[NSRCA-discussion] WC

[George Kennie]

*          My Take on the World
Championships
*

Yup, I'm back !

Not feeling up to the 950 mile trip any more, I have passed on attending the
Nats for the last 2 years, BUT
due to the fact that this was my chance to see a World Championship event
and also due to a knawing desire
to see a flyer who had been able to pull off such a fantastic series of wins
over the last few years, yes, Christophe
I decided I would try to pull together the rescources to enable me to make
the trip
.
I had in my posession a classic aircraft with a brand new YS-61 AR and pipe
which was highly desired by a flying
buddy so I decided to let it go for $400, thus the funds became available.

I knew I would be sleeping in the back of my car and realizing that we were
currently experiencing a period of very
warm weather I knew I would be subjecting myself to some pretty hot nights
so I made up a couple of screens for
my rear windows to prevent bugs and to enable some air to cool my boudoir,
which worked out O.K.

I left on Saturday the 23rd @ 6:00 A.M. and arrived somewhere around 9:00
P.M., just in time to pump up my air
mattress and get some shuteye.There was a pretty good squall blowing thru
making me appreciate the fact that I
hadn't brought the tent as I never would have been able to set it up in
those conditions.

Sunday dawned with O.K. weather and after some breakfast I got back to the
site to find competitors already showing
up and shared greetings with old acquaintances (nice).

Some of the competitors were throwing down some practice flights and some of
the demo pilots were trying to get in
some additional polish. AC, Andre, and Dave were exemplary in their
execution giving the judges real meat to work with.
Late in the afternoon Chip flew P like noone has ever flown P before. If
only it had been videoed, .....it was textbook. The
first stall turn in the M made my jaw drop to about my knees. The plane went
up about 800 feet and came to a complete
stop and just hung there for about a full second without moving and then
after this interminable hesitation began to pivot
around the CG without gaining or losing a millimeter of altitude. I know I
uttered an audible exclamation of awe followed
by the thought that "I bet he can't do that again" whereupon he proceeded to
duplicate the feat on the other side of the M.
When he got to the turnaround stall he did it again proving it was no fluke.
The whole flight was stellar and was the best
flight of the week for me and I have a tendency to be a little tough on Chip
(he doesn't appreciate my corrective inputs ),
but I understand his personality. We're both type A so we clash a little,
but I still like him.

When I saw Andrew's practice flight I thought he looked a little rusty and
didn't have great hopes for his results in the face
 of such strong competition. When I observed the 1/2 square with the upline
snap he performed , I said "What was that?"
To me it looked like a flick roll, but I was informed that it was indeed a
snap. Well, somebody must have said
something because when competition started he had fixed it.

Speaking of snaps, Ola Fremming had a snap that was slow enough that you
could easily count the turns and it was
easy to recognize the stalled condition of the airframe. It was very pretty.
When have you heard anyone say that about a
snap.

Monday was offficial practice and each team was allotted approx 30 minutes
for their team members to familiarize them-
selves with the physical surroundings of the sites that they would be flying
on.

Now all the International teams were showing up and making their presence
known. It was a wonderful experience to
observe people whose language was total gibberish to your ears and enjoy
their spirit of happy interactivity as they joked
and laughed with great frivolity ( especially the Germans ).

All these teams seemed to have people in their group that spoke quite good,
if not excellent, English and came across as
extremely friendly.

About this time I took the opportunity to approach Christophe and laid on
him my theory of rudder center of pressure as
regards pitch and roll coupling and was surprised that he agreed with my
concepts. I got a pic with he and I together with
the Axiome which was gratifying.

A bit later I got to see both he and Benoit put in their practice flights
and having observed several execution errors I talked
with both of them regarding required corrections and they expressed their
thanks for the tips. On their next flight I noted
that there was an attempt to make those corrections, but on the subsequent
flight they were both back to making the same
errors and concluded that they had probably been practicing for a long time
making these errors and they had become
ingrained.

