אליפות עולם בטיסנים חופשיים

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http://www.wch2009.com/MVK-2009_F1A_results.pdf

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http://www.wch2009.com/MVK-2009_F1B.pdf

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Bauer Report From Croatia
=========================
US Team news from Croatia
Saturday, July 18, 2009

As is my tradition I will try to send some reports back as often as
possible for the benefit of those who have supported our USA Free Flight
team and those that are interested in what we are doing over here. A
disclaimer right up front is that I will only offer my personal views and
try to cover only the US team news with other tidbits. All the other teams
have plenty of news as well but they will have to do their own reporting.

The whole team and supporters have arrived safely will all model boxes
intact. The only reported problem was with Steve Spence who was forced to
pay a $400 baggage oversize fee and then suffered the further indignity of
having his box lost. He finally got it after a 3 or 4 day delay however.

The Croatian countryside is beautiful with green rolling hills and small
forested mountains. Our drive from Venice took longer than expected due to
sections of narrow winding roads and because my GPS map only included the
main highways in this area. A couple times when we got off the main
highway we had to tour small towns and use our own sense of direction to
get back on the right track. The team accomodations at the contest
headquarters hotel are very nice and the food is good.

The field is about a 25 minute drive from the hotel on narrow roads, but
once there it is huge and very nice. Looking down from the road the field
is a valley of meadows and farmland surrounded by forests and hills. The
organizers have mowed a large area so that most of the flying is over nice
green grass, but for F1A flyers wishing to avoid line tangles much of the
running is done in the meadow grass which is a foot tall or more. There
are various trees and bushes scattered around but generally are not too
thick until the edges of the field.

The weather is a mix of everything. Wednesday evening we did some test
flying in moderate 6-10mph wind. At 8:30pm I put up one flight with my new
100" span model with my own molded wings and BE airfoil and got one of my
best launches so far and had the crowd cheering. The next morning Brian
and I went out early getting there at 6:30am in dead calm conditions to try
to make some comparison flights between this new model and one of my
standard long models. This time I was chasing various problems with the
new model and never got any good data, and by 7:30 to 8:00 a breeze started
blowing. It was windy most of the day, getting close to the limit I
believe, but got a little better in the evening and lots of people were
testing anyway.

Friday morning was the day for the Vilim Kmoch Memorial World Cup contest
F1A day. The field was covered with fog in the morning which burned off
around 8:30 am and left dead calm conditions for the contest which started
at 9am. The conditions for the first 4 rounds were almost total calm and
hot. I thought it was perfect conditions but some people were complaining
of the heat and wanting some breeze. Even since I was a kid and saw the
movie "180 is Max", I always dreamed that this is what a summer world
champs type competition should be like - beautiful green grass surrounded
by green scenery, great models, minimum clothing, etc... Quite a contrast
with some of the cold and windy experiences I've had at these events
recently.

Seven of our group were flying F1A on adjacent poles which included myself
and fellow team members Lee Hines and Steve Spence plus my son Brian, Kyle
Jones, Rene Limberger and his father Sigfried. In the first round I got
off a nice flight without too much work and Brian got off a good one after
an attempt. Steve had an attempt but then was OK and the Limbergers were
good. Lee Hines got in a line tangle and went for his second attempt near
the end of the round. In the total calm Lee was towing various directions
and when he tried to launch the towline stayed on the model because he
didn't have enough force to unlatch the hook. The model was in good air
and going up so it looked like there was no way for Lee to grab the line
and try again, but then with about 90 seconds left in the round the model
dropped and Lee grabbed the line. With seconds left Lee setup and tried
for another launch but unfortunately had the same result of the line
staying on the model. Lee collapsed on the field but after receiving some
water was fine. He was then under team managers orders to rest the rest of
the day and save his energy.

The first four rounds until the 1pm lunch break were in these calm
conditions with sometimes huge thermals. I had one flight which was up for
7.5 minutes total and another which was in the air over 5 minutes and
landed right near the flight line. During lunch the wind started to blow
however and the last three rounds were flown with a more typical breeze of
maybe 8-12mph. We were doing fairly well except for Steve who short DTed
himself after switching to a mechanical model and Kyle who dropped the 6th
round. Brian and I tried to drop the 6th round as well with flights that
got very low but the models hung on and milked it out. Four of us were
then clean after 7 rounds and waited for the first flyoff round which was
scheduled for 6pm but didn't happen until 6:45. There was a thick forest
of trees about 2km downwind and I was informed that models had been going
about 1.5km for the 3 minute maxes, so a 5 minute flight could be in the
trees. I elected not to fly any of my good models, not wanting to risk
anything before the WC next week, and pulled out an old one that has had
some launching problems but glides well. There were 22 in the flyoff and
about 17 made the max, but unfortunately Rene was the only one from our
contingent in that group. I got a poor launch with the old model, Brian
didn't do any better than me and Sigfried dropped only a few seconds. I
think most of the models came back OK so I probably should have gone with
my good model, but oh well. The next round was at 8pm going for 7 minutes
and the organizers had everyone go from a new line farther upwind. The
breeze slowed down a bit which helped as well. Several models launched
very high and looked like they might do 7 minutes, but they were difficult
to see down low against the hills. Sergi Makorov won using his flapper and
was just a few seconds short, although that was all the timers could see
and the model probably flew over 7. Victor Stamov flew a new flapper and
got very high but it is still not fully trimmed and he was in the middle of
the pack. Rene had stab flutter on launch and didn't get his usual height.
Saturday morning was a totally different day with wind blowing and clouds
moving in. F1B and F1C were scheduled but only a few from our group flew
as the wind was over the limit and I heard a report of 35mph gusts. Fast
Richard made one spectacular F1C flight which got very high but ended up
apparently lost in the trees. It is now about noon Saturday and I don't
know if chaser Steve Spence has found it yet. I think Blake was about the
only F1B guy to brave the conditions and throw one up. At about 10am the
raindrops starting falling and soon it was pouring rain. We decided to
head back to the hotel as did others, but I don't know what happened after
that. Looking out the window now it is calmer but still wet outside.

I'll try to report more when I can, but internet access here is very
difficult. Nothing here at the hotel and nothing on the field that I'm
aware of, but I just discovered a bar down the street that offers 1 hour of
internet for about $4, so I will give it a try and see if I can send this.

Later, Ken

PS - As I'm sending this a couple hours later I heard that FR's model was
found after a few hours. Walt Ghio's model came back totally drenched
along with a totally drenched Marty and Aimee. The second round started
sometime around noon after the rain and lightning delays - our three guys
flying, Blake, Walt, and FR, maxed. Sounds like they will try to get 5
rounds in.

מקור
SEN 1313

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http://www.aeromodelarstvo.net/Forum...=1111&start=16
אחת מתוך התמונות. שווה לראות..

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http://www.youtube.com/user/ffwch2009

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הסתיימו 7 סיבובים.
סה"כ 38 מתוך 107 ביצעו את מלוא הנקודות.
3 חברי נבחרת ישראל ביצעו תוצאה מלאה ועלו לטיסות המשך.
בדרוג נבחרות,מקום שני כבר מובטח (כי רק שתי נבחרות מלאות...)

קישור לדף התוצאות:
http://www.wch2009.com/WCh_F1A_7.pdf