Finals, Closing Ceremonies and Banquet

Mark and I headed to the AMA site this morning to pick up our Nats packages and see some finals flying. Our team was no longer in the competition but we all started to prepare for the next chapter in our trip. The US Nationals start on the 2nd with processing and a pilots meeting at 5 PM. Practice time for us has been limited what with all the AMA site in use for the Worlds.

We headed to the practice field (as everything was shut down at the AMA site) and flew most of the day then went back to the AMA site to catch the last round of the finals (2nd Unknowns) The pilots all took turns and after landing each one received a warm applause from the crowd. I noticed various styles of flying but the top guys hit pretty much every snap and rolling circle that made up the sequence. Onda, Jesky and CPLR all had a solid round 9 with all three pretty well equal in my book. Small things that the judges are trained for would no doubt be the difference.

Shadow calling the unknowns.

The final flight flown by Christophe of course :-), was greeted with cheers as he completed his Figure Z in under the 8 minute flight time limitation. I understand his brother Benoit went over on one flight and had his last maneuver zeroed. Lesson: Don’t waste a second! CPLR will be talking to BPLR I am sure :-)

In fact I did some impromptu timing on Benoit during the P flights (Mark followed him in the flight order) and they did the glow start and hit the sound check circle in 8.8 seconds... try that next time your at the field!

After the flights ended we loitered around till about 7 o’clock and the results were announced. In the meantime lots of jersey swapping was taking place along with banner swaps and all around good conversation. Glenn Orchard of the Australian team gave Kelly and I a little perspective on their pattern flying down under and the F3A team selection process. All interesting stuff as each country does it a little different.

The winners were announced and the results were...

1) Christophe PLR
2) Tetuo Onda
3) Andrew Jesky

Team went to..

1) USA
2) Japan
3) France

Junior Championship

1) Marco Mazzuchelli  (Italy)
2) Robin Trump (Germany)
3) Philip Rannetshauser (Germany)

The national anthems of the winners were also played.

Both CPLR and Tetsuo Onda had actually tied in the finals so the rules say the semi-final score is used to determine the eventual winner.

We all left Site #3 and went to the reception. Well actually most everyone went and had showers and cleaned up. We went direct and had our seats picked out!

Awards were presented, speeches made and many pictures taken at the banquet. Many new acquaintances as well as old ones said goodbyes.

It’s late so I’ll upload more pictures tomorrow and finish of my blog as well.

Semi-Finals

Mark and I had left the planes with Hartley yesterday so todays trip was a light one. Starbucks stop as per normal and we headed to Site #4 to watch Chad practice. With the early morning sun skirting the right box line Mark held up a clip board as Nedim called for Chad. A solid practice round followed and with that flight in the bag Chad called it a day as far as practice was concerned.

We headed over to pick up Hartley from Site #3 and then on to Site #1 for the first of two F-11 flights today. The crowd was a bit larger as the contest started to ramp up. Chad was up in the number 2 position as I drew that number for him the night before. Sorry buddy!

Dez and Nell had to head home and stopped by to watch Chad’s flight and say goodbye.

The whole team, along with Paul Hepworth and Ivan Kristensen watched as the battery & sound test was completed and he took to the skies of Muncie. The weather was nice with clear skies and a gentle breeze. The flight was one of his better ones I have seen and he did the country & team proud. I was very happy for him.

His plane was picked for a complete processing and once done he headed towards the pit area pretty happy. You can only do so much (fly well) and the rest is really up to what the judges think.

He scored a 458 and although a seemingly solid flight to us, he was positioned well behind the pack:-(

With a few hours before his next flight we headed for lunch and a side trip the Wilbur Wright's Birthplace Museum. Heck there is an RC field right beside it as well!!! It was very interesting and a little piece of history I never knew was there.   

We arrived back at the AMA site well in advance of Chad's next flight at Site #3. He was cooling off in the trailer with Nedim as Agnes and Alev had gone into town. The other scores had been posted and he was somewhat taken aback at the scoring of his flight. Welcome to the worlds :-)

His second flight today was actually better than the first and I was very happy with it. Best he has done as far as I was concerned. He had put in two solid flights and put it all on the line. He scored a 470 something...can't quite remember :-) but was still trailing the pack as other scores were released.

