fly, all expenses paid, in near to Istanbul. Mustafa Kok is one of the leading businessmen in Turkey and he and the Istanbul Soaring Club arrange this competition. This was the 4th time the competition was being held and we had therefore heard about it before. Unfortunately we had never cracked a nod until now. Well to tell the truth I still had not cracked a nod to get one of the starting places, Michelle had. It was NOT the kind of invitation you wanted to turn down but Mich didn't want to travel alone so she replied asking if it was possible for me to join her. The reply came back positive.

I was in Paris on business so Michelle arranged to fly to Frankfurt and meet with me there. She didn't realize that this meant a 12 hour wait. At 2:30 am we landed in Istanbul and were greeted by one of the organizers, put on a bus and driven to our hotel, arriving there at 5:30am, by then we were really tired so we set the alarm for 4 hours and went to bed. At 11:00 we had breakfast and then asked reception how we could get to the field, he asked us to relax (not easy for me when I want to go flying) and we would get a bus in about 30 minutes to 1 hour. An hour later there was the bus and off to the field we went. We just had enough time to assemble models before a round zero which meant no time to check models and get a feel for the air, but I guess that's what round zero is for.

Figure 1 The first view of the field

The main themes:
-Most of the models being used were Pike Perfects, Shadows and Experience Pros (pretty much in that order).
-It is obvious that one of the trends is to take a higher risk in launch by opting for a lower, faster launch with less time on the line but the conditions on the first day did not allow for this with the first prep time starting around 8:30 after rain the previous night and a late sunrise. There was pretty much no activity and the group spreads were high. The second round had thermals and the top pilots started to push the limits. This is what makes F3J interesting. In order to get into a fly-off you now have to differentiate yourself but it is no easy to be the first to do it and the conditions were not booming thermals. A good launch time is 3 or 4 seconds with 6 seconds being OK but not great.
- Landings must be 100 points within the last second! (unless you are lucky)

Figure 2 Stefan Eder's model (what's it called?)

Figure 3 Is there any space left for us to stick our models?

Figure 4 Mustafa doing karoke

Figure 5 Jojo trying to get into Michelle's pants

Round 1
I didn't make the time and Michelle could have pushed the time more (she could also improve a little on the landings.

Round 2
Ok but landing timing could be better

Round 3
Timing difficult due to down wind-ish on landing

Figure 6 Isn't child labour illegal in Europe?

At the end of day 1 we had completed 3.5 rounds with Michelle in 29th after 3 rounds and me in 32nd.

Day 2 was unfortunately rained out, much to most of the competitors' disappointment.

Figure 7 What F3J pilot's look like when it rains.

Many thanks to the Soarist Competition organizers for their hospitality, it is an event Michelle and I will never forget.

Update from Turkey

2007-10-14T10:21:00.000+02:00

Here is an update I received from Craig and Michelle this morning:

"Good morning from Turkey. It is raining here today so no idea if we will fly more. After 3 rounds Michelle 29 and Craig 32. The field is very good, there are lots of trees on the edge. This event is amazing and the organistation great. Conditions have varied from really easy on the practice day to really difficult yesterday. We are looking forward to next year. Craig & Mich."

F3J @ WHRF, 7 October 2007

2007-10-08T10:33:00.000+02:00

Thank you to everyone that attended HTL #6 at WHRF on Sunday, 7 October 2007. I was very impressed with the day, which included elements of a highly competitive group, relatively challenging conditions, but most of all - that wonderful sense of camaraderie we experience at these events.

The pilots briefing started a smidgen after 08h15, with the caution that strict F3J rules would be applied, electronic timing provided by Mark & the MGA's PA system, scoring by F3Jscore. The first slot started after 08h30 and we had no breaks throughout the day allowing for the finishing of the first 5 rounds around 12h30. The preliminary scores were tallied & checked, with 7 pilots (top 30%) identified for the 15 minute, winner takes-all fly-off at 13h00. In between the Martie's diner provided sustenance and the amazing weather conditions provided a suitable challenge to everyone. The heavy rains from the previous week & particularly the storms the night before created crystal clear air, with a very high humidity level. During the second round, a large bank of cloud began building an approaching from the East due to this humidity, but we were fortunate that we could enjoy sunshine for the entire event. Small thermals aplenty flew past the field in a stiff breeze, but the long trips downwind had many people scratching up front & particularly the RES100 and 2m class suffered being unable to penetrate as well as the larger models. The extremely soft ground seemed to encourage the pilots, and we likely recorded the highest number of spots in an event of this nature, ever!

The preliminary rounds & fly-off contained only Open class models as would be expected in conditions. The class leaders after the first 5 rounds were overtaken by Mark in a nail biting finish, flying his Xperience-Pro x-tail, and followed by Paul into 2nd place with an X-pro v-tail. Third place in the finals, and first Junior, Kurt, was a flying his dependable Eish!. Chris was flying his Pike Superior with aplomb, but a quick relaunch at the start saw his hopes of a win dashed.

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Preliminary Results

Fly Off Results

Alan & his twin personality flew the only RES100 entry & Bas predcited see him moving to the top of the table.

Derek once again stamped his authority on 2M & also moves to the head of this class in the league.

It was nice to see 3 juniors (2 new) flying and wow!, these youngsters can definately mix it with the moldie oldies as they nailed the spot & maxed their flights regularly.

Lionel Brink

UNCLE SYDNEY’S GOSSIP COLUMN

2007-09-27T11:11:00.000+02:00

Dateline: September 2007
European F3J medley

August was busy for European F3J enthusiasts. First a return to Deelen air base just outside Arnhem for Hollandglide, the 15th year of this event. Hollandglide is nowadays billed as the largest annual Euroleague competition, but others are coming close. It is almost too big for it takes a long time to walk to Spot 15 or 16. This year Deelen enjoyed its best weather for several years, reserving a soaking vicious storm for 30 minutes after the prize-giving.

But highlight for me was the fond farewell given to Harry “The Knife” Saunders and his wife who have been contest director/supremo since the start. Hollandglide also started a new trophy for the top placing pilot “over-50”. I complained to Jos Kleuskens who awarded the trophy to Colin Paddon (GB), that next year it should be “over-70” to give me a chance!

Harry “The Knife” Saunders and his wife plus grandchild collect their presentation after 15 years of serving as contest director/supremo at Hollandglide, truly a servant of F3J Europe. Red hat is Albert Kort, organiser-in-chief, another hero.

Then many pilots and helpers drove on across Germany, Austria or the Czech Republic into Slovakia, aiming this time for Trnava for the fifth European championships. The Trnava Cup held on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning before the champs and attracted 136 pilots. They enjoyed a wonderful treat with a foretaste of the tricky thermals, peppered with plenty of teasing flat calms and gusty speeding winds which was to come.

It’s hard to choose between the highlights. UK achieved its best FAI F3J success ever, in contrast to the miserable F3B results from Switzerland. Models, gazebos and even caravans were lost or shifted bodily by the swirling storm which hit Trnava halfway through one afternoon slot. Also the emergence of Russia, Lithuania and the continuing rise in fortunes of the Italian pilots is most welcome.

The Feigl family legend grows bigger with Peter Feigl managing the German team to first place in the Eurochamps after taking a flyoff place in the Trnava Cup. His elder son Sebastian triumphed as European champion, dropping 1.50 points in the four round flyoff. Second son, Benedikt Feigl won second place at Hollandglide and has secured a German team place in next year’s world champs in Turkey. Sebastian has not got a team place for next year, such is the scramble for the three team places.

German team manager Peter Feigl gets the now traditional hair shaving prior to being dunked in the pool as new European team champions.

Sebastian Feigl, new European F3J champion, has his head shaved in celebration, a somewhat dubious tradition going back at least two years.

2007 Eurochamps - Trnava, Slovakia

Allow me to sing the praises of the UK team - not often I get the chance.

Ten years ago at the very first F3J FAI champs in Poprad, Slovakia, the UK team did well, amongst the leaders and rightly so as originators of this new form of RC sailplane competition. Two pilots, Peter Cubitt and Simon Thornton, reached the flyoff, coming sixth and seventh respectively, and the team, which also included John Stevens of Eliminator fame, came fourth.

To set some perspective, let me quote Jack Sile’s 1997 report of the event: Pete Cubitt having scored 1,000 in the first round - “had his worst flight in the second round, but then followed with seven consecutive 900 plus scores.” How standards have changed. Today if you don’t score 55 seconds plus and 100, you are unlikely to be near the flyoff places. Pilots returning from the flightlines don’t talk about the minutes - times are assumed to be 9 minutes - only the seconds to two decimal places.

2007 allows UK heads to be held high, despite the team changes only a fortnight beforehand when Simon Jackson pulled out and was replaced by Colin Paddon. Adrian Lee and Austin Guerrier arrived with caravans in Trnava with two days of practice before the Open, Colin Paddon, team manager Graham Wicks and helper Kevin Beale flying in on Saturday with only one day to spare.

Each of the UK team pilots had one poor flight in the early rounds, but for once their spirits did not dampen and everyone pulled together. By the sixth round, the team was in 8th place, 500 points behind the leaders, but in the gusty winds, not irretrievable. Seventh round the team were up to fifth place and with consistent flying in ever more tricky conditions, so it stayed, Great Britain in fifth team place behind Slovakia, Italy, the Czech Republic and winners Germany.

Fifth-placed Team UK gathered around fifth-placed pilot Austin Guerrier, highest placed British pilot ever in an FAI F3J championships.

Austin Guerrier’s progress to gaining the last flyoff place was more dramatic. After six rounds he was in 23rd place, moving up round by round to 19th, 18th, 14th and then 12th at the end of 10 rounds. I’d shared some of his disappointment in the early rounds - “I am annoyed with myself, I came here to win!” Being proprietor of Acemodel and UK supplier of NAN Models gives him an incentive. Just before launching in high winds of later rounds, he quipped: “There’s only one way to deal with this - fly high and go far!” How true that was to prove in the flyoffs.

Saturday, sixth day of the championships, was flyoff day and dawned calm and sunny, seemingly set for eight 15-minute rounds of split second launches and spot landings. I had urged the contest director to squeeze in the first two rounds of senior and junior flyoffs into the tricky air of late afternoon on Friday, leaving everyone to relish the prospect and excitement of the final two rounds for Saturday. A similar schedule had produced a grandstand finish in Red Deer, Canada, three years earlier.

But contest director Milan Blazek and flight line king Miroslav Minarik, who had presided well over the whole week after a shaky start and a dodgy matrix, chose Saturday.

My fears that the flyoffs would be too easy proved wrong. First round of seniors saw several pilots risking two-second launches, and all bar one got away with it. Four pilots scored 14.55 seconds plus, Primoz Rizner getting 14.56.50 but only 90 landing points, three scored 14.54 plus, and only Juraj Adamek landed 45 seconds early.

Second round also looked easy, Jan Kohout netting 14.57.20 plus 100, Tobi Lammlein 14.56.90 and Philip Kolb and Sebastian Feigl both on 14.56.20. Austin Guerrier had his worst round scoring a good 14.53.50 but dropping 30 landing points.

Round three decided the championships. The wind had become stormy, gusty and far from predictable. Tempted into rash optimism by previous flights, all the pilots were prepared to rush downwind chasing what had become ephemeral patches of kinder air. The fields of corn and sunflowers downwind became littered with models. Gangs of helpers dashed to recover models among the high crops. Everyone bar one relaunched, few with the same model. Only one pilot, Marko Salvigni, triumphed with 10.36.90 and 100 to make his 1,000 points.

But salvation was at hand. Thomas Fischer and Primoz Rizner had touched each other minimally on launch and a reflight was called. Perhaps that explains why the pilots who heard the call flew so recklessly. Ten of the pilots claimed their refly scores in Round three, Sebastian Feigl scoring 14.53.30 and 100 to claim his 1,000 points. He was down to treetop height at around nine minutes, but then did some horizontal DS-ing which sent him 500 metres downwind to pick up 10 metres height, then slowed and flew out the slot - true champion style.

Round four was tame, only three pilots not managing to fly the slot out. New European champion was Sebastian Feigl, boldest and riskiest of all F3J flyers. Second place went to Tobi Lammlein who this year has specialised in coming second in all his contests. Following in third was Marko Salvigni, a worthy triumph which brought a huge smile to his face. Had the third round refly not been granted, I suspect that Marko would be the new champion.

Consistency also counts a lot, and Austin Guerrier proved that in coming fifth, just behind Philip Kolb. Although he dropped 50 landing points and 14.53.50 was his highest time, he became the highest placed British pilot in an FAI championship ever. Congratulations!

Heartiest congratulations of the whole week should go to Lesley van der Laan who is the new European Junior champion. He flew well enough to show that he will soon be a force to be reckoned with at senior level too. This young Dutchman always sports a laughing face and has competed at European and World level for the last four years. His success is most pleasing and well deserved.

Johannes Weber of Germany and Arijan Hucaljuk of Croatia claimed second and third places, narrowly squeezing Giovanni and Filippo Gallizia brothers from Italy into fourth and fifth places. Junior team results saw Czech republic in first place, followed by Italy and then Slovenia.

How about predictions?

Now the reckoning. For flyoff places David Claeys of Belgium let me down and only managed 33rd place. Adrian Lee from UK did slightly better with 20th place and I should have stuck with Austin in my predictions. Damir Kmoch from Croatia managed 21st place and I was surprised that noone from that keen country made the flyoff. Primoz Rizner rather than Primoz Prhavc came fifth in the preliminaries, missed the third round of the flyoff and came last.

My bets got better with the Germans because Sebastian Feigl, Tobias Lammlein and Philip Kolb all made it. What I did not expect was that Thomas Fischer would also win a place to make it four out of four.

Jan Kohout, who I saw as the repeat champion, came close to predictions; he led the preliminaries up to Round seven only to be beaten into second place by Philip Kolb by less than three points. In the flyoff he suffered in the notorious third round dropping 325 points and down to seventh place. Another Czech, Jaroslav Tupec, who pretends to be my father, made the flyoff and repeated his promise to stop competing in championships because he’s too old.

Massimo Verardi missed the flyoff by one place, but Marko Salvigni and Marco Generali did make it. Frank van Melick shot his bolt early, but Cor de Jong made it. Juraj Adamek from Slovakia made it, but team-mate Jan Ivancik didn’t.

Finally Murat Esibatir, the quiet Turk, let me down. Among the leaders up to Round four, he suffered the indignity of sloping the trees as others had done before to spin out the slot. But then the lift stopped leaving him too low to get back and he hit a tent - bang, off go 100 points to add to his zero. Ouch! He promises me it’ll be different next year.

So I named six of the 12 places in 14 guesses, about the same as last year. I wonder how many gossipers try for themselves? I named the team champions but hedged my bet with three options. One matter was a good bet, and that is that every pilot and helper taking part enjoyed a good contest.

Trnava Cup

This gossip column is not meant to dwell too much on results, but the Trnava Cup was a testing contest with a super prize, a special edition of his Supra presented by Vladimir Gavrylko. Philip Kolb won the flyoff, and knowing that he only flies his own-design Samba Pike Perfects these days in F3J competitions, I offered to buy his prize. That was refused without hesitation. “Now I have the ideal opportunity to test Mark Drela’s design for myself, and I am looking forward to it.” Philip sees Supra in many respects as the father or mother of his Pike Perfect.

What surprised me was that the Trnava Cup flyoff had two pilots from Ukraine and three from Russia and a Pole, which shows that competition from former Eastern bloc countries is hotting up. Only the year before in Martin, the Russians had found themselves floundering and confused: they were new and had language difficulties. They have caught up fast and deserve full credit. Watch out next year!

Ricardas Siumbrys from Lithuania, lying fourth after eight rounds, sadly scored 443 points and dropped out of sight in 29th place. F3J can be unforgiving!

Overfly panic stations

This year for the first time digital camcorders are being used to record landings and check overflying. Apparently this practice has become commonplace in Germany to prevent disputes about when models land, before or after the start of the long blast. Apparently one or two other countries are considering adopting the same practice.

