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Bemærk: Denne artikel findes kun i en engelsk version
Uncle Sydney's gossip column - 16
BMFA F3J News - 15 August 2002
by Sydney Lenssen
FINNISH YEAR OF THE SPEAR
Finland's World F3J Championship in Lappeenranta was "the spearing champs." If you missed the 100 landing and/or didn't fly 9.50 plus each round, then no fly-off for you. The margin between top qualifier Juraj Adamek from Slovakia at 7,994.65 - nine flights, one dropped - and 12th equal place of Canada's Graeme Clark and Germany's Reinhard Vallant at 7,962.33 is the equivalent of dropping 22 seconds over eight rounds, less if you lose any landing points.
The fly-off was even tighter. New World Champion Arend Borst beat 1998's WC Joe Wurts into second place by 0.7 points out of 3,000 - four rounds with one dropped. That is as near as you can get to 0.7 seconds in the 15 minute fly-offs! And how he did it. For instance, Arend from Canada tied with Australia's Carl Strautins in the fourth slot, each with 14 minutes 56.2 seconds plus 100 spot landing. Zoom off halfway up the launch line, or you're gone!
Despite such tiny margins, F3J WC 2002 was exciting and unpredictable with victims and heroes each round. What made it a spearing contest was the ground at Lappeenranta's airport, hard bituminous gravel and rock lumps with little protective soil or grass, presumably scrapings from each year's frosted runway. Anything other than spearing the nose risked a random slide out of the metre circle.
During the Wild Man's Trophy before the champs began, both Joe and Arend landed on the actual spot itself, made of ply, and as a result slid into the 95s. To prevent that, the Canadian team to acclaim replaced all spots with softer material which the nose could pierce.
But it's a sad outcome of such tight winning margins that today's F3J models must be built to take dunked arrivals, some of them fast. Scaled up to full size equivalent, each and every pilot would be killed outright and the glider severely damaged, if not written off.
How to make the winning margins bigger is the problem taxing F3J, and in particular FAI jury members Sandy Pimenoff, Tomas Bartovsky and Nick Neve. Wider point differences are needed because today's timekeepers need to time flights to two decimal places of a second to get a result. The arithmetic and percentages are easy enough to calculate. The reality is that we are basing results on margins, which are less than any normal timekeeper's ability to start his stopwatch exactly as the glider leaves the towline.
For many flyers, the essential attraction of F3J is simplicity: launch, thermal away, then land with precision, time and place. Easy! But with World and Euro champs, and increasingly at Eurotour events, the competition becomes "launch and landing" - getting off the line quick, never mind the height, and land with a prod milliseconds before the beep.
Thermalling for the top flyers is taken as read, hardly surprising when Alex Hoekstra reckons his Twisters can do 10 minutes in still air with a good launch. Joe Wurts and at least a dozen others seem to find lift or enough shifting air to maintain height whatever the conditions. At Lappeenranta more than 90% of flights flew out slots.
Some top pilots are happy with ever-tighter contests. Karl Hinsch reckons that summer Eurotour events have gone that way, and he enjoys competition with no margin for error. He's not alone amongst Europe's top pilots, Jan Kohout and Michel Wagner think the same.
Change discussions on and off the field centred on shorter towlines, down to say 100 or 75 metres. That is no answer, it just means developing ever faster launches, lighter, maybe smaller models. It will not take a year to match current launch heights.
The Japanese suggested that the contest director should set the slot time at six, ten or fifteen minutes at the start of each round, according to the prevailing conditions. If the air makes for easy thermalling, then set the shorter time. If it's grotty, force everyone to scratch for fifteen. That approach could sort out the men from the boys. It puts an onus on the CD, and it's interesting to speculate on its effect. But it's unlikely to command wide enough support to get CIAM to change rules.
Best solution to date, which would upgrade thermal skills - the missing ingredient - is to force pilots to leave any thermal lift they have found part way through the slot and find some more. One method would be to set up sight lines as in F3B, 300 to 500 metres from either end of the launch corridor, with judges sighting along two planes at 90 degrees to the launch line. In the first half of the slot, pilots would be required to cross one sight line, left or right, and in the second half of the slot, cross the other. The reward could be say 250 points for crossing both.
Such an additional task would require more helpers and perhaps a larger flying site. How to identify each glider has not been solved yet. But it would bring new spice. Any other ideas?
For F3J WC 2002, the stake (or non-stake) was forgotten. Admittedly at Lappeenranta airport, it was easy to ensure that the anchor pin was rock solid, so much so that the change the direction of the flight line was a major operation. But it was done a couple of times, thanks to Czech pressure, for they had had a horrible accident with cross wind launching.