When the dust settled he was in 16th position and missed the finals. We gathered around the RV for a debriefing and then off to dinner at Wild Buffalo Wings.  For some reason we were punished with an hour wait for our food order! It was not our day.

Finals start tomorrow!

Rain Day became Practice Day

I met Mark downstairs at the complimentary breakfast buffet at 7 AM. Hartley was along shortly after and with all our own planes preloaded in his Ford F350, we headed to the practice site. Another quick Starbucks stop and we arrived safely at the field a half hour later.

We met some local fliers on arrival and proceeded to assemble the planes in the shade.  Soon the Liechtenstein contingent arrived and shortly thereafter Team Ireland also joined the group. With both Hartley and I there to practice for the AMA Nationals everyone got in the action.

Both Wolfgang, Stefan, Angus and Chad all pounded the F schedule as they will compete against each other starting tomorrow.  Shane Robinson was also practicing the F-11 elements as he received, for the third straight World’s if you can believe it, the duties as warm up pilot for the judges. 

Found this Irish YS tool :-)

I had not flown for almost a month and really needed some rust remover... I’ll be ok though. Hartley will fly Masters and he needed the practice as well.

We all flew our routines with a short interruption for one of the club fliers beat the airstrip up with a P-47 Jug. He flew it very well and we all watched another form of aerobatics displayed... it was a welcome break!

Angus's Valiant

We closed the place down and headed home around 17:30. A quick stop to grab the van and some steaks for dinner and we arrived back at Camp Canada for a “debriefing session”. The gals made it back from their overnight in Amish Country and had a great time geocaching, touring, buggy riding etc..

We headed back to the hotel after dinner and had a nice refreshing shower.... yes too much detail ... sorry.

Chad is up on Site #1 at 9:24 and we will all be there. Unfortunately a huge rain storm has flooded Dezso’s basement back home in Kingston so he has decided to get home to deal with that situation. I thank Dez for his dedication and efforts he put in to this team.

To the rack I go.

Preliminaries Day #4

Up and off to Starbucks for our morning coffee drinks... the gals in the place are starting to know us well by now! Mark wanted to put in an early flight so we headed for Site #4. This is the farthest southern flight line in the huge complex and is easily accessed by the paved roads around the facility.

I put Mark’s name down on the sign up sheet and we waited for his turn. We watched several different planes fly then waited out the last glow powered plane before he launched. Unfortunately the glow did the sequence almost twice due to the huge fuel tank it must have had.. 16 minutes easily!

Team Japan... spotless!

After some practice elements, time was moving closer to Mark’s flight this morning at  8:51 am. We packed up and headed to Hartley’s trailer to swap my plane out for Mark’s back up. Time was beginning to become a factor when we noticed Hartley’s truck was gone. He had moved Mark’s B plane to the #1 site. Great job HH to save us some precious moments.

The planes were quickly assembled and he was on the flight line with time to spare. The rest of the team & supporters arrived and Mark took to the skies in front of the judging panel. He had another good round with some minor errors but he was happy with his efforts. The team cheered as his wheels touched down and Hartley pulled out a “Go Canada Go” banner that got the judges laughing. All in fun of course.

Mark and the gang.

Dezo was up next and he too put in another solid round of flying. Once again minor errors but still very respectable. Another cheer erupted as he touched down. Overall I think Dez was happy with his efforts and learned a lot this past week.

Dez and the gang again.

As Chad was later in the day we headed into town for a bite to eat and a stop at Walmart for some hardware for Hartley’s trailer water connection. (minor valve leak temporarily remedied!) I drove in with Paul Hepworth who came down to support the team. Paul had a small electrical problem with his plane and although he had planned to fly in the Nationals next week, he came anyway! Now that’s support! (Turns our Ac Glenn is lending Paul a plane & radio to compete in the Nationals after all... Ac gets an official Team Canada Maple Syrup Sampler for being such a great person!)

Chad's turn.