I think that Philip Kolb’s second flight in the Trnava Cup flyoff was an overflight. It was certainly very close, but it was not penalised by the timekeeper. Afterwards I was shown two movies of the landing and on both you can hear the hooter before the nose hit the ground. Of course, there is a problem because the sound could come from a loudspeaker closer to the camera than the timekeeper. Problems caused by the differing velocities of sound and light not simple to solve. When I tackled Philip, he claimed that his landing was in time and on previous occasions, movie evidence he’d seen was vulnerable to sound errors.

In the Eurochamps, Tomas Bartovsky set up a camera to check landings and in one of the early rounds, a timekeeper - not the pilot - had appealed to the jury to decide because he was unsure. That evening the jury spent several hours viewing the evidence, calculating theoretical delays for sound and sight effects, and generally chewing over the problems. The flight was ruled as an overflight.

But before CIAM and F3J organisers get carried away on the trail of erratic forensic evidence, let’s remember that we fly for fun. F3J is supposed to be simple. The prospect of filming landings, then later launches, and perhaps tow-line releases, is crazy.

My guess is that there are now 20-30 pilots who fly out 10 minutes every time unless the weather is particularly nasty. These same pilots can almost guarantee that they will land within one metre and during the last second of the 10 or 15 minute slot. Next year, CIAM is likely to adopt the rule which divides the last metre into 20 cm lengths and the landing score could be 100, 99, 98 etc down to 95. The temptation to land in the last split second before the signal will become greater.

But please do not go the way of filming.

The problem arises because the penalty for overflying is so severe, and to win in good weather, top pilots become ruthless with themselves. The answer lies in stopping the stopwatches at exactly ten minutes and allowing the landing to count providing the nose is on the ground, not at the start of the hooter but by the time the hooter sound finishes. That allows at least one second margin of error before penalties apply. As at present, the timekeeper’s judgement should count, and his decision should be final.

Future outlook - 2008 and all that

Invitations have gone out for the 4th F3J Soarist Open in the middle of October. The organisers in Istanbul want this contest to be the “championship of champions” and hope that all the world’s top pilots will be there next month. The contest will be held in Adapazari, about 100 km east of Istanbul, and the field is being tested for the first time, and will be home for the World Championships in 2008.

Picture of new field at Adapazari, Turkey

Some of the 2008 team names have emerged in recent weeks.Team GBR will have seniors Simon Jackson (if he can make it this time), Adrian Lee and Brian Johnson. Sadly again there are no juniors in the UK league.

Team USA will be Daryl Perkins, Ben Clerx, Rich Burnoski with Skip Miller as first reserve. Juniors will be A J McGowan, Brendon Beardsley and Jeffrey Walter with Michael Knight and reserve. Cody Remington as last year’s junior world champion will also fly in the 2008 F3J WC.

Gossipers will know that Daryl Perkins has been F3B world champion at least twice - maybe more. He was the one who bought a second-hand Calypso Cobra from Steve Hailey and won the world champs with it. He has been acknowledged by Joe Wurts as the all-time best F3B pilot. As Jose Mourinho, ex-Chelsea manager, would say, he is a “special one,” which left me astonished that he now wants to fly the far simpler sport of F3J.

Ben Clerx enlightened me, for it turns out Daryl enjoys F3J. “Daryl hasn’t been able to make the team until now, although I don’t think he’s participated in all the team selections. He had tried many of them and always a little piece of bad luck has kept him out. His F3B schedule has also prevented some entries. But we are fortunate to gain Daryl as we lose Joe Wurts to the Kiwis.”

Again Ben speaking: “I’ve also competed in all the team selections and haven’t been able to make the team since the first Worlds at Upton 1998. Our team is based on a single three-day competition, so luck does play a part. You have one shot to be well prepared and practiced, which is like going to the world championships.”

For pilots in those countries where to win a team place you have to enter several competitions, travel hundreds of kilometres in all weathers over many months, it is tempting to go for the simple “do-or-die” solution. In UK, I suspect we’d end up with the same pilots either way!

The German league attracted 120 pilots for their five events, and 24 of these flew in all five qualifiers. Two of the comps were in France and Holland to ensure international experience. The three man team is Philip Kolb, Tobias Lammlein and Benedikt Feigl. Junior team will be Johannes Weber with Manuel and Christian Reinecke, after 23 juniors took part in three contests to gain a place. The three will be under intense pressure to regain junior top team place, having missed last two years.

South Africa will send the usual pairing of Craig and Michelle Goodrum (with a two and a half year old budding child pilot) plus Chris Adrian and Mark Stockton in reserve.

As current world champion, David Hobby will be returning again from Australia - can he do it yet again? - and he will have Aussie team of Mike O’Reilly, Theo Arvatakis and Mathew Partlett or Gregg Voak. If any other countries would like to send me details of their teams, they’ll have a mention in the next Gossip Column.

Apologies

This column should have been posted at least two weeks ago, and there’s more gossip that I should have included. I hope to catch up and report from October’s “championship of champions” at Adapazari, including details which will tempt supporters to attend next summer.

Uncle Sydney - sydney[dot]lenssen[at]ntlworld[dot]com

F3J Team Trial Results

2007-09-18T18:36:00.000+02:00

The F3J Team trial results where ratified last night by the MGA and are available for download below:

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Final Result

Best Flights

Thus the results from the qualifying legs with the above are as follows:

Pilot	Qualifier #1	Qualifier #2	Trials	Result	% of top
Craig Goodrum	5,000	4,724	4,986	4,993	100.00%
Conrad Klintworth (Jnr)	4,953	4,990	4,980	4,985	99.84%
Chris Adrian	4,950	4,995	4,946	4,971	99.55%
Michelle Goodrum	4,934	4,949	4,967	4,958	99.30%
Mark Stockton	4,834	4,791	4,911	4,873	97.59%
Paul Carnall	4,974	4,981	4,621	4,801	96.15%
Dion Liebenberg	4,410	4,787	4,332	4,559	91.31%
Ian Lessem	3,923	4,640	4,131	4,386	87.84%

Thus the Senior Team is:

Craig Goodrum
Chris Adrian
Michelle Goodrum

with Mark Stockton as the reserve.

The Junior Team is:

Conrad Klintworth
Simon Tladi
Kurt Stockton

with Ryan Nelson as the reserve.

Look out for a complete report in the next issue of The New Journal of R.C. Glider Gumph.

2007 Team Trials

2007-09-15T17:09:00.000+02:00

The unofficial results from the team trial finals held today are as follow's:

Seniors

1. Craig Goodrum
2. Chris Adrian
3. Michelle Goodrum

Reserve - Mark Stockton.

Juniors

1. Conrad Kliuntworth
2. Kurt Stockton
3. Simon Tladi

The official results will be ratified by the MGA Monday night.

Well done Lionel, Evan and co for a well run event.

US F3J Team Announced

2007-09-04T11:54:00.000+02:00

Senior

Daryl Perkins
Ben Clerx
Richard Burnoski.

Junior

AJ McGowan
Brendon Beardsley
Jeff Walter

More information can be found here.

F3J @ ETB

2007-08-19T20:05:00.000+02:00

Typical F3J mass launch

ETB hosted the last F3J competition on Sunday the 19th August 2007. A detailed report from Tigger can be seen here. More photos can be found at the BERG blog. Here follows the official audited results:

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Final Scores

Best Flight

Team Scores

Many thanks to the ETB team as well as Martie who catered and ended up capturing all the scores for the event. Well done all involved.

Team BERG in action. Evan flying, Piet timing and Derek in background calling.

CD Tent and Marties wonderful supply post.

Tense moment for Lionel while dodging trees.

Michelle fetching the model for relaunch.

Ian flying, Craig calling and young Ryan Nelson learning.

Holland Glide Results

2007-08-13T12:17:00.000+02:00

News emerging from Europe is that Philip Kolb has won the Holland Glide event. 2nd was Benedikt Feigl with Karl Hinsch in third. More information is slowly becoming available on the official web site

UNCLE SYDNEY’S GOSSIP COLUMN

2007-08-01T12:58:00.000+02:00

Dateline: August 2007

Euro Prospects

In two weeks time, Hollandglide will be over. Let us hope that the
Dutch at Deelen know how to work the weather miracle and avoid all rain
and high winds. Then many of the competitors will be making their way
to Trnava for the European Championships and the Trnava Cup. Time to do
some forecasting, hopefully with more success than last time.

The sixth European F3J championships in Trnava, Slovakia has attracted
60 senior pilots and 37 juniors to compete for the second most
prestigious prizes, second only to the world champs. The Trnava Cup
which will be held 17, 18 and 19 August before the main event and is
open to all F3J pilots has attracted 156 entrants so far. That will be
a stern challenge too.

The most remarkable feature in advance for the championships is that 40
out of the 60 senior pilots from 20 countries were at the World Champs
last year in Martin, and 24 from the 37 juniors - 16 countries - were
pilots last year. As much as anything, these FAI contests are an
opportunity for the F3J enthusiasts to renew friendships and compare
latest ideas, models and techniques. F3J contests are mostly tight to
the finish with split seconds and five landing points making all the
difference between top places. It is unlikely to be different this
year.

Over recent years this Gossip column has run through most of the team
members and managers, with odd bits of commentary. This year events
have conspired to leave me with little guidance on form. Models seem
unlikely to have moved on much, according to my information, but we
shall soon see.

So instead of having to plough through lots of names, I shall pick out
one or two highlights, with predictions to guide the betting.

The number of fly-off places will be officially announced by contest
director Milan Blazek at the start and could be 12. These are likely to
come from David Claeys, Belgium; Adrian Lee from UK; Damir Kmoch from
Croatia; Primoz Prhavc from Slovenia. (I omit Primoz Rizner from
Croatia this year because for the last two years I have seen him as the
top place winner and he has let me down. I know it makes him even more
nervous to be favourite!)

Sebastian Feigl and Tobias Lammlein from Germany seem set to make the
last rounds and they will likely be joined by Philip Kolb, flying this
time as reigning European champion and not part of the German team. In
the last Gossip, I reckoned he had already won the F3J Eurotour after
five events. He is certain winner having scored 103 again in Sofia last
month.

Jan Kohout, another ex-champion, will join Jaroslav Tupec from the
Czech Republic in the fly-off. Jaroslav told me last year that he was
too old for international championships - I can give him more than ten
years, but I’ll never fly like he can - and I’m pleased to see he
changed his mind.

The Italians were magnificent last year in Martin and enjoyed noisy
support. This time Massimo Verardi will make the fly-off again. Frank
van Melick from Holland, one of the few to fly his own-design models is
a good fly-off bet. Incidentally, if you want the best restaurant in
Trnava, then follow the Dutch team led by manager Jos Kleuskens because
he will have booked the best table there. Host country Slovakia will
win two fly-off places I bet, Juraj Adamek and Jan Ivancik.

To complete the fly-off list I’ve dithered between the three Turkish
team members. Many neutral supporters in Trnava will want this team to
do well since they will be hosts for the 2008 world championships in
Istanbul. My bet is Murat Esibatir.

Fourteen names for twelve places are my best guesses, and I wish
everyone, named or not, the best of luck, no unfortunate mid-airs and
enjoyable protest-free flying.

Who will be the new champion? Favourite for me is Jan Kohout, for he
will be trying seriously hard this year. Team prize? My hope is
Slovakia as hosts, but equally likely are the Czechs or the Germans,
who will have the youngest senior team on the airfield.

Muddy tales

UK’s awful summer continues, and so far we haven’t had an F3J
competition which has not been hampered by showers, storms and winds.
We live in hope that one day this year we shall enjoy a thermal
competition. We came close at Twywell last weekend with most of the
slots flown out, even the flyoff in the early evening. It did manage to
spatter a few drops of rain during two of the slots, just to be
perverse.

But we flyers cannot moan: in England thousands of houses have been
flooded, 120,000 families have been without running water for more than
a week, 20,000 homes are without electricity. Guesses on the causes
include a southerly shift in the Atlantic jet-stream, global warming of
course, but in fairness most continental Europeans expect the English
summer to be wet.

____________________________

The UK leg of the Eurotour, Interglide took place June 23/24, and
Tobias Lammlein from Markdorf in Germany flew over to take part. Allow
me to share some of the trials and tips.

For those who don’t know Tobi, he was World Junior F3J champion in
Lappenranta in 2002 and he will fly in the senior German team this
summer in the European championships at Trnava in August. He’s a top
pilot. He is in his second year of a mechanical engineering degree in
Switzerland, and the weekend break to get to Interglide was at the end
of term.

Tobi lives 15 minutes away from Friedrichshafen, from where you can fly
with Ryanair to Stansted in 90 minutes. Big snag was that his model box
did not arrive, and by 9.00 pm all hope of flying his three models was
gone. We phoned my friend Andre Borowski at the hospital in Enfield and
borrowed his Sharon Pro for the weekend. Tobi started programming the
model into his Graupner MC24 at 11.00pm, added an extra 30 grams in the
nose, went to bed for a few hours before leaving at 6.30 am next
morning for Marsh Gibbon.

Prospects were gloomy, plenty of rain forecast for the next few days,
but on reaching the field, the rain had stopped leaving lots of mud.
Walk within a metre of the ground sheet on which models were assembled
and the wings were splattered with mud, which dried like cement within
minutes.

Tobi did a handlaunch to test his settings, added another lump of
weight in the nose, flew in the second slot and scored a thousand with
his first towed flight, then went on to take second place in the
fly-off. If ever proof was needed that it’s the pilot that counts, not
the model, this was it.

*

Interglide contest director Graham Wicks (left), organiser Tony Vale
and second place winner Tobi Lammlein collecting his spoils courtesy of
Ace Models and Graupner.

Couple of highlights from his flying: in the second slot Tobi was
circling tight with three other models and came close to a mid-air.
“I’d forgotten it isn’t my model,” as he broke away to look for some
lift in isolation. Then in the flyoff, flying really high, far beyond
my vision as spotter. “I must be careful,” he said, “I’m close to
cloud.” A minute later, “It’s in cloud.” It seemed an age to emerge,
and I would never have found it with my eyes.

The real treat for me was having Tobi as my spotter. I gained tenth
place, far higher than normal, and that was 100% due to his bullying
and guidance. Several times my Supra flew far beyond my normal
boundaries, not only for visibility but also risking safe return. Each
time Tobi was confident that lift would be there - and it was.

How can he know that lift is most probably there? “It’s a hunch,” is
his explanation. How does he know which way to fly after the zoom? He
spends plenty of time following models flying each slot, but in the 30
seconds before his own launch, he claims that he remains unsure of
which way to fly: “Usually that decision is when I’m in the air.”

For many seasons, Tobi’s spotter - Germans call it “coach” - has been
Philip Kolb, especially in FAI championships, and experience of each
flight presumably rubs off. Is that how you learn to read air? As a
young boy his father Stephan Lammlein coached, but for competitions the
father/son relationship became too close for comfort and Stephan
stepped aside.

I remember last year at Martin’s World Championships, Joe Wurts
launched all three US juniors and did the spotting. The pilots were
excellent flyers, and Joe’s guidance was terse: “I don’t like that sky
- better left.” (Or similar) All the time Joe was looking round, 360
degrees. When a move was needed, his direction was ready.

My problems with spotting are first vision, then spending too much time
watching my pilot’s model, then advising too late that someone has got
reachable lift, and then persuading my pilot that he might try for it.
Most spotters I know spend most of the 10 minutes acting as co-pilot,
which is usually a waste

**
Spotter should rarely be co-pilot!

Biggest laugh I had timekeeping a couple of years ago in the
Hollandglide fly-off, was when an ex-world F3J champion flew with a new
spotter; his usual mate also being in the fly-off. Half way through the
first 15 minutes, I overheard: “Look, I don’t mind if you don’t say
anything. I don’t really mind if you keep on talking. But whatever you
do, don’t talk stupid!”