The only rule spat was over reflights. It is impossible for the contest director or his deputy on the line to witness every "interference with flight," so it is often left to the timekeeper. One pilot claimed his zoom was impeded when one of his towers almost tripped over a stake left in the ground. His spotter and team manager claimed a reflight immediately, but that was denied by the timekeeper, one of a band of excellent volunteers who did a great job most of the time. So the flyer relaunched.
The contest director ruled out a subsequent claim for a reflight, because the flyer had gone on. So the team appealed to the jury, who then deliberated for a long time before ruling that a reflight should have been given. They had taken so long that the reflight came at the end of the next round. That yielded more appeals from other teams who have lost out in similar events.
In its wisdom the jury produced a matrix of what constitutes grounds for a reflight. They should not have tried, for that produced even more confusion and highlighted conflicts in the current rules.
My bet is that CIAM will eventually not allow reflights, full stop, during launch or in the slot. If flyers choose to fly close and are impeded, then that is a risk they have chosen to take. Bad luck to those who gamble and fail. That will discourage flocking in the same tight patch of lift. It will mean more launch risk if you zoom close to a less experienced pilot.
Juries should take heed: don't try to clarify the rulebook during the event - a sure recipe for trouble. Be the high and mighty gods who rule without fear or favour!
Let me not crow, but July's gossip column gave Arend Borst as hot tip to win F3J WC 2002. Behold, he did - only just. A popular winner, modest in the nicest way, he is always ready to share his experiences and tips. Everyone was pleased for Canada, hosts for the 2004 world champs just outside Calgary. The team performed well above everybody's expectation in second place. With two in the flyoff, Canada matched the might of the Swedes, German and Czech teams. Well done.
I am confident they will do equally well in organising F3J WC 2004 as the best of all champs so far, so start saving for that transatlantic voyage.
My "long odds bet", Denmark's Jesper Jensen, footed the flyoff table after placing 7th in the preliminary rounds, a worthy performance, as indeed it was for anyone to reach the finals. Finland's neighbour Sweden did well with Pasi Vaisanen in 3rd place and Soren Svantesson in 12th place.
Happiest two guys on the airfield were the Lammleins, Tobias the new junior world champ and his father Stephan, German junior team manager. Toby has been on the winners' rostrum three times before, and desperately wanted the No.1 spot.
His mother, holidaying about 100 km away, stayed away from Lappeenranta during the week, frightened that she would increase the tension. But she was there to share Saturday's last two flyoff rounds. He could not be beaten after the third round of the flyoffs, when he flew out in the first and only slot that morning in mostly dead still air. Even so, with spotter Philip Kolb, he found enough buoyancy to keep his Sharon up for the full 15 minutes, a true champ winning performance.
Hand it to the German Junior team, winners again, for the third time. Which country can wrest that title away? With more than 30 juniors flying regularly in the German League, some of them filling the top slots in the senior league, F3J has an assured future there.
One bet that I did lose was with Australian correspondent Ian Roach who objected to my low expectations for Australia. I bet him subsequently that UK's Simon Jackson would beat his favourite Carl Strautins, and I now owe him. Mind you, Carl had both mum and dad loyally supporting prowess in Lappeenranta, and they enjoyed themselves.
The UK team performance? My view of events: eight of us flew in the Wild Man's Trophy on the Saturday, which gave lessons on where to go - behind the hanger dodging the pines - if you missed the main lift. The site had thermals galore most of the week, with only the odd early and late slot providing challenges. But the hanger proved valid most of the week.
British results look modest on paper and again disappointing, to no one more than the three flyers themselves and their helpers. They hide especially the bitter personal disappointments and disillusion for Mike Raybone and Simon Jackson plus Phil.
Of the three, Neil Jones did best and to his delight he crept into the top 30! In all fairness, he did not have a slot where he couldn't catch the bunch with the lift, not that that is always easy! If he could have nailed a few more 100s in landing he would have ranked still higher.
Neil kept his cool and was least unnerved. One evening waiting for a late slot around 8.00pm, the air turned chilly and Neil jogged off to keep himself and more importantly his fingers warm. As newcomer to international events, Neil thrived best.
Mike had the very worst of luck in practice before the champs, piling into the taxiway and destroying his Starlight on launch, still on the line. I say "his" but it wasn't. It was Dave East's Starlight, Mike's reserve, which made it even more of a loss. Then to cap it all, his first contest round was poor with less than 600, sure to be the throwaway.
All very demoralising, and Mike did well to recover reasonable scores in most - not all - of the remaining rounds. So by Monday night, in my mind we had one out, but two still in with a chance.
Simon started well with a 987 and his first Finnish 1000, then a 990 and - tragedy in the 4th slot - a bummer. So Tuesday, again to my mind, gave us two down, one to go.