Look who showed up!  Ivan with these new glasses. They are a new technology that show 45 and 90 degree angles.... imposed into your field of view... it's the next greatest training device for pattern :-)

Kelly, Robyn and Pat all took off in search of the Amish lands and were doing a mini "vacation within a vacation" type thing... shopping and sightseeing.

Chad was up in the afternoon and put in a good round with some very solid elements. He did had a few bobbles along the way on this flight. He was a bit apprehensive about the score but still came out strong.

Final scores for preliminary rounds are here.(in pdf format)

Chad completed this portion of the contest in 18th with a normalized score for his three best P rounds of 2710.10. Dez finished in 44th with a 2468.98 and Mark in 50th with 2441.73. The scores are fairly tight so a couple of points can propel you in either direction.. quickly! The top thirty pilots advanced to the next step in the competition on Sunday. They will fly once each at site #1 and site #3 respectively with one AM and one PM time slot.

With Chad moving on to the semi-finals I attended a meeting of the team mangers to draw the starting order for Sunday’s semi’s... I drew #2 for Chad. It’s up to Chad to bring his A game to the worlds and this is pretty much what he lives for aside from family of course.  We will all be behind him in the coming days.

We went home exhausted but plan to head to our practice field in the morning as both Hartley and I need to get in some practice rounds for the upcoming Nationals.

Both work and home life requires them to leave Muncie today.... Special thanks to Xavier and Spencer for helping to support the team over the last week. X-man was awesome on the camera and the flight line helping Dez!

More pictures added to the team site

Flight order for Sunday’s semi finals.

Preliminary Flight # 3

Life goes on and we all make small sacrifices to do things...like attending World Championships:-) Today I missed out on my daughter Lauren’s 24th birthday. She understands my commitments and wishes the team great success via the new medium of Facebook and text messaging :-)

Mark and I were up early and hit the local IHOP for a quick breakfast before heading to site #4 for some practice rounds. Chad and Nedim were already there and we joined Andrew Jesky and the Australian Team members.

Chad made some changes and had a solid round as did Mark. The winds were very strong and an aggressive throttle was needed at certain points. If you relaxed for a second the plane would drift out very quickly. Mark put in a second practice round and I had a good chat with Junior Pilot James Nugent’s dad Dave from the Australian F3A team. We both agreed that the knowledge we can pass on to these juniors will accelerate their flying tremendously. The Australians really seamed to enjoy themselves this morning and also worked hard to get in that perfect flight. The winds had other ideas for all the pilots.

Dave gives the thumbs up as the Australians await their turn.

A $2.88 plane stand... brilliant!

Chad was up on Site #1 at 10:57 but it obvious that things were behind. Turns out a group protest letter by several countries was being discussed. Some teams felt that judging spreads on scores were rather excessive and want some clarity as to why and what, if anything, could be done to rectify their view of the situation. Cooler heads prevailed and after some discussion on procedural issues (protests) and the judging protocols flying resumed.

Chad put in a solid round and posted a raw score of 440.20. It was a little faster pace to his flight but the results were obviously positive. The team cheered when his wheels touched the ground. The afternoon was relaxed as we watched several flight and cooled down in the trailer... I have a new appreciation for air conditioning!!

Team Canada awaits Chad's sortie.

Mark was up next on Site #3 and he too had a good round. Minor errors but a clean flight none the less. He was pretty happy but wanted a couple do overs :-) He posted a raw score of 394.00

Dez followed Mark in the next group and in short order he too was churning up the skies with a solid round as well. Some minor in and out but still very respectable. Dez posted a 404.00 raw score and was also happy with the result. Some flyers did not handle the winds well and drifted out to 170 or more meters. I believe the judges would hammer these guys with lower scores :-( Today’s saying should have been “ Hold the line”!

As we packed up we heard that Chip Hyde had an incident with his back up plane on site #4. Turns out that the bolt holding the wing had stripped out and although he was able to complete the manouvers, he threw in a snap roll and... well the wing panel departed the aircraft! Chip did a great job of saving the plane with some deft flying and landed it with only minor gear damage... hey I think I have seen a similar photo shopped video on youtube! LOL.  (I am told there is video recorded by a smart phone... it should turn up soon.)