So drink a toast to all spotters, as vital to success as any pilot. The
same goes for the towmen! Wouldn’t it be a good idea of some of our
best spotters spent a little time trying to coach us mere mortals how
to do the job better!
_____________________

Interglide was the first time in my UK experience that the contest
director insisted that we flew some rounds in the rain - admittedly
light but continuous - to ensure that the event would be valid. Anyway
Tobi was due to fly in the next slot and asked if I’d got any “XYZ”
which I could not translate, for his wings.

Turning to Adrian Lee, he borrowed some washing-up liquid from his
caravan, and wiped top and bottom of the wing and tailplane surfaces,
just the gentlest of smears but leaving the wings sticky and slightly
slippery. Tobi wanted the liquid to disperse any water bubbles
collecting on the surface as the model flew, to minimise aerofoil
degradation, presumably the green stuff breaking surface tension. When
the model landed at the end of the slot, there were no bubbles, and the
slot was won.
___________________

To end the saga, Tobi’s three models in the box returned to
Friedrichshafen one and a half weeks later, apparently via Palma de
Mallorca. He has still to see his 50 Euro “sporting luggage” fare
refunded. Ryanair told him several times that they were a low-cost
airline with no electronic label facilities and they could only find
the box when it turned up. Two days after the box returned home,
Ryanair phoned up asking if he had found the box yet!

At Stansted airport I discovered that if you inquire about lost
luggage, you cannot talk face to face with anyone, you can only speak
on one single phone at the far end of arrivals, and that phone is
usually engaged. But if it weren’t for low cost air travel, many of us
wouldn’t get to many Eurotour contests. So take it or leave it!
_____________________

Radio revolution is here

Only in the last two weeks have I flown a model with synthesized
transmitter and receiver, with complete success thankfully. I remain
suspicious. With a box of crystals in my transmitter case worth far
more than the transmitter itself, I feel slightly done by. Also after
three decades of relying upon crystals to make my models work and avoid
interfering with others flying at the same time, crystals take on a
spiritual importance, like candles on an altar, and I’m loathe to
abandon them.

But I am told that synthesized transmitters are now accepted by top
pilots as 100% reliable and convenient in use. I have heard some doubts
about synthesized receivers, vulnerable to mobile phones etc., by
nobody I know has blamed them for a crash or interference. Again the
habit of changing and checking crystals dies hard.

The world of serious model radio-controlling is about the change again
with 2.4 GHz transmission, not the sets which have been selling for the
last year or so with limited range and only recommended for indoor and
park-fly models, but Graupner’s new Intelligent-Frequency-Select (iFS)
system, due to become available in August - any day now.

Both the new transmitter modules - you can continue to use your
existing set - and receivers have a host of features too long to list
here. Extra special to my mind is that Graupner says that up to 120
models can fly at the same time. The receiver and transmitter talk to
each other all the time, and your model and trannie will change
frequency as soon as interference is detected. As pilot, you will not
be aware of any change.

Airborne sensors in the model will send real-time information back to
the transmitter on a four line LCD screen, and you will be able to
track battery voltage, height, air speed, temperatures etc., and the
feedback can be converted into audio signals into your headphone. This
part of the system is still under development, say Graupner, and they
reckon up to 256 sensors in the model can be monitored. What can that
number be useful for?

Most importantly, the transmitter’s output power can be adjusted
between 10mW up to 100mW, because different countries have their own
regulations on what is permissible. The 8 and ten channel receivers
which will be on sale will have a range of 800 metres on the ground and
2 kilometres in the air, if you can see that far. The transmitter
aerial is about 12 cm long, and the receiver has a tiny stub aerial
too.

For the technically inclined, all this sounds pretty impressive. But
for me, I wonder what the reactions will be among the powers that be in
FAI, what changes might be triggered eventually in all the F3 class
competitions.

For the moment it is quite simple. IFS will not be allowed in any F3J
competition because: “Any device for the transmission of information
from the model aircraft to the competitor is prohibited.” But that
can’t last for long.

The whole approach to running competitions to date has been the limit
on the number of pilots who can fly at the same time. Hence we have
man-on-man rules, that is a number of rounds with several groups
(slots) in each round.

The limiting factor in future could be how many gliders can be flown
and landed on targets reasonably safely at the same time? - 20, 30 or
even more. I suspect that we will not see 120 models up at one time,
although that would make the model manufacturers rub their hands in
glee.

With slightly modified rules and staggered launches, you could
certainly have two or three times as many flying in each group on most
contest sites. That could be fairer and more exciting. The many and
various options which iFS opens up, if it proves as successful and
reliable as promised, will certainly lead to some healthy debates in
the not so distant future. Tomas Bartovsky and the folks in Lausanne
are going to be busy!

End of gossip for now!

US F3J Nationals Results

2007-07-30T15:01:00.000+02:00

News just in, the fly-off results from the US F3J Nationals are as follows:

1. Joe Wurts
2. Cody Remington
3. Craig Greening
4. Larry Jolly
5. Doug Pike
6. Skip Miller
7. Karl Miller
8. Michael Verzuh
9. Jim Monaco
10. Tom Kiesling (landed out in the corn south of campsite)

X-pro's

2007-07-28T18:08:00.000+02:00

Thanks to Craig and Michelle a number of X-pros and Shadows followed them back from the F3B WC recently held in Switzerland. Here is the first photo of Kurts (white and blue V-tail) and mine (green X-tail).

F3J @ ETB, 19th August 2007, Call for Entries

2007-07-26T12:16:00.001+02:00

Paul and the ETB team have agreed to host the next F3J comp that was
scheduled for the 18th August 2007. There only request is that the
event be moved off their regular club flying day and onto the Sunday.

I will be taking the entries and matrixing the event while the ETB
team take care of field layout and running the event on the day.

So can I please have your entries as teams of 4, with both primary and
secondary frequency as well as your SAMAA numbers and expiry dates.

Mark

UNCLE SYDNEY’S GOSSIP COLUMN

2007-07-24T08:02:00.000+02:00

Dateline: Early June 2007

Weather rules: not OK!

Don’t talk about the English weather, far too boring and specifically
designed to frustrate soaring. End of May and we Brits haven’t had one
round yet. Meanwhile Contest Eurotour has had five competitions -
Istanbul in Turkey, Forli in Italy, Holic in Slovakia, Ludwigsfelde in
Germany and Osijek in Croatia. And it is already won for 2007 by -
guess who - Philip Kolb!

Still mathematically possible, just about, that someone could beat
Philip because the European league consists of 13 contests and each
pilot’s three best scores count. But Philip has already notched up
308.75 points after dropping his 102 scored in Istanbul. Sebastian
Feigl is in second place 3.58 points behind, with his brother Benedikt
a further three points behind in third place.

For those unfamiliar, how can any pilot score more than 100% in any
contest? If you win top place in a fly-off, then you score three extra
points to add to your total in the preliminary rounds, second place add
two extra points, etc etc. This system will be used here in the UK F3J
league for the first time this year, if and when we actually fly a
contest and fit in a fly-off! The idea is to reward top flyers who do
well in 15 minute slots, competing directly with the best of the bunch.

Returning to Philip, he left it until the last competition in September
to win last year’s Eurotour in Bled, Slovenia. Quite unreasonably, he
has ruined this year’s league with less than half complete. For the
record, Philip has topped the Eurotour six times so far: 1999, 2001,
2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. “That’s enough,” I hear you say. “Give
somebody else a chance!”

This gossip column is not only about winners. My favourite competitor
in this year’s Eurotour is Esra Koc, daughter of Turkey’s F3J maestro
Mustafa Koc. Father is currently placed fifth in the Eurotour, while
Esra, competing seriously for the first time this year, she has flown
in four contests. Best score so far was 76.16 at Forli, and she is
currently 58th place in the league. Esra is 10 years old!

I first met Esra and her sister, who is four years younger, in Istanbul
when introduced by her mother four years ago. She wasn’t flying then,
but she was already dad’s keenest supporter. Now she tells me she’s
flying the Eva and a Space Pro - “I don’t build my own models, but when
my models break, if it’s not so bad, then I fix them myself. I want to
learn how to build models.”

Esra has already qualified for the Turkey’s junior team and will fly in
the European championships in Trnava this August. She also hopes to
compete next year in the World Championships - in Turkey, of course! I
shall follow her progress closely and I’m taking bets on how long it is
before she starts beating dad.

__________________________

Kiwis attract globe trotters

Moving across the F3J world to both the United States of America and
New Zealand, RC Soaring Digest has carried reports of Joe Wurts winning
February’s Kiwi SoarFest in Matamata, two hours drive from Auckland.
Another F3J star, Carl Strautins from Australia, was also there to hot
up the competition, along with old friend Sven Zaalberg, who flew for
UK in Red Deer 2004 and has since returned home as a captain with Air
New Zealand.

It’s been an ill-kept secret for some years that Joe and his wife Jan
were keen to emigrate to New Zealand, a country they’ve learned to love
since their first visit in 1994. That was the year Joe had a
demonstration tour of the country, invited by keen F3B flyers who
wanted first hand experience of how the experts do it. Joe and Jan
returned several times and in 2004 applied for residents’ visas, a
contorted and testing process which was only completed this year. Joe
retired early from Lockheed and has set up his own engineering
consultancy business They’ve sold their house, and as soon as their new
labrador puppy Lonnie has all his permits and jabs, they’ll move in the
summer.

What I have yet to discover is how long it will take before Joe is
eligible to fly for New Zealand, rumoured to be three years. My spies
tell me he will be invited to manage the Kiwi team in 2008. Confirmed
is that six senior pilots are competing for next year’s national team,
one of whom is Sven, to be decided in October.

Joe Wurts is the only thermal pilot I know with a record of success
which surpasses that of Philip Kolb. (I’m sure that Philip would be
first to go along with that!) America’s loss with Joe’s departure will
be more than compensated for by New Zealand’s gain.

Picture to go in about here

Caption:
Joe Wurts with his Supra and Australian Carl Strautins with fingers
twitching returning to the pits at New Zealand’s 2007 SoarFest held
just outside Auckland.

__________________________

What makes a good F3J model.

Everyone has their favourite model, often the latest “pride and joy”.
We also have our most nostalgic model, that sailplane which would still
win slots if only it still existed. Or the one which you took out late
summers’ evenings and it just refused to come down as the sun set.

The pace of development of F3J models seems to have slowed somewhat,
although none of today’s top frequent winners were around five years
ago. I’m thinking of the Pike Perfect, Xperience Pro or Shadow, Aspire,
Vision, Espada or Supra. The characteristics of top models have changed
too. All of them seem to zoom off the top of the line with more energy
to convert into height. Spans have increased typically by 0.5 metre.

Are they easier to fly? My answer to that is mixed. I’ve had about a
dozen flights with my new Supra in the past week and it really is the
easiest F3J model to fly that I remember. It nestles into thermal turns
and barely needs any correction - as close to flying itself as one
would wish. Whether that translates into better scores, we shall see.

My previous ‘new’ model, now well into its second year, an Espada, is
always full of surprises. I’ve flown it sometimes and been amazed by
its duration abilities. Yet other days, I could have happily given it
away as it came down in kind air twice as fast as anyone else. And I
thought I could trim!

(Picture of me plus Supra about here)

Recent questions from a friend who shall be nameless raised fresh
thoughts in my mind. He’s been flying an Esprit for many years, often
with success, and he’s wondering what to buy and fly next. “Nothing too
slippery,” he says. For instance, he finds a Starlight 3000 he’s tried
tricky. He wants to go back to the SD 7037 aerofoil and is willing to
trade competitiveness for handling comfort.

Time was when you could get a reasonable guide from model magazine
reviews. Nowadays, you get a few pics and words on what’s been fitted
and how long it took to assemble: little more.What really irks me is
when the reviewer has an F3J duration machine and he details his
experiences flying it on a slope. Or you see pics on how he’s linked
his servos and you know you stopped that years ago because they were
too sloppy.

My friend wants help and he’s right that there is little available
guidance. So drop a line to the Soarer or post your comments and
opinions of your latest winner, good and bad, on the new Barcs
web-site.

_________________________

In praise of Elapor

With the scarcity of gossip so far this year, let me sing the praises
of Multiplex and what they are doing with Elapor, their fancy name for
EPP. Many pilots will remember the fun they had with Twinstar a few
years ago. This chunky electric airliner with a 400 motor on each wing
could fly almost anywhere, control-line races without lines, combat
with or without streamers, and fitted with lights you could fly it
after midnight around campsites.

Nearly three years ago Multiplex launched the EasyGlider, 1.8 metre
span, pure glider or 400 electric, advertised as a recruiting tool to
persuade power modellers to take up thermal soaring. I bought one early
on, carried everywhere, and flew it whenever the opportunity cropped
up. It was almost uncrashable and I didn’t hesitate to let anyone
around have a go. No model has given more fun per Euro than that. And
another clubmate is flying it today.

Two months ago, Multiplex went one step better and launched Cularis,
again pure glider or electric, this time with a span of 2.61 metres.
Again it is quite chunky due to the nature of the Elapor, but it looks
semi-scale and it has a four servo wing with crow-braking. It flies
well if a little fast and again is easy fun.

But what sold me and fascinates me is how the Multiplex designers have
coped with the structural problems of achieving a high aspect ratio
wing out of what is simply uncovered plastic foam.

The kit costs £110 from West London Models and is full of innovative
and intricate white nylon components, plus foam jig to assemble the
wing panels. The two-piece wing, each with two mini servos for flap and
aileron, plugs straight into the fuselage and a moulded fitting holds
the wing joiners and the servo leads, plus a catch to lock each wing in
place. The all-moving tailplane has a special fitting which also locks
the two halves in place on each side of the fin. Assembly and
dismantling takes seconds.

If Multiplex continue to develop this material and approach to gliding,
it will not be long before they have high performance gliders at low
cost which will surely help to entice tyro pilots to fly competitively.

Elapor leaves a few queries. For example, I wonder whether or not to
spend a couple of hours using wet and dry paper to sand off the little
bobbles on the moulded surfaces, part of the production process. The
trailing edges of the flying surfaces are 3-4 mm thick rather than the
knife-edge which we’re used to with glass-fibre models. Typically I
spend £30-40 each for wing servos, but Cularis has the cheaper £6-8
mini servos. How much difference does that make? Not a lot apparently.

I’ve no way of accurately measuring glide angles and sinking speeds,
but I do know that the previous EasyGlider had a rate of descent about
twice that of my F3J machines. That simply meant that you had to find
stronger thermals to go up, and it was all the more obvious when you
found one in marginal conditions. Cularis has not flown much so far,
but I guess that its still-air sinking speed is about two-thirds that
of a normal F3J model, 0.5-0.6 metres/second.

The EasyGlider fitted with a 2000 mAh two-cell Lipo had a power run of
30 minutes and it was easy enough to fly for 90 minutes if you chose,
more likely several flights over a long afternoon. With a 1500 mAh
three-cell Lipo in the Cularis, you get about six power runs up to 200
metre height. It thermals fast and well, but watch for tip stalls if
you set the CG back.

Multiplex plus Elapor are more than likely to boost the popularity of
thermal flying and deserve high praise.

End of gossip for now!

Supra Owners Club

2007-06-28T10:15:00.001+02:00

The first meeting of the Supra owners club occurred at the 2007 F3J Nationals in Noordsberg.