I also talked with many of the other teams offering suggestions and found
them all to be very receptive ( I think they felt
it best to humor the old man).

The Austrian National Champion was Gerhard Mayr and he was most receptive of
all soaking up everything I could feed him,
No matter how tough I was on him he would come back for more everytime and I
spent many evenings in long conversations
with he and his Dad and really got close to them. Wonderful folks ! Gerhard
flew electric and at a flying speed much slower
than everybody else, making people aghast at how he could perform such a
deep snap with such a low level of energy. He
is a 26 year old Young man who flew an original design aircraft that was
somewhat radical in it's use of canalysers on the
wings. I see him as a young man with a bright future.

The most obvious errors that were most apparrent to my eyes were the
integrated roll in the M which finished much higher
than it started as well as it's centering, 1/2 square loop on corner lacking
a line after the 2nd 2of 4, radii in the triangle, centering
of roll elements as well as combination maneuvers.

The weather was not typical Muncie fare as the winds were not the
usual Oklahoma variety. There were periods where the
winds would build in the middle of the day only to subside after and hour or
so. On Thursday Onda came to the line just after
a rush of pretty strong air pushed through only to have things calm down
shortly thereafter, which I thought was unfair.

During the prelims there were some comments regarding seeming bias relative
the scoring of the french team which I chalk up
to impression judging. Without actual numbers it's very difficult to assess
who is hitting the high K-Factor maneuvers.There was
even a bias protest which was apparently resolved. I have to confess that I
also felt that there was some favoritism being shown
to the big name pilots, but kept realizing that I wouldn't know the result
of appearances until I ran my numbers.

I come away from this amazing experience with the feeling that if Chip had
been able to fly the finals like he flew the prelims
the outcome could have been quite different. I scored one of the semifinal
flights where he was 35 points above the next closest
competitor.

I spent a good part of the day on Friday, after I got home running my
numbers and here's what I have. Despite what it may seem
I can assure you that there is no favoritism here.

Andrew........Finals # 1 = 590 ........Finals # 2 = 636 .........Unknown #1
= 497 ..........Unknown # 2 = 520..........................................

Kogi.............Finals #1 =  616.........Finals # 2 =599............Unknown
# 2 = 480..........Unknown # 2 =
513..........................................

Bernd...........Finals #1 = 610..........Finals # 2 = 580...........Unknown
# 1 = 469..........Unknown # 2 =
537............................................

Onda............Finals # 1 = 577.........Finals # 2 = 585...........Unknown
# 1 = 468..........Unknown # 2 =
531................................................

CPLR...........Finals # 1 = 581.........Finals # 2 = 580...........Unknown #
1 = 474...........Unknown # 2 =
518..............................................

Mayr.............Finals # 1 = 556.........Finals # 2 = 571...........Unknown
# 1 = 481...........Unknown # 2 =
528...............................................

Kaiser...........Finals # 1 = 540.........Finals # 2 = 609...........Unknown
# 1 = 475...........Unknown # 2 =
490...............................................

Chip..............Finals # 1 = 593.........Finals # 2 =
559...........Unknown # 1 = 462............Unknown # 2 =
486...............................................

Matt..............Finals # 1 = 540.........Finals # 2=
589............Unknown # 1 = 456............Unknown # 2 =
482...............................................

BPLR............Finals # 1 = 575.........Finals # 2 = 563............Unknown
# 1 = 432............Unknown # 2 =
496................................................


It's interesting that there is only a one point variation in the finals
scores of CPLR and the finish of Suzuki was a total shock to me.

The finishing positions are as listed from top to bottom.

I have no axes to grind and found those French guys to be wonderfully
friendly people, but I think that with accurate judging that
particular dominance may be short lived.

I would add that there was a very high level of competency displayed by all
competitors which was evidenced by their proficiency  in
the rollers.

If you've read this far, thanks for listening and be encouraged that this
will be my last time.


Georgie
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