Wing damage to Chip's backup plane.

I am told the damage is repairable and they were awaiting the decision on just what could be done within the rules to repair it. If this plane flies tomorrow it will be with only 8 lives :-)

We gathered around the RV’s and had a brief social to catch up on the days events then it was off to dinner. We couldn’t decide on where to go as a group so we went our separate ways this evening.

July 29th times are:

Mark at Site #1 at 8:51
Dez at Site #1 at 9.33
Chad at Site #3 at 15:30

Preliminaries Flight # 2

Chad was scheduled for an 8:24 am flight so we decided to meet the gals at Site #3 as they were heading towards Ohio for some geo-caching adventures. We arrived and Chad’s primary and backup were already assembled and ready for his flight. He was up second after Koji Suzuki.

The winds were favoring left to right and were not very strong on the surface. We watched a couple demo flights and then the days contest flights began. Our entire team, supporters and friends were there to support Chad with the exception of Xavier. We did not see him anywhere which was a bit odd for him as he is usually busy taking pictures. He did have dinner with the French team last night and I wondered if perhaps they took him hostage as their official photographer!

I spoke with Benoit and he did say he saw him around but was at the other flight line. He will turn up... maybe practicing for the Nats with Dezso’s backup :-)

Suzuki awaits the start.

Koji fired up the 170 Mid Rex but his engine was not running well. He did manage to keep it going and once he completed a couple maneuvers it seemed to settle in nicely. It may have been a concern as his flight was good but not strong. The winds were much stronger aloft.

Ready to fly.

Chad was up next and had some minor in out as the winds aloft and below changed with elevation. Some slight centering issues as well with some elements but also seemingly perfect ones (4/8 opposite) with others. He was mixed on the flight results but managed to score a 434.20 raw in front of this “A” judging panel.

Mark is planning a jersey swap with the Brits.

The team split up for the day as Mark does not fly until later this afternoon followed by Dez. We drove over to site #1 and watch Chip Hyde fly. He had some minor flaws but a good flight as well. The winds, although on the ground seemed lighter,  were definitely a factor this morning. Those pilots that recognized and compensated the changing conditions with elevation were not punished. Those that did not would score much lower.

We headed back to site #3 and watched both Christophe PLR and Andrew Jesky put in their second Preliminary flights. Both were solid and also had some minor in out issues. The spin rotation on Andrew’s second half of the final maneuver was much faster and more axial than the first half... at least to my eye... but then again I am not the judge :-) We will see how the judges liked it when the scores are published.

We then headed back to the hotel to charge Mark’s packs and I also started to put my Xigris together. I hope to get some practice in sometime in the next week before the Nats start although I am pretty focused on the team stuff at this point.

Mark preps beside Benoit.

We packed up and after grabbing the backup airplane from Camp Canada, we headed to site #1 for Mark & Dez’s second preliminary flights. The usual battery and sound check completed Mark took off. He had a pretty good flight going but the second half of the slow roll opposite wasn’t as smooth as he would have liked and some slight wings not quite level was also evident. A good flight but Mark obviously wishes he could re-fly the slow rolls again:-) Hey it’s a tough crowd here let me tell you.

Mark with some of our cheering squad!

Dez was up next and with Xavier calling, he put in the best round of P I have witnessed in a while. He exceeded my expectations and put in a very solid round. There were a few soft spots which we discussed after the flight but I was impressed... so much so I gave him the rest of the day off!

Xavier, Dez, Nell and Spencer after his flight.

We packed up and headed back to “camp” once again... yes there is a trend here and we are so thankful to have a place to meet, store our stuff and stay cool if required. After dropping Mark off I drove over to site #4 were Chip, Andrew and Chad all put in some practice rounds. Some very solid flying for sure and you could tell that the pilots were trying to present the best effort they could.

Back to camp and we had a great throw together meal.  Ok it wasn't that bad.... corn on the cob, combo burgers along with some very good chicken wings... a bit of everything as Pat emptied the fridge :-) Chef Hartley was in the kitchen tonight!