2007 F3J Team Qualification Ranking

2007-06-27T08:32:00.000+02:00


Rank Pilot                  Berg F3J  Nationals  Highest Percent 
1.   Craig Goodrum            5,000     4,724     5,000    100%
2.   Chris Adrian             4,950     4,995     4,995    100%
3.   Conrad Klintworth (Jnr)  4,953     4,990     4,990    100%
4.   Paul (Spoons) Carnell    4,974     4,981     4,981    100%
5.   Michelle Goodrum         4,934     4,949     4,949     99%
6.   Izak Theron              4,558     4,840     4,840     97%
7.   Mark Stockton            4,834     4,791     4,834     97%
8.   Hugh Edmonds             4,824     -----     4,824     96%
9.   Rodney Goodrum           4,811     4,258     4,811     96%
10.  Dion Liebenberg          4,410     4,787     4,787     96%
11.  Ian Lessem               3,923     4,640     4,640     93%
12.  Derek Marusich           4,593     -----     4,593     92%
13.  Simon Tladi (Jnr)        4,541     4,271     4,541     91%
14.  Joe Coetzer              4,378     -----     4,378     88%
15.  Kurt Stockton (Jnr)      4,375     3,588     4,375     88%
16.  Volney Klintworth        4,283     -----     4,283     86%
17.  Brad Conlon              -----     4,267     4,267     85%
18.  Paul Boswarva            -----     3,960     3,960     79%
19.  Evan Shaw                3,801     -----     3,801     76%
20.  Piet Rheeders            3,526     -----     3,526     71%
21.  Lionel Brink             3,274     3,259     3,274     65%
22.  John Coulson             -----     3,206     3,206     64%
23.  Ryan Nelson (Jnr)        -----     3,196     3,196     64%
24.  Jurgen Hartig            3,118     -----     3,118     62%
25.  Herman Weber             -----     2,756     2,756     55%

The top 10 competing senior pilots are invited to participate in the final round of team selection to be held at Groengoud on Saturday the 15th of September 2007.

2007 South African F3J Nationals Results

2007-06-25T11:14:00.001+02:00


Pos Pilot                 Score     Model
1.  Chris Adrian          4,995     Pike Superior / OD
2.  Conrad Klintworth (J) 4,990     Experience Pro  
3.  Paul (Spoons) Carnell 4,981     Experience Pro
4.  Michelle Goodrum      4,949     F3B Eagle 
5.  Izak Theron           4,840     Eish!
6.  Mark Stockton         4,791     Supra
7.  Dion Liebenberg       4,787     Experience Pro
8.  Craig Goodrum         4,724     Supra
9.  Ian Lessem            4,640     Supra
10. Simon Tladi (J)       4,271     Suprinity
11. Brad Conlon           4,267     Experience Pro
12. Rodney Goodrum        4,258     Eish!
13. Paul Boswarva         3,960     Supra
14. Kurt Stockton (J)     3,588     Escape / Eish!
15. Lionel Brink          3,259     Emonyeni / Eish!
16. John Coulson          3,206     Experience Pro
17. Ryan Nelson           3,196     Mukulu
18. Herman Weber          2,756     Vision

Reports, photos and team qualification standing's to follow soon.

Jura's Cup 2007

2007-06-19T09:02:00.000+02:00

This past weekend the Jura's Cup F3J Euro League event was held in France. The fly-offs where won by Italian junior Filippo Gallizia. Nice to see that that it isn't just in South Africa that the juniors are cleaning up overall. The top 15 where as follows:


1.  GALLIZIA, Filippo (jnr) - ITA 
2.  LAMMLEIN, Tobias - GER
3.  PRESTELE, Dominik - GER
4.  FEIGL, Sebastian - GER
5.  IVANCIK, Jan - SVK
6.  HINSCH, Karl - GER
7.  ADAMEK, Juraj - SVK
8.  SALVIGNI, Marco - ITA
9.  FISCHER, Thomas - GER
10. CLAEYS, David - BEL
11. KUNZ, Andreas - GER
12. FOURNIER, Lionel - FRA
13. SYSKA, Jorg - GER
14. BRAUNE, Robert - GER
15. KOLB, Philip - GER

The full results as well as photos can be found on the following sites:

Results

Album

Secret Spy Shot

2007-06-18T08:41:00.000+02:00

With less than a week to go before the F3J / Thermal glider National Championships our reporter snapped this spy shot of Lionel Brink trimming his newly acquired glider from the Evan Shaw stable.

F3J in the Rockies Results

2007-05-29T12:02:00.000+02:00

The results from the US F3J in the Rockies event have just been posted on the Internet. It would seem that current Junior world champion Cody Remington won the event flying a Jarro Muller Espada RL. Second and third spots where taken by Skip Miller and Buzz Averill both flying Pike Perfects.

Round by round details as well as the complete results can be found on the following links:

Prelims

Fly Offs

A discussion about the event can be found on RC Groups

Quasimodo

2007-05-07T10:09:00.000+02:00

Rodney, the proud owner of Qusimodo, the new Diablo F3B model from Fischer.

Yes I know this has nothing to do with F3J. However I took the photo and needed to post it somewhere.

The proud father

2007-05-03T14:50:00.000+02:00

Ian, with his new Supra.

F3Jamboree 2007 - RETURN OF GOSSIP

2007-04-17T14:31:00.000+02:00

RETURN OF GOSSIP
by Uncle Sydney
Dateline: February 2007

Six years ago Uncle Sydney’s gossip column stopped appearing in BMFA’s F3J News. Hopefully not too many yawns will resound when the column resumes in SOARER, the inimitable Barcs newsletter. Some gossip has appeared in the meantime, usually a week or two before any world or european F3J championship with a follow-up afterwards. The aim is to find matters of interest and note to F3J flyers and soaring in general. Please direct complaints or gossip leads to sydney.lenssen (at) ntlworld (dot)com.
_____________

Trnava Eurochamps

This year’s European Champs returns to Slovakia, at Trnava, which is about 50 km north of Bratislava on the E75. Known as a region for wine, thermal springs and learning, Trnava boasts an old-established university and was known as “little Rome.” The flying site, a sport airport, will have as a backdrop the Small Carpathian Mountains.

One day, FAI will explain why model glider championships convene so often in Slovakia. In 2001 we competed in Holic, last year in Martin and now Trnava. I suspect that the Slovaks are keen enough to volunteer, they do it extremely well, get sponsorship and help from local firms, and everyone enjoys good food, plenty of beer or wine, and cheap hotels if you choose to sleep in a bed rather than a tent or caravan. So no complaints. But it would be more mind-broadening to be elsewhere in Europe.

Keen spotters will have noted that Bulletin 1 for the 6th Eurochamps has been issued, inviting national teams to register and giving more details. Teams will start assembling on Thursday August 17. For the first time at a Eurochamps, everyone is invited to fly in the Trnava Cup contest, starting at midday on Friday with flyoffs around midday on the Sunday. Champs proper will run from Monday through to Friday with prizegiving on Saturday 25 August.

News from the various teams will emerge nearer the time, but the UK team has altered slightly. Tony Vale has dropped out to let Austin Guerrier in. Last year’s league flyers will recall that Tony pipped Austin in the last round by a fraction of a point, particularly galling for Austin because he’d been almost certain of a place since round one. Now domestic pressures have let Austin in again, and as highest placing UK pilot in Martin’s world champs, he deserves another go.

No official appointment yet for UK team manager, but it looks likely that Graham Wicks who flies in the Fairlop club, same as Austin, will step into Tony Guerrier’s shoes. As organiser of the UK F3J league, Graham deserves this honour.

What will Adrian Lee be flying? He has a squad of Graphite 2’s, two carbon, (2.07 and 2.13 kg) plus a glass version at 1.88 kg for early morning or evening when lift is slim or non-existent. Last year’s squad still survives, so any damaged model can be replaced immediately. What a lucky man! I remember in the 2001 flyoffs at Holic when Adrian when almost quit the final round because several mid-airs had reduced him down to the last High Five and he needed to fly back at home in the F3J league the following weekend.

Simon Jackson has had a clear-out over Christmas leaving him with one model - his lightweight Shadow which he and Phil assembled overnight at the World champs - from last year. He hopes to be restocked soon with both F3J and F3B models.

Most FAI F3J championships are held in July, and Trnava’s late August dates have upset the Eurotour applecart. Hollandglide has been brought forward to second weekend, 11/12 in August, and UK pilots driving to Slovakia might take the opportunity to go straight from Holland, across Germany and Austria or Czechia to Trnava. UK team pilots will miss the British Nationals which is why an extra two-day rounds has been scheduled for the 2007 BMFA/Barcs league.

_________________

Wing taping

Most of today’s ready moulded F3J models have three piece wings - a centre section and two outer wing panels - connected by carbon fibre joiners. This helps packing for travel, it means that if you suffer the occasional mid-air or a tree leaps out at your model, you can replace a section cheaper than the half wing if you fly two piece wings like Crossfire and Europhia, or one of Jaro Muller’s more recent models such as Espada or Escape. Today’s question is: do you tape the panels together?

Some use insulation tape, sellotape or diamond tape, even masking tape to seal the gap and keep the parts together. Some ensure that the whole joint is sealed top and bottom, some cover the top surface and tuck just a few centimetres onto the underside. Whatever you do, it’s a pain when you’re late and the pilots’ briefing has been called.

I was doing David Hobby a favour last year in Martin when I found him marching out to the flight line with his Pike Perfect, ready to fly, and his wings were not taped. “Thanks, but no thanks,” was his response. “I never tape the panels together. What’s the point, they’re a good fit, couldn’t be better, and they won’t move in flight.”

He’s right, of course. Wing panels and joiners require some force to fit them together, and when the wing is flying, the lift and drag create even more friction between joiners and their boxes. But last time I launched my Pike without tape, I noticed the omission after landing and thanked my lucky stars that nothing had come apart.

Those with a good memory will remember that in the last round of last year’s World Champs fly-off, David had a mid-air with the Italian Massimo Verardi, some 300 metres away from the spot at a height of about 100 metres. His model went into a spin, gained a 20cm gash in the leading edge of the left hand outer panel, and the panel was skewed back from the centre panel where the joiner box had split leaving a 10 gap between panels.

With aplomb, David coaxed the model down safely, slowly enough to gain another 50 seconds or so of flight time even knowing he was entitled to a reflight, and speared the spot for 100 landing points. Nobody was quite certain for a minute or two, but he had done enough to ensure that for the second time in succession, Hobby was World Champion!

What would have resulted if the panels had been taped? My guess is that the damage would have been worse. But I still tape my wing panels!

NB FOR MIKE - It would be nice if possible to fit in the pic I sent you with David Hobby smiling and on one knee looking at his Pike Perfect after landing.
_______________

F3J rule changes

We all talk from time to time about the need to modify F3J’s rules. Although it’s lovely to have two days flying with most people flying out the 10 minute slots, as at last year’s Interglide at Marsh Gibbon, flyers then moan about launch and landing competitions. More sensibly, some flyers yearn for greater emphasis on thermal flying as opposed to mega launching and speared landings.

There’s no harm in talking rules. But changes in the rules cannot come easily these days because the FAI, and in particular CIAM which rules the roost, has procedures and only allows rule revisions at four year intervals unless safety is involved. In all fairness to the “Gods on high” in Lausanne, they actively seek pilots’ views on FAI class rules. At all championships, an evening is devoted to a team managers’ forum where opinions on rules can be exchanged, and surveys are often carried out.

What has surprised me over the last three years is that most pilots and countries are by and large in favour of sticking with today’s rules. One or two individuals have been vociferous in their demands for alterations, but they have not been able to formulate proposals which command support.

One possible exception is on launching. Only Germany today adamantly insists on retaining hand towing and excluding electric winches. Their arguments are simple and compelling: two-man towing requires exertion and teamwork and is attractive to juniors and younger pilots, and proof of the pudding for them is that German F3J comps often attract 20-30 junior entries.

The US team wants winch launching and very few thermal competitions over there have human tows. Even if contests attract more athletic types, the weather is often too hot. I believe that many countries would go along with electric winches, especially if pilots have the choice of hand tows or winches.

A majority of countries now allow winches in their team trials, and as in Britain, F3J hand towing has almost disappeared even for 100S. Interglide, which is part of Contest Eurotour, has to stick with hand towing. What prevents winches? Nobody wants to see the hassle of winch regulations and on-the-spot compliance testing, and nobody has identified an acceptable proposal.

Landing targets

The most horrendous landing of 2006 I recall was Jaroslav Tupec in the last round of the WC qualifying flights, which was critical in that several pilots lost or won their flyoff places in it. With two or three seconds to go, a rival pilot flew at high speed across Jaroslav’s flight path forcing him to rear up sharply and gain height to six metres or so. He then had to dive vertically to nail the landing, which he did. What a clatter! If I had tried, the model would have smashed into pieces - and missed. It says something for the construction of the Pike Perfect that it survived with no discernable damage. Both Jaroslav and his spotter “Samba father” Vostrel grinned from ear to ear. He had his flyoff place.

2002’s horrific lamding was in Lappeenranta, Finland: Arend Borst became world champion when his model survived a high speed landing by skidding some 20 metres across gravelly ground with the nose stopping on the spot. He had been caught half a mile away from his spot with just 25 seconds left in the 15 minute slot due to some misunderstanding. He came back along the flight line ballistically leaving no time for crow braking, hoping that the ground would arrest the model.

Very exciting and obviously - for me - memorable, and maybe when you’re on the edge of winning a world champs, any risk is worthwhile. In reality, would it not be better if F3J rules actively discouraged rather than invited such potentially dangerous behaviour?

Most successful pilots now spear their landings to cut out the risk of skidding across the spot. Even the landing spots are made of thin vinyl rather than hardboard so that the noise will pierce rather than bounce. The stress on models is considerable, but amazingly today most models seem to take it. For spectators, such landing techniques must seem stupid, graceless and unrealistic.

Gossip tells me that some senior pilots with influence have had enough. They are trying to formulate something closer to the American thermal landing target where you are required to land along a line, not too long, and you must not plough the nose or fit a skeg to arrest your speed. What wording for the rules? Send me your draft.

NB. Since this gossip was written, FAI documentation for the March CIAM meeting has been published, and it contains advance notice of the German proposal to divide the last metre of the landing tape into 20 cm intervals. This means that to score 100 you need to land within 20 cm of the landing point rather than within 1 metre. If you land with the nose between 20 and 40 cm away, then you score a mere 99 points, and so on.

This method of scoring is tried and tested: I have flown at Hollandglide a couple of times and at other Eurtours where it’s been used. It does help separate the really successful flyers who regularly hit 14 minutes 55 seconds plus in flyoffs and 100 points every time.

Note that rule changes for each FAI class are only allowed every four years these days unless the change is made for safety reasons. So the new tapes will not be official prior to 2008, assuming the new proposals are adopted. Of course any contest director can make “local rules.”

Also to make an FAI rule change, the proposer is required to give the reasoning, and the Germans are saying that pilots will need to fly more slowly if they are to land with greater precision within 20 cm of the spot. I have checked with my contacts in Holland and Germany and they do confirm that most pilots do come in more slowly. But I have my doubts. Flying faster gives greater control of height and direction, especially if the plane is ballasted.

I understand that UK discussion on the topic agrees with the objective of trying to cut down on speared landings. Pilots are all in favour of the 20cm divisions in the last metre. But they also want to see a landing which leaves the nose speared to be rewarded with a zero. They say the model must come to a rest with the nose clean rather than caked in mud and earth, and the back of the fuselage resting on the ground. Oh for more perfect flying sites!

I am waiting to see the rules written for that. What a can of worms!

End of gossip for now!

Sydney Lenssen.
sydney.lenssen (@) ntlworld.com (attention: new email for Sydney)

Photos from F3J #1

2007-04-16T15:33:00.000+02:00

The flight line
Team ETB with new comer Jurgen flying
The event management team
Mark's models
One of the biggest supporters of F3J in South Africa
Jurgen on approach
Mark about to launch Ian's Eish!
Craig with Michelle's Suprinity. This model came to grief in a mid-air shortly after this photo was taken. Michelle was later involved in another mid-air yet came back to take a very credible 5th.
Dion with Izak's Eish!
Izak on approach
Chris with Conrads number 2. His Experience Pro was involved in the mid-air with Michelle's Suprinity.
Team BERG
Paul and partner giving it all they've got.

F3J Team Trials 1 - Results.