Let's put this in context: my presumption was that if the UK team all got 9 minutes 50 plus, and 100 or perhaps 95 landing points, then they should reach the flyoff. On that basis, Neil was still in. But by Wednesday, feeling more relaxed and with time to spare, study of the scores showed that I was kidding myself. Some slots had flyers scoring 9 minutes 50 plus spot landing and coming sixth.
My "one down and two to go" was rubbish. Reality was that all three UK flyers were out of the flyoff by the end of the first day, barring catastrophes by lots of others. Plenty of well known favourites - Philip Kolb, Alex Hoekstra, Jan Kohout amongst them - made the odd error landing 10 seconds early or making 65 points on landing, and they were out.
In my opinion, this year's UK team performed as well if not better than any over the past four years, and we had the luxury of six keen and fit towmen. Anticipating the start became second nature with the standard recorded countdown, soon to be adopted here. On the buzzer the helper simply launches. Landings were not up to 95 or 100.
If pressed to point a weakness, it's a reluctance to hack it in light shifting lift which cost dear in a few slots, and that's not surprising for such weather patterns in England are rare. Top pilots just circle gently and slowly at times when all is almost still, waiting patiently, not going up or down, until a wisp of lift gradually builds. Few UK flyers see it that way. They want and look for stronger lift. Leave the pack, and chances are they are doomed and down. British F3J standards have gone up. Snag is that standards in several other countries have gone up more.
The UK team held together in spirit. We had a great time, spent too much money - not all at local nightclub Doris or McDonald's - and shared in the delights of a closely contested championship set in a very different holiday town.
Memories of F3J WC 2002: here are a few.
First best thanks to CD Erkki Arima and his team. He cut most of the crap and got on with it, not always easy with lots of languages and an operational airport. His scoring and computer team was superb.
Other organisational matters went adrift. Where was the WC Programme? The final banquet was a disaster, even prize-winning teams did not get in. At the prize-giving ceremony, wrong anthems were played. Many competitors felt they were overcharged for what they got.
Thanks to all the Turks who helped UK team again and again.
Smallest junior competitor was Jouni Lauren from Finland, and he was unusual in that his spotter was also a junior. (Maybe CIAM should think of making that a rule, by the way!) They had a delightful way of working together, so simple and I have never seen it before. If the spotter advised moving left, he tapped the left shoulder; similarly for right. If he wanted you to come nearer, the tapped the middle of the back, forward he tapped the back of the head. The system seemed to work well and was a delight to watch.
The Japanese team came with hlg's again, as in Corfu, still the simple rudder/elevator, light balsa/foam wing, carbon kevlar fuselage, but this time SALing. What heights they could reach, followed either by super tight thermalling or a display of amazing stunts before coming back to hand. If Shuhei Okamoto who manufactures them for Craft Room in Japan would sell these in UK, he would have a winner. Even Joe Wurts was impressed.
Alex Wunschheim, the German team manager who is also Eurotour's F3K coordinator, had his hlg too, also impressive but far higher tech. The Japanese took out his complete tail in a collision when the two launched together too closely, Philip Kolb having warned that it could happen seconds before.
I enjoyed Larry Jolly's electric ornithopter, which looked for all the world like a real bird of prey. It flew for 7/8 minutes, could climb to good heights, hover and land in the hand just like a falcon. Hope to get more details of that soon.
Joe Wurts is normally a most modest guy, and another delightful chatterbox. From time to time he shows off. During the main contest, he limited that to spins or distance laps on the landing approach when space allowed.
But during the Wild Man's trophy, he thermalled most of one slot inverted. In another round, he put his transmitter down on the ground and lay down behind his spotter, not touching the sticks for all of two minutes. When the model needed a correction, he used his toe. What made it memorable was that in the second flyoff round, he lost his landing bonus and top prize when the model slid and hit his foot.
But there's a purpose to this tale. My lesson from a week of fantastic flying is that the best flyers' models seem to fly themselves for long periods, a minute or more is not unusual. Then the pilot spends his time looking round the skies and reading the air. It takes me all my time to make sure I don't lose sight of the thing.
One more tale, not from Finland but Interglide, the weekend before. My group was short and we had the good fortune to be joined by Australians Carl Strautins and team manager Daniel Haskell. Both Carl and ex-UK junior Andrew Taylor made the flyoff. At the end of the two days, both Aussies taught me ways of saying "cheers".
The Aussies found it remarkable that so many people in Kent were drinking beers between slots. Alcohol and model flying are not mixed down-under. Now that could explain why we don't take the top places these days. I won't be rooting for an early Australian F3J WC!
End of gossip.
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