Tomorrow's flights for the team are:

Chad at Site #1 at 10:57
Mark at Site #3 at  14:57
Dez at Site #3 at 15:39

Preliminary Flight #1

Out the hotel door early today and had our usual Starbucks stop en route to the AMA site. With Mark flying later we popped the seats up and took the girls with us. On arrival at site #3 Dez and Xavier were already busy prepping the planes. Dez would fly his primary and have his back up close by in case something went wrong during power up and battery connection.

Our entire team and it’s supporters came out to watch his flight and provide encouragement.  The planes voltage was checked and then once the judges were ready, the official starter gave the command to start. Xavier quickly and efficiently plugged in and carried the plane into the sound check circle. It was easily completed and the plane was repositioned for takeoff in front of the judging panel.

Conditions were close to perfect with clear skies and a light breeze. Dez had a solid flight pretty much on par with my expectations for the “first” round. Minor in and out with a couple geometry errors overall. A good start to the team’s flying today and one that Dez and the team can build on going forward.

We headed back to the hotel to grab Mark’s plane and my own TX that he will use for his backup plane. Kelly and Robyn were kind enough to do a juice run over to Walmart... man we go through fluids in this heat!

With the cooler replenished and the van reloaded we departed for Camp Canada to grab Mark’s back up plane. Once there Mark packed his plane over to site #3 a couple of hundred yards away while I drove:-)

Mark is close to his flight.

Mark prepped the planes and with Hartley’s help positioned them in the #3 ready box. He would be following Benoit Paysant-Le Roux whom was already waiting in the #2 ready box position. They too had their batteries tested like Dez’s earlier flight. With timer in hand I listened as the official timer said “START...your on the clock” and they swung into action. Sound check complete Mark took off on his first official flight. He seemed nervous at first but soon settled into a nice steady pace. Working hard to fix minor errors he had a solid flight going when some unintended rudder inputs softened the score for his stall turn. He kept going and finished strong. I think Hartley was more nervous then he was!

His plane was weighed and also randomly selected for re-processing which he easily passed. A great flight and I was happy that he kept driving to finish well.
We had a short team meeting as the flight roster times had been changed for the next three days. Seems the “invert method” does not work well with this many pilots :-) I gave everyone a copy of the new schedule and we retired to the trailer to cool down.

Although Mark’s flight was well under the time limit of 8 minutes there was some concern about the difference between my time and the official time... I spoke with the starter and Line Coordinator and we quickly resolved the discrepancy.
We debriefed Marks flight and then readied for a trip over to site #1 for Chad’s first competition round. The usual crowd had gathered and a repeat of the whole process unfolded. Chad put in a very solid flight and I was happy for him. He received a big cheer from the Canadian contingent that came out to support him.

Chad concentrates as the his flight approaches.

Back to the trailer for additional debriefing and a small social. The scores were posted not far from the trailer so several trips ensued. The results really don’t tell much aside from which judging panel scored the highest. The competitors true placing will be determined when he has flown in front of all 4 judging panels..... any pronouncements about who is in first is completely premature at this point in time.

CPLR brings out the crowd!

The French team pose for photos.

Our guys all put in good rounds today and have laid the foundation to help build the teams position in the coming days.

Ian Clark emerged from his scribing position and had a story to tell. Seems a plane had an ESC issue and caught fire at Site #3 in the afternoon. I believe it was one of the Norwegian planes and I am unsure if he had a backup.

We all had some laughs around the trailer and were soon joined by Harry & Rosemary Ells and Derek Koopowitz. Agnes Northeast and Alev Bek also arrived back from there side trip to West Virginia. Dinner plans were made and we all headed for the Outback Steak House and then “home” for a rest.

I have added two more picture links... Ola Fremmings as well as Xavier's Prelim pictures... I have to say that Xavier has done a great job capturing the moment. The shots of Canada's TM running across the grass were most captivating :-) 

July 27th Flight  Orders...

Chad is at Site #3 at 8:24
Mark at Site #1 at 15:48
Dez is also at Site #1 at 16:30