2007-04-16T08:16:00.000+02:00

The first qualifying event for the South African F3J team to participate in Turkey in 2008 was held at BERG on the 14th April 2007. The results after 6 hard fought rounds where as follow's:


1.  Craig Goodrum       5,000 (100 %)
2.  Paul Carnall        4,973 ( 99.5)
3.  Conrad Klintworth   4,953 ( 99.1) Jnr
4.  Chris Adrian        4,950 ( 99.0)
5.  Michelle Goodrum    4,933 ( 98.7)
6.  Mark Stockton       4,834 ( 96.7) 
7.  Hugh Edmunds        4,824 ( 96.5)
8.  Rodney Goodrum      4,810 ( 96.2)
9.  Derek Marusich      4,592 ( 91.9)
10. Izak Theron         4,557 ( 91.2)
-------------------------------------
11. Simon Tladi         4,541 ( 90.8) Jnr
12. Dion Liebenberg     4,409 ( 88.2)
13. Joe Coetzer         4,377 ( 87.6)
14. Kurt Stockton       4,375 ( 87.5) Jnr
15. Volney Klintworth   4,283 ( 85.7)
16. Ian Lessem          3,922 ( 78.5)
17. Evan Shaw           3,801 ( 76.0)
18. Piet Rheeders       3,526 ( 70.5)
19. Lionel Brink        3,273 ( 65.5)
20. Jurgen Hartig       3,118 ( 62.4)

Currently the top ten qualifiers are as above. Also all three juniors flying have met their qualifying criteria.

Special thanks must go to Ilma Stockton for CDing the event as well as checking the scores on Sunday. Jessie and Cian for scoring. Tony and his wife for the excellent lunches as well as Piet and Evan for giving up Friday afternoon to ensure that the field was correctly laid out.

More detailed results can be downloaded below:

Results

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Best Flights

Next qualifying event is the gliding Nationals to be held in Natal during June.

See you then.

Matrix for Team Trials 1

2007-04-12T11:52:00.000+02:00


           Flight Matrix
2007 Team Trials # 1
======================================================

Round: 1

 pos Nr  Pilot Name            Chan/Freq   Hlpr Cntry
======================================================

Slot: 1
  1  14  Lessem; Ian             72 (35.120)    1
  2  20  Shaw; Evan              73 (35.130)    5
  3  13  Hartig; Jurgen          84 (35.240)    6
  4   1  Brink; Lionel           74 (35.140)    2
  5   8  Coetzer; Joe            41 (53.800)    3
  6  17  Nelson; Simon           61 (35.010)    4

Slot: 2
  1   4  Stockton; Mark          92 (35.250)    1
  2  19  Rheeders; Piet          79 (35.190)    5
  3   7  Carnall; Paul           61 (35.010)    6
  4  10  Goodrum; Michelle       70 (35.100)    2
  5   6  Adrian; Chris           69 (35.090)    3
  6   -   -

Slot: 3
  1  18  Nelson; Ryan            90 (35.300)    1
  2   9  Edmonds; Hugh          101 (35.410)    5
  3  15  Liebenberg; Dion        74 (35.140)    6
  4  11  Goodrum; Craig          77 (35.170)    2
  5   2  Klintworth; Conrad      68 (35.080)    3
  6   -   -

Slot: 4
  1   5  Stockton; Kurt          60 (35.000)    1
  2  16  Marusich; Derek         76 (35.160)    5
  3  21  Theron; Izak            62 (35.020)    6
  4  12  Goodrum; Rodney         64 (35.040)    2
  5   3  Klintworth; Volney      82 (35.220)    3
  6  22  Tladi; Simon            77 (35.170)    4

Round: 2

 pos Nr  Pilot Name            Chan/Freq   Hlpr Cntry
======================================================

Slot: 1
  1  14  Lessem; Ian             72 (35.120)    1
  2  20  Shaw; Evan              73 (35.130)    5
  3   1  Brink; Lionel           74 (35.140)    2
  4  17  Nelson; Simon           61 (35.010)    4
  5  13  Hartig; Jurgen          84 (35.240)    6
  6   3  Klintworth; Volney      82 (35.220)    3

Slot: 2
  1  18  Nelson; Ryan            90 (35.300)    1
  2   9  Edmonds; Hugh          101 (35.410)    5
  3  11  Goodrum; Craig          77 (35.170)    2
  4   -   -
  5  15  Liebenberg; Dion        74 (35.140)    6
  6   2  Klintworth; Conrad      68 (35.080)    3

Slot: 3
  1   4  Stockton; Mark          92 (35.250)    1
  2  16  Marusich; Derek         76 (35.160)    5
  3  12  Goodrum; Rodney         64 (35.040)    2
  4   -   -
  5   7  Carnall; Paul           61 (35.010)    6
  6   6  Adrian; Chris           69 (35.090)    3

Slot: 4
  1   5  Stockton; Kurt          60 (35.000)    1
  2  19  Rheeders; Piet          79 (35.190)    5
  3  10  Goodrum; Michelle       70 (35.100)    2
  4  22  Tladi; Simon            77 (35.170)    4
  5  21  Theron; Izak            62 (35.020)    6
  6   8  Coetzer; Joe            41 (53.800)    3

Round: 3

 pos Nr  Pilot Name            Chan/Freq   Hlpr Cntry
======================================================

Slot: 1
  1   2  Klintworth; Conrad      68 (35.080)    3
  2  14  Lessem; Ian             72 (35.120)    1
  3  22  Tladi; Simon            77 (35.170)    4
  4   9  Edmonds; Hugh          101 (35.410)    5
  5  21  Theron; Izak            62 (35.020)    6
  6  10  Goodrum; Michelle       70 (35.100)    2

Slot: 2
  1   3  Klintworth; Volney      82 (35.220)    3
  2   4  Stockton; Mark          92 (35.250)    1
  3   -   -
  4  20  Shaw; Evan              73 (35.130)    5
  5   7  Carnall; Paul           61 (35.010)    6
  6  12  Goodrum; Rodney         64 (35.040)    2

Slot: 3
  1   6  Adrian; Chris           69 (35.090)    3
  2  18  Nelson; Ryan            90 (35.300)    1
  3   -   -
  4  16  Marusich; Derek         76 (35.160)    5
  5  13  Hartig; Jurgen          84 (35.240)    6
  6   1  Brink; Lionel           74 (35.140)    2

Slot: 4
  1   8  Coetzer; Joe            41 (53.800)    3
  2   5  Stockton; Kurt          60 (35.000)    1
  3  17  Nelson; Simon           61 (35.010)    4
  4  19  Rheeders; Piet          79 (35.190)    5
  5  15  Liebenberg; Dion        74 (35.140)    6
  6  11  Goodrum; Craig          77 (35.170)    2

Round: 4

 pos Nr  Pilot Name            Chan/Freq   Hlpr Cntry
======================================================

Slot: 1
  1   5  Stockton; Kurt          60 (35.000)    1
  2  20  Shaw; Evan              73 (35.130)    5
  3   7  Carnall; Paul           61 (35.010)    6
  4  11  Goodrum; Craig          77 (35.170)    2
  5   2  Klintworth; Conrad      68 (35.080)    3
  6   -   -

Slot: 2
  1   4  Stockton; Mark          92 (35.250)    1
  2  16  Marusich; Derek         76 (35.160)    5
  3  13  Hartig; Jurgen          84 (35.240)    6
  4  12  Goodrum; Rodney         64 (35.040)    2
  5   6  Adrian; Chris           69 (35.090)    3
  6  22  Tladi; Simon            77 (35.170)    4

Slot: 3
  1  18  Nelson; Ryan            90 (35.300)    1
  2  19  Rheeders; Piet          79 (35.190)    5
  3  15  Liebenberg; Dion        74 (35.140)    6
  4  10  Goodrum; Michelle       70 (35.100)    2
  5   8  Coetzer; Joe            41 (53.800)    3
  6   -   -

Slot: 4
  1  14  Lessem; Ian             72 (35.120)    1
  2   9  Edmonds; Hugh          101 (35.410)    5
  3  21  Theron; Izak            62 (35.020)    6
  4   1  Brink; Lionel           74 (35.140)    2
  5   3  Klintworth; Volney      82 (35.220)    3
  6  17  Nelson; Simon           61 (35.010)    4

Round: 5

 pos Nr  Pilot Name            Chan/Freq   Hlpr Cntry
======================================================

Slot: 1
  1   9  Edmonds; Hugh          101 (35.410)    5
  2  10  Goodrum; Michelle       70 (35.100)    2
  3   6  Adrian; Chris           69 (35.090)    3
  4  18  Nelson; Ryan            90 (35.300)    1
  5   -   -
  6  21  Theron; Izak            62 (35.020)    6

Slot: 2
  1  16  Marusich; Derek         76 (35.160)    5
  2  12  Goodrum; Rodney         64 (35.040)    2
  3   8  Coetzer; Joe            41 (53.800)    3
  4   5  Stockton; Kurt          60 (35.000)    1
  5  22  Tladi; Simon            77 (35.170)    4
  6  15  Liebenberg; Dion        74 (35.140)    6

Slot: 3
  1  20  Shaw; Evan              73 (35.130)    5
  2  11  Goodrum; Craig          77 (35.170)    2
  3   3  Klintworth; Volney      82 (35.220)    3
  4  14  Lessem; Ian             72 (35.120)    1
  5   -   -
  6   7  Carnall; Paul           61 (35.010)    6

Slot: 4
  1  19  Rheeders; Piet          79 (35.190)    5
  2   1  Brink; Lionel           74 (35.140)    2
  3   2  Klintworth; Conrad      68 (35.080)    3
  4   4  Stockton; Mark          92 (35.250)    1
  5  17  Nelson; Simon           61 (35.010)    4
  6  13  Hartig; Jurgen          84 (35.240)    6

Round: 6

 pos Nr  Pilot Name            Chan/Freq   Hlpr Cntry
======================================================

Slot: 1
  1  22  Tladi; Simon            77 (35.170)    4
  2   7  Carnall; Paul           61 (35.010)    6
  3   2  Klintworth; Conrad      68 (35.080)    3
  4  18  Nelson; Ryan            90 (35.300)    1
  5   1  Brink; Lionel           74 (35.140)    2
  6  20  Shaw; Evan              73 (35.130)    5

Slot: 2
  1  17  Nelson; Simon           61 (35.010)    4
  2  13  Hartig; Jurgen          84 (35.240)    6
  3   6  Adrian; Chris           69 (35.090)    3
  4  14  Lessem; Ian             72 (35.120)    1
  5  11  Goodrum; Craig          77 (35.170)    2
  6  16  Marusich; Derek         76 (35.160)    5

Slot: 3
  1   -   -
  2  21  Theron; Izak            62 (35.020)    6
  3   8  Coetzer; Joe            41 (53.800)    3
  4   5  Stockton; Kurt          60 (35.000)    1
  5  10  Goodrum; Michelle       70 (35.100)    2
  6  19  Rheeders; Piet          79 (35.190)    5

Slot: 4
  1   -   -
  2  15  Liebenberg; Dion        74 (35.140)    6
  3   3  Klintworth; Volney      82 (35.220)    3
  4   4  Stockton; Mark          92 (35.250)    1
  5  12  Goodrum; Rodney         64 (35.040)    2
  6   9  Edmonds; Hugh          101 (35.410)    5

Natal Championships Photos

2007-03-30T13:37:00.000+02:00

Pilots Briefing

Supra in Action

Graphite 2

Dennis Bird and Dave Greer with Eliminator

Youngest competitor Ryan Nelson being helped by the Klintworths

Conrad hard at work

Allan Sneedon attacking the spot

John Coulson launching Simon Nelsons Cumulus

A very happy John Coulson with the search party

Experience Pro

Fred Wittstock

A very deserving winner

Photos by Paul Boswarva.

Natal Championships Report

2007-03-27T15:43:00.000+02:00

This year the Natal Championships where held at the Noodsburg Country Club on the 24th and 25th of March. The format for the Open Class event was F3J being flown of 200m (400m line) electric winch. In addition to this 2M (6 minute max in 8 minute working time) and RES/100 (8 minute max in 10 minute working time) where also flown. Being that this event was held 3 weeks before the first leg of South African F3J team selections, I expected a lot more Gauteng based pilots to make the 600km pilgrimage to what I consider to be the best gliding field in South Africa. It turned out that only two teams made the trip.

Practice Day - Friday the 23rd

This served as the travel day, however Kurt and I left at around 05h30 so that we could also practice on the field for the greater part of the afternoon. We arrived at Noodsburg at around 13h00 after checking into the B&B where we were staying. We where very surprised to find no one at the field. Also the fairly moderate wind was blowing from a very unusual easterly direction. I laid out the winches while Kurt assembled the models, only to find a broken servo lead on his number one Eish!. Given the wind, I initially only took out my Carbon Eish! and proceeded to have a lot of fun circle towning this very stiff F3B like model. Kurt took over my number 3 model (Jaro Muller Escape) and settled in after a couple of flights.

I later assembled my Supra determined to finally find out how this model flew with ballast. This turned out to be a real race against the rain that was fast approaching the field. I managed to get the model up just before the rain and was completely amazed at how well it penetrated with only 1/3 ballast in the huge tube. However my joy was cut short by the rumbling of thunder from the fast approaching storm.

Just as we got every thing packed away when Tim Potter, Rose and Fred Wittstock arrived to layout the field. We left to preform some surgery on the winch I had borrowed at the last minute as well as the wing tip I knocked off my Carbon Eish! while hastily loading it into the car.

Day 1 - Saturday the 24th

We awoke to find that while the wind had dropped to a very calm occasional breeze, however the cloud and rain had stayed. Also the occasional breeze was from a very un-cooperative Northerly direction while the 2 wind directions that had been laid out where easterly and westerly. However as the wind was fairly gentle it was decided to stick with launching cross wind.

The conditions proved to be a real challenge with rounds often being won the person who flew the smoothest in the extremely light lift available. Maxes where hard to find. Young Conrad Klintworth proved to be a master of this difficult conditions, racking up round win after round win. Eventually he would end the day on 3,999 out of a possible 4,000.

The flight of the day has to go to Denis Bird flying his aging Esprit. He managed to eek out a max while the rest of his group where down at around 5 minutes. The most amazing part of this flight is that he was also at approach height from about 5 minutes to go. He masterfully worked little bubble after little bubble to decimate the opposition in grand style.

The incident of the weekend also occurred on the first day when John Coulson was flying his Experience Pro high and far down wind. I was flying in close proximity at the time when I noticed the yellow glider diving at the ground. Initially I thought the pilot had lost sight of the model. According to my caller the model pulled out at the last second, rocketing up to almost the same height I was at before plummeting back towards the ground at great speed. Eventually the model disappeared into the 10foot tall sugar cane field. Various search parties undertook the very unpleasant task of hunting for the model in the cane field with out much luck. Listening to all the accounts of how the model went down, I as convinced that there would be little left. However at the end of the day, once everyone had packed up Dennis Bird joined the search and found the model sitting on top of the cane and completely unscratched.

Flying was stopped just after the completion of round 4 due to low cloud. In fact the cloud was so low, I was zooming directly into it with my back up model that I decided to fly at the end of the day.

Most of the competitors gathered at the Wartburg Hof for dinner that night and enjoyed an excellent German meal while swapping "war stories". The happiest person there was definitely John Coulson.

Day 2 - Sunday the 25th

We arrived at the field to find that the low cloud, mist and drizzle was still present although this didn't stop me getting some flying done with my Tabooish DLG. To further aggrevate matters the wind was coming from the North again and was a little to strong to ignore. It was decided to delay the start and switch the field lay out so that we could launch into wind.

Again Fred, Rose and the rest of the DMAC crew did an excellent job getting the field layed out in the new wind direction.

By the time flying started, the mist and low cloud had lifted and there was a fair amount of blue sky between the clouds. The conditions where a lot better than the previous day but still tough. Definilty not silly air. You had to be so carefull not to loose any lift that you had as it would be a long way to the next bubble.

It was during one of the RES 100 slots that I saw Dennis Bird (again) record the flight of the event with his Eliminator. He was litterally on final approach and being comprehensively beaten by Fred Wittstock when he felt a small bubble on the last leg of his approach. He worked this little bubble really, really hard not only to eek out a max, but to also clear the tall trees at the back of the landing area. Really entertaining flying.

Young Ryan Nelson and Conrad Klintworth's 2M models fell victim to into wind launches and blew up spectacularly during launch. Day 2 also saw John Coulson flying his Experience Pro again, this time with a new RX and no further incidents.

The only dissapointment for the day is that the F3J fly off never happened. I'm not entirely sure why as Conrad, Allan Sneedon and myself stayed for some time set-up at the flight line for the event that just didn't seem to happen.

Thanks must go to Mike Summers for the excellent job he did of CDing the event as well as Dave Greer (organising and matrixing), Rose and Fred Wittstock as well as Dennis Bird and the rest of the DMAC team. I can't wait to return for the Nationals in June.

Natal Championships

2007-03-26T11:52:00.000+02:00

The Natal Championships where held this past weekend. This was the first F3J like contest of the year in that the Open Class competitors flew to F3J rules, but where launched off 200m winches.

The results are:


Open

1st   Conrad Klintworth (Jnr) 4999  Experience Pro 
2nd   Allan Sneedon           4861  Graphite 2
3rd   Mark Stockton           4653  Supra
4th   Brad Conlon             4620  Experience Pro
5th   Don Slatter             4604  Pike Superior
6th   Dennis Bird             4447  Esprit
7th   Volney Klintworth       4379  Mkulu
8th   John Coulson            4363  Experience Pro
9th   Kurt Stockton (Jnr)     4258  Escape / Eish!
10th  Paul Boswarva           4089  Supra
11th  Simon Nelson            4018  Mkulu
12th  Brian Fanning           3475
13th  Ryan Nelson             3406  Mkulu
14th  William Cranmer         1169

2 Metre

1st   Brad Conlon             4937  Mini Graphite
2nd   John Coulson            4678  Mini Graphite
3rd   Conrad Klintworth (Jnr) 4669  Spirit
4th   Dennis Bird             4615  Spirit
5th   Paul Boswarva           4375
6th   Volney Klintworth       4355  Spirit
7th   Allan Sneedon           4036
8th   Fred Wittstock          3624  OD
9th   Simon Nelson            3118  Lanier
10th  William Cranmer(Jnr)    2791
11th  Ryan Nelson             2244  Lanier
12th  Don Slatter             1889    

RES/100

1st   Dennis Bird             4618  Eliminator
2nd   Allan Sneedon           4003  Sagitta  
3rd   Fred Wittstock          3936  OD
4th   Simon Nelson            3060  Cumulus
5th   Ryan Nelson (Jnr)       2716  Lanier

Reports and pictures to follow.

Supra Fly

2007-02-26T09:38:00.000+02:00

A Future F3J Champion?

2007-01-22T11:39:00.000+02:00

Young Ryan Nelson with his 2m Lanier that he used to win the first round of the Bill Vos Memorial Trophy held in Natal recently.

Gauteng Thermal Duration Calendar

2007-01-15T12:56:00.000+02:00


      Date     |        Event          | Venue 
---------------+-----------------------+-----------
 14th Jul 2007 | F5J Postals           |
 15th Jul 2007 | F5J Postals           |
---------------+-----------------------+-----------
 4th Aug 2007  | Postals Week 1        |
               | F3K Hour (14h00)      | MMS
 5th Aug 2007  | Postals Week 1        |
 11th Aug 2007 | Postlas Week 2        |
 12th Aug 2007 | Postals Week 2        |
 18th Aug 2007 | F3J                   | ?
 25th Aug 2007 | F5J Postals           |
 26th Aug 2007 | F5J Postals           |
---------------+-----------------------+-----------
 2nd Sep 2007  | HTL 5                 | SGC
 8th Sep 2007  | F5J Postals           |
 9th Sep 2007  | F5J Postals           |
 15th Sep 2007 | F3J Team Trials       | GGFC
---------------+-----------------------+-----------
 7th Oct 2007  | HTL 6                 | WHRF
 13th Oct 2007 | F5J Postals           |
 14th Oct 2007 | F5J Postals           |
 21st Oct 2007 | F3J                   | ?
---------------+-----------------------+-----------
 3rd Nov 2007  | Postals Week 1        |
               | F3K Hour (14h00)      | MMS
 4th Nov 2007  | Postals Week 1        |
 10th Nov 2007 | Postals Week 2        |
 11th Nov 2007 | Postals Week 2        |
 18th Nov 2007 | Vaal Traithlon        | VMG
---------------+-----------------------+-----------
 15th Dec 2007 | F3J                   | ?

Importance of F3J Towmen

2006-12-11T08:22:00.000+02:00

Given the recent debate within SAMAA about the importance of recognising towmen as fully fledged team members. I thought I'd post these two photo's forwarded by Jojo Grini.

Here is the US junior team on the top step of the podium with their towmen sharing the moment. To their left is the Italian team with manager and two towmen!!!

Here is Lionel Brink towing for David Hobby in the infamous last flight of the senior fly offs in the 2006 world championships. I wonder what made the Australian team (who had two pilots in the fly offs) choose both South African towmen to tow for them. Could it possibly be that we had selected two excellent individuals to fulfill this vital role.

Sadly it is difficult to explain the importance of good towmen, as well as the direct effect that these towmen have on the pilots overall score, to a bunch of petty bureaucrats who couldn't find their butts in the dark using both hands and flash light, let alone even spell F3J.

Changing of the Guard

2006-12-06T08:33:00.000+02:00

At the MGA meeting on the 28th of November 2006, Piet Rheeders tendered his resignation as the F3J representative. Mark Stockton as been accepted by the MGA as Piets successor.

SOUTH AFRICAN TEAM QUALIFYING PROCEDURE FOR THE 2008 F3J SOARING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

2006-12-01T09:15:00.000+02:00

As with most World Championship teams within the RC Model Aeroplane disciplines, three team members will qualify to represent each country at the sixth F3J Model Soaring World Championship event in 2008 to be held in Turkey.

The principal:
The principals of the team qualifying procedures have remained the same as for the previous F3J World Championship with two pre-qualifying contests of which one counts and one is a throw away. The scores from two qualifying contests count 50% to the final score, the remaining 50% comes from the final team trials contest where the top 10 pilots fly in a man-on-man format, to decide the top three and reserve pilots.

Pre-qualifying events:
A SAMAA registered SA citizen may be eligible to participate in the final team trials for the SA F3J team if they have achieved a top ten position in the pre-qualifying events. Two full F3J qualifying events will be held of which the highest score for each pilot count towards the final team trials qualification score. These events are to be held to the minimum F3J standard of 6 pre-fly off rounds with one throw away (maximum potential score of 5000 each). Only the pre-fly off scores will count towards the qualification procedure and the highest score will be used to obtain your pre-qualification score.

Senior F3J team:
The pilots with the top 10 scores from the pre-qualifying events are eligible to fly in the final team trials contest.

Junior F3J team:
The top 3 junior pilots from the pre-qualification contests will be qualify for the junior team provided they have achieved a score of at least 80% of the score of the top senior pilot in the pre-qualification events. There is no need for the three juniors to take part in a final team trials contest.


Event           Venue                     Date
1st Qualifier   Venue to be confirmed     14 April 2007 
2nd Qualifier   Nationals - DMAC          22 – 24 June 2007

Final F3J team trials event:
The top ten qualifying pilots will be eligible to participate in the one day team trial event to be held towards the end of the year (15 September 2007). In the event that certain of the top ten pilots choose not to participate then the MGA has the right, firstly, to draw in order from 11th, 12th and 13th pilots as per the pre-qualification scores.

The maximum of 10 pilots must pre-arrange frequencies to allow all pilots to compete on a man-on-man format in each round of the final six round event, where the lowest round score is thrown away resulting in a potential maximum score of 5000 for this event.


Event             Venue                      Date
F3J Team Trials   GGFC                       15 September 2007

The pre-qualification score (maximum of 5000 points) is added to the score from the final team trial event (maximum of 5000 points) to obtain the final score to determine the top three pilots for the SA team with reserves drawn from 4th to 10th place in descending order.

The pilots will then select the team manager and tow men per team (senior and junior), according to an agreed process.

Further information and bulletins will be circulated via the MGASA mailing list as well as the F3J Blog (http://f3j.blogspot.com).

Provisional 2007 F3J Calendar

2006-11-27T13:56:00.000+02:00

14th April 2007 - F3J Qualifier 1 - Venue TBA
22nd, 23rd and 14th June 2007 - Soaring Nationals and F3J Qualifier 2 at Noordsberg (Natal)
18th August 2007 - F3J Event - Venue TBA
15th September 2007 - F3J Team Trials - Groengoud
21st October 2007 - F3J Event - Venue TBA
15th December 2007 - F3J Event - Venue TBA

Simon Tladi receives SA Eagle Trophy

2006-11-06T11:51:00.000+02:00

At the National Aeroclub awards banquette, Simon Tladi was recognised and awarded the SA Eagle Trophy for the Most Meritorious Achievement at an International event. The details of the citation where are follows:

Simon was introduced to the Model Gliding Association and SAMAA at an Awareness programme run at AAD2004 at Waterkloof. During 2005, Craig Goodrum, a top radio controlled giding pilot, and a member of the F3J gliding team brought Simon into his club, and started Simon on a mentoring program.

Simon went solo, and flew in his first competition in October 2005. He flew again in a competition in November. Realising Simon's potential, he was given the opportunity to improve his skills and competed for a place on the F3J team. In February 2006, at a competition he achieved the requirement of obtaining a minimum of 80% of the top pilots score, Simon achieved 93%, and became the a member of the F3J Junior Team to represent South Africa at the World Championships to be held in Martin Slovakia.

In August 2006, Simon was part of the first full junior team to represent South Africa at an Aeromodelling World Championship, Simon is also the first black pilot to represent South Africa at an Aeromodelling World Championship, achieving 85% of the Junior World Champ. These are all incredible feats, for both Simon and South Africa.

F3J @ BERG Photos

2006-10-09T19:00:00.000+02:00

Jessie took the following photos between capturing the scores. Look out for the pic of Craig being ably assisted by Mathew.

F3J @ BERG 2006 - Complete Results

2006-10-09T09:12:00.000+02:00

Preliminary Rounds

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Results

Absolute Best Flight

Fly Off's

Fly Off Round 1

Fly Off Round 2

Results

Absolute Best Flight

F3J @ BERG Results

2006-10-07T17:33:00.000+02:00

Preliminary Rounds

Best 8 rounds, 1 throw-away.

1. Stockton, Mark 6,955.75
2. Goodrum, Craig 6,880.95
3. Klintworth, Conrad 6,832.47
4. Klintworth, Volney 6,619.17
5. du Ponsel, Stephane 6,476.58
6. Joffe, Tim 6,252.83
7. Goodrum, Rodney 6,170.73
8. Rheeders, Piet 6,165.29
9. Joffe, Peter 4,736.63
10. Shaw, Evan 4,428.67
11. Nieuwoudt, Gert 3,595.10

Fly-off

Volney withdrew in order to help Conrad, this allowed Piet into the fly-off, as
both Tim and Rodney where not able to fly,

Flyoffs where two rounds, no throw away.

1. Goodrum, Craig 1,996.45
2. Klintworth, Conrad 1,993.17
3. Stockton, Mark 1,887.46
4. Rheeders, Piet 1,715.83
5. du Ponsel, Stephane 1,700.66

Detailed scores will be sent out on the MGA and Soar RSA mailing lists on Monday. Photos and report also available next week.

Many thanks to Ilma and Jessie for running the competition and scoring as well as the BERG team for hosting the event.

F3J @ BERG Flight List

2006-10-05T14:22:00.000+02:00

Flight Matrix
BERG 2006
======================================================

Round: 1

pos Nr Pilot Name Chan/Freq Hlpr Cntry
======================================================

Slot: 1
1 13 Goodrum; Rodney 64 (35.040) 6
2 14 McNeil; Chris 95 (35.350) 7
3 8 Stockton; Mark 92 (35.250) 1
4 3 Klintworth; Conrad 68 (35.080) 4
5 2 Joffe; Peter 90 (35.300) 5
6 10 du Ponsel; Stephane 74 (35.140) 2
7 6 Rheeders; Piet 79 (35.190) 3

Slot: 2
1 12 Goodrum; Craig 77 (35.170) 6
2 - -
3 9 Stockton; Kurt 60 (35.000) 1
4 4 Klintworth; Volney 82 (35.220) 4
5 11 Joffe; Tim 73 (35.130) 5
6 5 Nieuwoudt; Gert 81 (35.210) 2
7 7 Shaw; Evan 86 (35.260) 3

Round: 2

pos Nr Pilot Name Chan/Freq Hlpr Cntry
======================================================

Slot: 1
1 5 Nieuwoudt; Gert 81 (35.210) 2
2 12 Goodrum; Craig 77 (35.170) 6
3 3 Klintworth; Conrad 68 (35.080) 4
4 11 Joffe; Tim 73 (35.130) 5
5 6 Rheeders; Piet 79 (35.190) 3
6 8 Stockton; Mark 92 (35.250) 1
7 - -

Slot: 2
1 10 du Ponsel; Stephane 74 (35.140) 2
2 13 Goodrum; Rodney 64 (35.040) 6
3 4 Klintworth; Volney 82 (35.220) 4
4 2 Joffe; Peter 90 (35.300) 5
5 7 Shaw; Evan 86 (35.260) 3
6 9 Stockton; Kurt 60 (35.000) 1
7 14 McNeil; Chris 95 (35.350) 7

Round: 3

pos Nr Pilot Name Chan/Freq Hlpr Cntry
======================================================

Slot: 1
1 5 Nieuwoudt; Gert 81 (35.210) 2
2 9 Stockton; Kurt 60 (35.000) 1
3 7 Shaw; Evan 86 (35.260) 3
4 4 Klintworth; Volney 82 (35.220) 4
5 11 Joffe; Tim 73 (35.130) 5
6 13 Goodrum; Rodney 64 (35.040) 6
7 - -

Slot: 2
1 10 du Ponsel; Stephane 74 (35.140) 2
2 8 Stockton; Mark 92 (35.250) 1
3 6 Rheeders; Piet 79 (35.190) 3
4 3 Klintworth; Conrad 68 (35.080) 4
5 2 Joffe; Peter 90 (35.300) 5
6 12 Goodrum; Craig 77 (35.170) 6
7 14 McNeil; Chris 95 (35.350) 7

Round: 4

pos Nr Pilot Name Chan/Freq Hlpr Cntry
======================================================

Slot: 1
1 7 Shaw; Evan 86 (35.260) 3
2 8 Stockton; Mark 92 (35.250) 1
3 12 Goodrum; Craig 77 (35.170) 6
4 3 Klintworth; Conrad 68 (35.080) 4
5 11 Joffe; Tim 73 (35.130) 5
6 5 Nieuwoudt; Gert 81 (35.210) 2
7 - -

Slot: 2
1 6 Rheeders; Piet 79 (35.190) 3
2 9 Stockton; Kurt 60 (35.000) 1
3 13 Goodrum; Rodney 64 (35.040) 6
4 4 Klintworth; Volney 82 (35.220) 4
5 2 Joffe; Peter 90 (35.300) 5
6 10 du Ponsel; Stephane 74 (35.140) 2
7 14 McNeil; Chris 95 (35.350) 7

Round: 5

pos Nr Pilot Name Chan/Freq Hlpr Cntry
======================================================

Slot: 1
1 6 Rheeders; Piet 79 (35.190) 3
2 13 Goodrum; Rodney 64 (35.040) 6
3 5 Nieuwoudt; Gert 81 (35.210) 2
4 2 Joffe; Peter 90 (35.300) 5
5 3 Klintworth; Conrad 68 (35.080) 4
6 14 McNeil; Chris 95 (35.350) 7
7 9 Stockton; Kurt 60 (35.000) 1

Slot: 2
1 7 Shaw; Evan 86 (35.260) 3
2 12 Goodrum; Craig 77 (35.170) 6
3 10 du Ponsel; Stephane 74 (35.140) 2
4 11 Joffe; Tim 73 (35.130) 5
5 4 Klintworth; Volney 82 (35.220) 4
6 - -
7 8 Stockton; Mark 92 (35.250) 1

Round: 6

pos Nr Pilot Name Chan/Freq Hlpr Cntry
======================================================

Slot: 1
1 7 Shaw; Evan 86 (35.260) 3
2 2 Joffe; Peter 90 (35.300) 5
3 14 McNeil; Chris 95 (35.350) 7
4 13 Goodrum; Rodney 64 (35.040) 6
5 3 Klintworth; Conrad 68 (35.080) 4
6 5 Nieuwoudt; Gert 81 (35.210) 2
7 9 Stockton; Kurt 60 (35.000) 1

Slot: 2
1 6 Rheeders; Piet 79 (35.190) 3
2 11 Joffe; Tim 73 (35.130) 5
3 - -
4 12 Goodrum; Craig 77 (35.170) 6
5 4 Klintworth; Volney 82 (35.220) 4
6 10 du Ponsel; Stephane 74 (35.140) 2
7 8 Stockton; Mark 92 (35.250) 1

Round: 7

pos Nr Pilot Name Chan/Freq Hlpr Cntry
======================================================

Slot: 1
1 10 du Ponsel; Stephane 74 (35.140) 2
2 14 McNeil; Chris 95 (35.350) 7
3 11 Joffe; Tim 73 (35.130) 5
4 3 Klintworth; Conrad 68 (35.080) 4
5 6 Rheeders; Piet 79 (35.190) 3
6 12 Goodrum; Craig 77 (35.170) 6
7 9 Stockton; Kurt 60 (35.000) 1

Slot: 2
1 5 Nieuwoudt; Gert 81 (35.210) 2
2 - -
3 2 Joffe; Peter 90 (35.300) 5
4 4 Klintworth; Volney 82 (35.220) 4
5 7 Shaw; Evan 86 (35.260) 3
6 13 Goodrum; Rodney 64 (35.040) 6
7 8 Stockton; Mark 92 (35.250) 1

Round: 8

pos Nr Pilot Name Chan/Freq Hlpr Cntry
======================================================

Slot: 1
1 4 Klintworth; Volney 82 (35.220) 4
2 10 du Ponsel; Stephane 74 (35.140) 2
3 11 Joffe; Tim 73 (35.130) 5
4 9 Stockton; Kurt 60 (35.000) 1
5 7 Shaw; Evan 86 (35.260) 3
6 12 Goodrum; Craig 77 (35.170) 6
7 - -

Slot: 2
1 3 Klintworth; Conrad 68 (35.080) 4
2 5 Nieuwoudt; Gert 81 (35.210) 2
3 2 Joffe; Peter 90 (35.300) 5
4 8 Stockton; Mark 92 (35.250) 1
5 6 Rheeders; Piet 79 (35.190) 3
6 13 Goodrum; Rodney 64 (35.040) 6
7 14 McNeil; Chris 95 (35.350) 7

F3J @ BERG

2006-10-04T08:53:00.000+02:00

The contest format for this event will be as follow's:

This is an F3J off 150 meter winch (300m line) event.

The maximum number of team members has been reduce to two (2).

Due to the reduced number of helpers, we increase the prep time per round
From 5 to 7 minutes. This allow's the recovery of winch lines, posting of scores etc.

8 rounds with 2 slots each are scheduled to be flown. Provided we fly 6 or more rounds there will be a single throw away.

2 X 15 minute fly-off with the top 5 competitors going head to head. There is no throw away in the fly-off rounds

If one of the top 5 competitors drops out to help another, number 6 gets a
shot etc.

Pilots briefing at: 7.45 am.

Competition Start: 8:00 am.

Entry fee:

Senior’s: R20.00

Junior’s: R10 00

New F3J Model

2006-10-03T08:49:00.000+02:00

A new F3J model was announced recently. The model is designed by the team responsible for the Escape, ie Stephan Eder and Max Steidle. The manufacturer is the maker of the 2X F3B World Championship winning Crossbow, Aer-O-Tec. An interesting feature is the interchangable tip panels that allow the model to be streched from 3.4m to 3.6m. Be sure this will join the likes of the Pike Perfect, Supra and Xperience Pro in the winning circle.

Thanks Peter Eagle for sending this information on.

F3J @ BERG Entries.

2006-10-02T08:38:00.000+02:00

Brain & Son
Mark Stockton - 35,250; 35,100; 35,170
Kurt Stockton - 35,000; 35,170; 35,100

P & T
Stephane du Ponsel - 35,140; 35,200
Lionel Brink - 35,300; 35,030

BERG
Piet Rheeders - 35.190; 35,040; 53.400
Evan Shaw - 35,210; 35,260

BJ
Peter Joffe - 35,060, 35,300 (Frequency Change!)
Tim Joffe - 35,130; 35,210

Team SGC Hornbill
Conrad Klintworth - 35,080; 35.240
VolneyKlintworth - 35.220; 35.170

Assorted
Gert Nieuwoudt - 35,210; 35,040

F3J @ BERG on 7th October 2006

2006-09-28T15:02:00.000+02:00

It would seem that the next F3J event is to be hosted at BERG on the 7th October 2006. I guess this would mean getting my Supra out of it's hiding place.

Team Jersey Raffle Draw Results

2006-09-27T14:11:00.000+02:00

The draw for the team jersey took place today and was won by Ingrid Purdan.

August Postals Results

2006-09-04T10:07:00.000+02:00

South African F3J team members continue to cement their places at the top the postals ladder:

1. Craig Goodrum - 4,561
2. A. Sneedon - 4,549
3. Mark Stockton - 4,520
4. Conrad Klintworth - 4,458 (Junior)
5. T. Potter - 4,442
6. Michelle Goodrum - 4,404 (Manager)
7. Piet Rheeders - 4,285
8. J. Coulson - 4,279
9. Kurt Stockton - 4,274 (Junior)
10. Volney Klintworth - 4,255

Club Scores's are as follow's:

1. Midrand Model Soarers - 13,440
2. Durban Model Aircraft Club - 13,231
3. Southern Soaring Club - 12,207

F3J Q&A

2006-08-22T09:01:00.000+02:00

John Godwin created the following summary of questions posed by Brian Mulder and answered by Mark Stockton and Craig Goodrum.

Brian Mulder raised questions about the latest F3J World Champs. Both
Mark and Craig replied. Here's an edited version of the conversation.

Mark's reply.

Q.. All scores that I have seen are normalized. This is of little
interest to me. What I want to know is does somebody or number of
people always max out every round irrespective of conditions? If not,
what is the norm per round time wise?

Generally all flights where maxed, in those that weren't, the winner
of the slot got very, very close with a 9:30 or so. This was quite an
achievement as we had overcast drizzly / rainy conditions for most of
the event. I can only think of two of my flights that where easy
maxes. After maxing out and on final approach, what error is there
for time? Are you always doing it within 1 second all the
time? Looking at it from another angle, if you are unable to land
within 1 second of max time when everybody maxes out, do you stand a chance?

Most rounds where won by pilots recording a 9:54 flight time and 1m
landing, once you include that the competitor spent 4 to 5 seconds on
tow, you realise that they are mostly landing very accurately at 9:59
(working time) within 1 meter of the spot. In a couple of rounds our
pilots recorded the same flight time as the slot winner, but landed
at 2m, this cost them on average 30 places in that round.

Q.. In unfavorable conditions, launch height counts. Do the guys
that launch high always come out on top in these conditions? In other
word, if you were not capable of launching as high, would you ever be
in contention for a podium position.

Even in unfavorable conditions, launch speed combined with height is
vital. I remember Arend Borst repeatedly achieving excellent heights
from 2 to 3 seconds. He wasn't the highest but always maximised the
flight time advantage every time. I don't believe we where ever out
launched by the others. Credit needs to go to Lionel and Paul here,
it was not by mistake they where chosen to tow for Aussie's in the fly-offs.

Q.. How much does unfavorable conditions impact overall on a
competition and who is going to win. If every round had zero lift
to be found, would certain individuals find it easier to win?

There is a definite technique to flying in these low lift conditions
that is vastly different to the techniques we use in the high lift,
high sink environment.

Q.. What planes were being flown? Other than the Supras and Pikes,
what else was being flown? I found it strange that this sort of
information was not listed anywhere on sites covering the WC. Was
anybody trying to compete with vac-bagged models and such like planes?

The top three planes flown where, 1) Pike Perfect - David Hobby, 2)
Xperience Pro - Sebastien Fleigel, 3) Supra - the Ralf Oetters. There
is very little to choose from between the top models. My intention is
to stick with the Supra's as they are as good as the other planes,
and they are being very actively developed by Vladimir with lots of
input from Arend Borst, Barry Kennedy, Joe Wurtz etc.

Q.. How much does LUCK contribute in a WC percentage wise?

You do not so much need good luck, but you certainly need to avoid
the bad luck. Having experienced team helps a lot here.

Q..Lastly, well done to our team for what they achieved. When, Joe
Wurts asks Graig to call for him ... hell that is something to be
proud off for sure. However, what would be the reason for not
possibly doing better. Where can the SA team improve or where are we
underachieving?

In short, we need to raise the level of competition here. The scores
Craig, Chris and myself recorded in nearly all slots would have
fairly easily won the slot here.

Regards

Mark

Craig's comments

To answer some of Brian's questions from a completely subjective view.

Yes, normally at least one pilot maxes. An excellent max is 9:57 and
1 m an OK max is 9:52 and 1m

Yes 1 second tolerance would normally enable a position in the
fly-offs. Most guys land 1 second early or at least at the beginning
of second 9:59. However time lost on launch may cost you as much as 3
seconds normally and even 5 seconds against a guy that pops off by
accident and manages to scrouge a thermal (just bad luck).

Yes the guys with the cleanest, lightest wing loading model that is
capable of a high launch would have an advantage in still air. When
there are lots of thermals the scores bunch up and when the
conditions are tough they scatter more. This worlds started with easy
conditions that had a tightly packed top 20 but there were some tough
rounds that led to top pilots having throw aways and when a bad patch
of weather came at the end the placings changed wildly. To get into
the fly off or top 12 you really need 11 rounds with a 9:54 and 1m
(even that does not guarantee a position so many guys push for 9:56
and 1m. I struggled with the continuous change in conditions, there
were always fronts and you could not settle on a particular cycle of
thermals. The biggest mistake was to do what the round before did
without having good reason. On the whole thermals there were as usual
more like those at Noodsburg than on the Reef, more soft and soggy.
Most of these guys fly in that all the time. Mark came second in his
group twice I think and still lost 2 or more minutes (or pushed for
extra time on the flight and lost landing, like me). To answer the
last part of the question I think the better guys find it easier to
win when conditions are difficult, when things are easy more people
get into the running.

Planes

There were a number of bagged Supras. I didn't see any other bagged
models. The main contenders for models, in no real order, were Supra,
Pike Superior,Pike Perfect, Vision, Experience Pro (like Paul flies),
Shadow, Espada, Stork II I think, Icons and a coupe of Tsunami's,
Escapes, some Ava's (in juniors only) and other built up stuff and
other from old and lastly my personal favourite - a single Crossfire
(not my advise for F3J though).

The ones that stand out for me are Pike Perfect, Supra, Icon (80 SQdm
at 1.8 kg). The home-made Supras were very competitive (Tom Kesling
flew these amoung others).

Luck helps some stay in the running and pushes some out. Most top 12
finishers are unaffected by luck but Jo was unlucky (almost costing
him a spot in the 12) and in my opinion Arend was lucky to get his
position in the fly-off.

To win you need some luck but in the fly-offs luck was not a factor.

To answer the question maybe 5%.

Reasons for poor performance.

Lack of model preparation in advance. I was preparing two models the
week before leaving and lost out on sleep.

Not enough landing timing practice - the extra load of juniors and
getting the future pilots up to a competitive level meant that a lot
of practice time both long before and the few days before the comp
was divided. We need people who can take the load of juniors off the
senior pilots. Given a choice I would still give up as much time to
juniors but it costs the seniors in preparation. I didn't have a
problem with workload on the field only before leaving. Chris missed
one landing coming in late and after that he flew safe - safe gets a
good team score but does nt get a top 12 placing.

Focus - not enough - pilots and team managers need to figure out
their roles and understand the mental game - try to involve only who
is needed indecisions and leave the others if possible.

Bad luck - Mark had pop offs in the first round that should not have
happened. This cost him an easy flight and one in the bag. The
problem was not poor prep as he was well prepared but during practice
both of his own models had tow hooks open up they reached the wrong
angle at exactly the wrong time (first round). This could have
happened the day before and it would have been fixed. Bad luck dude!

Launch height - never good enough, although we were pretty close this
time - the juniors were well below the average.

Heavy models - the juniors had models that were not right for light conditions.

Lines too thin in my opinion - there are many factors here.

Lastly

The cookie - sometimes it crumbles that way.

Regards

I look forward to seeing who tries out for the next team.

Craig

Jojo in festive mood.

2006-08-17T16:24:00.000+02:00

The Day Roo Visited

2006-08-16T09:25:00.000+02:00

Roo popped in, collected her passport, congratulated David Hobby and was last seen in the company of Mustafa heading to Turkey.

Proudly South African

2006-08-16T09:18:00.000+02:00

Some photos from the opening ceremony.

Ines with our flag and make shift roof rack / flag pole.

Eish!

2006-08-15T12:23:00.000+02:00

African Pilot Supra

2006-08-15T10:20:00.000+02:00

Kurt with the African Pilot Supra shortly before it's maiden flight in Martin Slovakia.

Showing off it's distinctive underside color scheme.

Photo Gallery

2006-08-11T09:37:00.000+02:00

Ilma has posted her photographs of the event at http://www.f3x.za.org/gallery/F3J_World_Champs/index.html

Cape Sailplanes and Vladimir save the day.

2006-08-10T11:24:00.000+02:00

This is story detailing service excellence well above and beyond the norm.

Shortly after arriving in Slovakia, I experienced a strange radio failure with my number one Supra. This resulted in a heavy crash into a hops field next to the site. Most of the Supra survived, except the center section that was almost completely destroyed.

Frantic SMS's where sent to Craig and Michelle who where still in South Africa. Craig in turn contacted Mark Williams at Cape Sailplanes who in turn contacted Vladimir in the Ukraine. Vladimir almost immediately started laying up a new stiffer carbon center panel which was delivered to me personally three days later.

The plane was test flown the evening after the opening ceremony and performed perfectly for the entire event.

Many thanks for the excellent support and service.

Ready, Steady, About to Go.

2006-07-15T19:22:00.000+02:00

Highveld Thermal League 3

2006-07-12T08:55:00.000+02:00

Three events flown so far this year and three different winners. First it was Conrad Klintworth winning HTL2 (MMS), then Mark Stockton HTL1 (ETB) and now Craig has stepped up and won HTL3 at Whitehills. So far a clean sweep in the league for South African F3J team pilots.

Well done Craig.

Noodies 2006, full results.

2006-06-27T11:37:00.000+02:00

Overall Natal Champion

1 Craig Goodrum 4978.2
2 Chris Adrian 4964.4
3 Dave Greer 4537.0

RES100 Fred Wittstock

Best Junior Kurt Stockton

2 Metre

1 Warren Butler 4674.5
2 Allan Sneedon 4558.2
3 Dennis Bird 4516.1

F5J Extreme

1 Warren Butler 4976.6
2 Mark Stockton 4946.5
3 Brad Conlon 4768.1

F3J Hand Tow

1 Chris Adrian 5000.0
2 Craig Goodrum 4994.1
3 Izak Theron 4547.0

Electric Winch Thermal

1 Dave Greer 4957.5
2 Brad Conlon 4748.5
3 Allan Sneedon 4501.2

TOTALS OVERALL net
NATALS 2006
1 Craig Goodrum 4978.2
2 Chris Adrian 4964.4
3 Dave Greer 4537.0
4 Izak Theron 4518.0
5 Allan Sneedon 4451.4
6 Michelle Goodrum 4348.0
7 Fred Wittstock RES100 4248.2
8 Brad Conlon 4169.7
9 Dion Liebenberg 4167.4
10 John Monk 4085.4
11 Mark Stockton 4000.0
12 Paul Boswarva 3931.5
13 Paul Carnall 3862.8
14 Wolfie Stefney 3745.4
15 Kurt Stockton Junior 3731.6
16 Warren Butler 3691.0
17 Russell Conradt 3654.8
18 Simon Nelson 3621.6
19 Paul Munn 3528.0
20 Rodney Goodrum 3488.0
21 John Coulson 3436.7
22 Ross Henderson 3232.1
23 Conrad Klintworth 2887.0
24 Herman Webber 2715.4
25 Dennis Bird 2494.0
26 Craig Baker 2408.5
27 Les Ward 2317.9
28 Simon Tladi 2282.8
29 Brian Fanning 1610.4
30 Tim Potter 1566.8
31 Don Slatter 1494.4
32 Sheldon McGlone 419.6

TOTALS 2 METRE net
NATALS 2006
1 Warren Butler 4674.5
2 Allan Sneedon 4558.2
3 Dennis Bird 4516.1
4 Izak Theron 4433.5
5 John Monk 4344.4
6 Volney Klintworth 4180.6
7 Russell Conradt 3954.0
8 John Coulson 3666.4
9 Simon Nelson 3207.3
10 Paul Boswarva 3055.2
11 Fred Wittstock 2840.3
12 Don Slatter 2266.9
13 Brian Fanning 2030.0
14 Paul Munn 1669.8
15 Sheldon McGlone 281.0

TOTALS F5J net
NATALS 2006

1 Warren Butler 4976.6
2 Mark Stockton 4946.5
3 Brad Conlon 4768.1
4 Paul Carnall 3987.7
5 Sean Oellermann 3964.1
6 Craig Goodrum 3720.0
7 Les Ward 3708.2
8 Dion Liebenberg 3190.8
9 Simon Nelson 3105.4
10 Herman Webber 2625.7
11 Sheldon McGlone

TOTALS F3J net
NATALS 2006
1 Chris Adrian 5000.0
2 Craig Goodrum 4994.1
3 Izak Theron 4547.0
4 Michelle Goodrum 4372.8
5 Dion Liebenberg 4191.9
6 Mark Stockton 4000.0
7 Paul Carnall 3862.8
8 Kurt Stockton 3734.5
9 Warren Butler 3691.0
10 Simon Nelson 3631.7
11 Conrad Klintworth 2902.4
12 Herman Webber 2737.4
13 Dennis Bird 2505.0
14 Simon Tladi 2309.9

TOTALS EW net
NATALS 2006
1 Dave Greer 4957.5
2 Brad Conlon 4748.5
3 Allan Sneedon 4501.2
4 Fred Wittstock 4364.8
5 John Monk 4197.5
6 John Coulson 4113.8
7 Wolfie Stefney 4107.5
8 Paul Boswarva 3992.7
9 Russell Conradt 3943.5
10 Paul Munn 3930.7
11 Rodney Goodrum 3919.8
12 Ross Henderson 3737.7
13 Les Ward 2811.3
14 Craig Baker 2670.6
15 Don Slatter 2064.9
16 Brian Fanning 1972.7
17 Tim Potter 1572.7
18 Sheldon McGlone 427.7

Noodies 2006

2006-06-27T11:30:00.000+02:00

Craig Goodrum win's the Natal Championship while Chris Adrian and Kurt Stockton take the honors as F3J champion and top junior respectively. Mark Stockton takes second place in F5J eXtreme.

Cape Sailplanes Family

2006-06-19T10:48:00.000+02:00

A family photo of the excellent planes sourced by Mark Williams of Cape Sailplanes for the team. From left to right; Craig Goodrum (Supra), Simon Tladi (Ava) and Mark Stockton (Supra).

First Team Supra Flies

2006-06-13T09:46:00.000+02:00

The first of the Supra's to be flown by Mark and Craig has been flown. It has shown huge potential in it's first contest at the ETB leg of the Highveld Thermal League, winning in a dominant maner.

Special thanks needs to go to Mark Williams of Cape Sailplanes for securing these excellent planes for the team as well as the excellent sponsorship package he put together.

We also need to thank Graupner as well as the South African agent Dion Liebenberg for their sponsorship of the equipment that both Senior and Junior teams will be using.

Simon and Kurt Featured in the Fourways Review

2006-05-17T15:15:00.000+02:00

Conrad Wins HTL 2

2006-03-27T12:01:00.000+02:00

With a perfect score of 5,000, junior team member Conrad Klintworth won the incident packed Highveld Thermal League event at MMS. He was closely followed by senior team mates Craig Goodrum and Chris Adrian.

Thanks BERG

2006-03-27T11:29:00.000+02:00

On behalf of the F3J team, I would like to thank BERG for their generous
donation towards the team.

Cheers
Ilma

Happiness

2006-03-09T19:16:00.000+02:00

Practice 18th February 2006

2006-03-09T18:30:00.000+02:00

Practice Time Again

2006-02-15T09:57:00.000+02:00

Time flies when you are having fun, and it is practice time again. This time it is at ETB, Saturday the 18th February. Flying starts at 07h00! Oh my word that is early.

The Question (Part II)

2006-02-09T15:16:00.000+02:00

Disney & Tarrintino themselves, could not have provided for a more tense story; in a scene reminiscent of the brave Scots facing the might of the English armies (or so the experienced team claimed from first-hand knowledge?), the youthful challengers squared up against the mass of experience. As each team took its turn, fair banter (in cricket it is properly termed 'sledging' the opponents) was exchanged. During one of these encounters, Prepatation's statements caused Tantor to completely crack-up & he fell rather solidly half way through their launch. But just to show the 'lighties' their dedication, they hobbled back for the next launch ' only to trip again soon thereafter.

Scientific investigation revealed that this continuous falling was nothing to do with a disregard for physical fitness, or the less than smooth terrain being traversed, but rather had to do with the unique notion of straight line momentum, inertia & the curvature of the earth. As any physicst would explain, any body in motion will resist a change to this state unless acted upon by an external force (inertia). In this case the mass differences between the moving bodies & that of gravity were so close, that straight line acceleration (well, measured in geographic terms anyway) effectively occurred. A momentary loss of traction due to the increasing distant to the earth (straight line vs. curved surface) & resulted in the body experiencing an uneven distribution of mass (which is already rather perilously frontally balanced), finally resulting in the less than graceful, but ultimately thunderous arrival, more akin with rudder-elevator pilots attempting the FAI circle landing.

To be fair, each team was matched in a variety of conditions, ranging from windless sink, moderate wind & sink, and a rather fresh breeze & sink (the less than upward air movement description added by the pilots). To ensure proper scientific discipline being observed, certain 'performance enhancing' stimulants were administered in highly observed & measured dosages to both teams, and other than the additional BS resulting from the sugar high, no material improvements were observed between the teams.

Much to everyone's surprise, the average launch height is higher for the light-weight team. The best launch of the day was provided by The Brain who won the bragging rights until the next practice, when Dorey will surely attack this accomplishment with a more suitable weapon. And so, the day concluded, as each side withdrew to treat their wounded (well the heavies did suffer some friction attrition & apparently exceptionally high doses of lactic acid build-up). More importantly to those waiting with baited breath was the outcome of this most 'scientifical of experiments' (ref: Tigger. 2006); irrefutable proof that age does appear before beauty, but the latter is the most powerful when harnessed with youthful speed, whereas the former statistically tends towards the attraction of mass, particularly in the Kimberly region according to some knowledgeable observers.

Practice - 4 Feb 2006

2006-02-06T11:51:00.000+02:00

The team had an interesting, informative and incident filled practice session at MMS on Saturday the 4th of February.

Sadly Conrad and Paul couldn't attend the practice. However the team was joined by Evan and Charl who where present to analyse the effects mass have on the tow team. It was also excellent having Piet Rheeders and Stephane Duponsel drop in and provide moral support.

The flying started just after 07h00 with each pilot doing a full dead air duration flight. Craig certainly showed everyone that the Ava is well suited to this task. Thereafter some fairly serious launch analysis drills where flown.

Some incidents that punctuated the day, where Mark having a elevator linkage failure on one flight, but managing (more through luck) to land the plane fairly gently. Chris also had some interesting elevator / fin / fuselage interface issues.

After official practice ended, poor Simon lost his Eish! in a high speed anaerobic ground interface. This incident was later attributed to a flat RX battery.

In the afternoon Kurt set about posting a postals score of 1,324 over 3 flights in really lousy conditions. Had lightning and rain not have intervened, he would probably got over 2,200!!! Excellent flying Kurt.

Many thanks to Michelle for organising the event, Lionel for putting in 300%, as well as Evan and Charl for helping and Piet and Stephane for supporting.

The Question (or Tiggers Challenge) Chapter 1

2006-02-03T09:55:00.000+02:00

A cold mist blows across the ancient African plains. Out of the early morning gloom strides the warriors, their faces painted in battle colours, their armour prepared for battle. But this is no ordinary morning, for on this morning not only are these warriors going into battle, but far more importantly is that this morning the eyes of the world rests on the shoulders of these few. For this morning represents the deep societal question; age before beauty? Will youth, exuberance, and speed be able to beat the mighty weight of experience? The battle lines are drawn one side representing the hopes of rising stars (& ADD survivors) the world over, the other side representing years of good eating &drinking (strangely devoid of Ritalin).

First up are the youthful challengers – well they did get to the battlefield almost an hour earlier than the more sleep challenged individuals. With the lines set, they lean into their task & their glistening shoulder muscles take up the load. The signal is sent & with a massive display of explosive power they hurtle forward, launching into the abyss. At 6 foot, blue eyed & bloody handsome, the challengers turn & smile at their results. Hardly a sweat has broken & they eagerly take up the strain for the next skirmish.

Only after the last sparrow has fallen out of its nest & just before the local Wimpy begins offering its lunch specials, the heavy weights of experience thunder to the battle lines. Actually, stroll would be a better description as the affects of their first cup of coffee takes considerable time to reach their outer limbs. Their mighty ab’s expand (or should that have read as “expansive abdomens”?) as they take up the strain. On the signal, like a heard of stampeding elephants, they gather momentum & move forward launching into the African sky. They slow down & amble back to the next challenge.

The challengers glance nervously around – clearly it will be rather close as the notion of power being represented by mass and acceleration is represented rather differently on the two sides.

Fortunately technology is on hand & the first comparison reveals,…………

End of Part
One /…..to be continued

Eish! building progress

2006-02-03T09:19:00.000+02:00

Kurt's first Eish! taking shape. Visible in the background is the molds with next set of wings in them.

Practice Time Again

2006-02-03T08:14:00.000+02:00

It's that time again, when the F3J nuts gather at MMS at 06h30 (Saturday the 4th) in order to be in the air by 07h00. 30 flights scheduled (10 per pilot). It is bound to be a hectic day, with practice followed by F3K hour, followed by postals!!!

Just to make life interesting Craig and Mark have a "King of the Launch" challenge going that allows the winner to have undisputed bragging rights....... Chris will probably beat them both.

BTW - spectators, commentators and peanut gallery are welcome. Don't forget to bring an F3K plane with to fly chuckie hour afterwards. Then bring a big glider with to fly postals.

Thanks to Cape Sailplanes

2006-01-26T07:17:00.000+02:00

I would like to thank Cape Sailplanes for their support of the F3J team.

Mark Williams has supplied me with one of the AVAs at cost. His markup is very small on these products due to our small market and high original pricing, so it is not a huge saving but every bit helps and this is most appreciated.

We will be following a rigorous training schedule this year and we will compare the various models so this model was urgently required. The AVA has been a very successful light condition glider in Europe and USA.

Mark is also sending it to us free of charge and if I can find the finances will repeat the process of charging us only cost with the molded Supra.

If you are looking for their contact details go to

www.capesailplanes.com

Or email
info@capesailplanes.com
They carry a great range.

I will keep you all posted as to the performance of the models in practice.

Thanks very much for your support Mark.

On this note, if there is anyone out there who is able to assist us in going to the world championships, please contact us.

Craig Goodrum

Tiggers Early Morning Practice Report

2006-01-23T11:30:00.000+02:00

The first formal practiced dawned early with a cool overcast Highveld morning. A breeze was blowing and this considerably assisted the launches in the low-lift conditions. Mark tested the conditions first with a winch launch or two, but afterwards we resorted to the standard tow lines for all practice flights.

We decided to use both the fixed “yolk” approach as well as straps – and the pilots will analyse the launch data to see which is most effective according to the conditions.

The first tow (Mark’s Eish!) went off relatively smoothly even though the ground was really rough to run across. Conditions were initially challenging for the pilots; low cloud & very little lift.

Kurt was the first junior up the line – the juniors provided the most challenging tows for most of the day.

Smooth-flying Paul showed everyone else how to do it – finding lift & finishing off with a good landing.

Craig returning from another successful flight (this was taken after his Eish! flat-spun in on launch #2).

The pilots also had a chance to tow: Mark & Craig square up for their start signal.

Run, Forrest, run! Apparently this is extremely rare footage of Craig towing :)

Team practice

2006-01-21T17:49:00.000+02:00

The team (with the exception of Conrad and Chris) met at MMS at 06h30 for the first early morning "dead air" practice. The conditions where better that expected with a mild northerly wind to help launches. Also even from 07h00, light yet consistent lift was available.

The practice went very well apart from an incident where Craig's Eish! (Eish!!!) stalled completely on launch, going into a flat spin.

Paul impressed everyone with his smooth flying. Kurt is also looking very polished. Simon is steadily improving, Mark was impressed with Simon's calling. (Ilma's comment)

Tigger towed tirelessly all morning giving 120% for every single launch (and some skin).

Tigger will post some photo's when he has access to some bandwidth.

Most flights were recorded using a Alti 2 data logger for analysis.

Mid Week Building Session

2006-01-20T09:28:00.000+02:00

The tail feathers for Kurt's first Eish! being laid up. If you look carefully in the background you can see the new carbon tooling as well as the first set of 68grm carbon Eish! wing skins.

Quote from Norway

2006-01-18T12:21:00.000+02:00

"And this is the team Norway will cheer for:

Juniors:
1. Conrad Klintworth
2. Kurt Stockton
3. Simon Tladi"

See you in Slovakia!

Keep Track of the Fund Raising Effort

2006-01-18T08:22:00.000+02:00

Keep track of the teams fund raising efforts by visiting our sponsorship page on the F3X website.

MMS Challenges All Clubs

2006-01-18T07:13:00.000+02:00

Midrand Model Soarers has generously donated R1,000.00 (R500.00 for each team) to F3J team funds. Furthermore they challenge all other clubs to match or better this amount.

Thank very much MMS.

First Team Meeting and Practice

2006-01-17T17:33:00.000+02:00

Both teams held there first meeting and practice session on Saturday the 14th January 2006 at MMS. Sadly Conrad and Chris could not attend.

Michelle laid down the law, then we all practiced. Craig working intensively with Simon and Rodney training Kurt. Paul and myself worked on our own.

I even managed to finally complete my Diamond Eagle landing tasks.

Next session 06h30 , MMS, Saturday 21 January 2006.

Yes that time was 06h30. What does the '0' stand for?

Oh my word it's early!!!

Thank You SGS Fire Doors

2006-01-17T08:55:00.000+02:00

Both the senior and junior teams would like to thank Trevor Austin of SGS Fire Doors for his generous donations to each team. This is greatly appreciated and will really help.

South African F3J Team Blog Opened

2006-01-17T08:06:00.000+02:00

This message is a test to confirm that the team blog is now live and available.