[NSRCA-discussion] US team update from WC

[Derek Koopowitz]

Courtesy of Mark Atwood...


Friday! Lather Rinse Repeat?? Nay my friends. Today was a very full day of activity.

We all started the day getting an early start out to the practice field. Guess what!?! High winds!! At this point, no one appears to be daunted by the wind, as it’s clearly something that everyone is going to have to deal with. The temps this morning though were a bit cooler, as though it were an antarctic wind. Oh wait… it was. Silver lining? Everyone got to practice the opposite direction from the day before.

I’d like to say everything went smoothly in the morning but we ran into a little adversity when we noticed Joseph making some very uncharacteristic mistakes on his flight. He was chasing the trim badly and upon landing we discovered the stab of his #1 plane (the Allure) was moving noticeable. Joe was understandably stressed and frustrated, so we sent him for a walk while Don, Andrew and the rest took to disassembling and diagnosing the problem. After a few approaches proved unsuccessful Don finally discovered the root problem. The plate holding the stab adjustor had cracked, allowing the rotation pin to move with even a light load. With the magic of CA & Kicker, a quick reassembly and check of all the controls and Joe was ready to go. All seemed well with the plane and Joe was back to putting up another excellent flight.

Everyone put up 2 flights and then we packed up to get back and process the models and have our official practice flight on the site. “Official” practice being one flight each on the actual contest flight line. Processing was generally uneventful, though I must say, these new planes really push the length limits. The Element that Andrew and AC are both flying can’t be more than 1mm shy of 2M. We will also likely try to put Jason’s Bipe on a diet. He made weight, but there isn’t much room to spare. All in all though the process went smoothly, and rather efficiently. Until we got to sound checks which was a little entertaining due to the language barrier. The sound check team spoke little if any english, And of course our Spanish (ok, MY Spanish) is limited to “no hablo español”. Add a few technical words like voltmeter, decibels, Settings, etc and we had epic failure to communicate. But everyone was patient, and doing their best, and in the end we managed. All the planes passed without even getting close. Most were 88-89Db and I think one was 91Db. Well below the limit.

The wind howled through our official practice flights but as I’ve been saying, it doesn’t seem to show in our team's flying. It clearly takes away from some of the fun though, as it’s definitely survival flying. Unfortunately not everyone that attends the WC’s is at the same level as the top guys are, and there were definitely some that really struggled to safely land their planes, and not all were successful at avoiding damage.

The venue is set up nicely, and with some food trucks on site several of us opted to stay for a little while and relax and eat. The sun finally came out and provided some warmth for part of the afternoon. We stayed to greet the Japanese team and watch them fly before going back to practice some more. (The Japanese team had even more fun with interpretation and at one point had Michi from Canada helping translate Japanese to English so that Pavon from Ecuador could translate from English to Spanish) As always, the Japanese had some of the most beautiful craftsmanship and finishes of any of the aircraft. Their team manager (and former team member) Akiba Yoichiro had a new design variant of his Passion Biplane he simply called Super Passion. It’s very big, and very sharply finished (see photo).

>From there is was back to the practice site (about 25 min drive from the contest site) for a few more flights. This time we were basically all alone as most had called it quits for the day with the high winds. Side note on the practice… This is not your typical practice flight at home where you often simply go through the motions. Most flight we have 3 or 4 people in line behind the pilot, watching the entire flight, and doing somewhat of a group debrief following the flight. Our team of pilots are not only very good, but they have thick skin to listen to some pretty petty critiques in an effort to fix even the smallest consistent errors.

Before putting up a third round of flights we took a short break to let the Russian team put up a quad drone to try and find a lost canopy that departed when the batteries ejected in a snap roll. Before they could find it, and before we flew again, another large, ominous rolling cloud formed rather suddenly in front of us. Upon it’s arrival the temperature dropped noticeably, the wind increased and shifted direction to a full 90deg crosswind, and with that, our practice concluded.

We got back to camp well after sunset, but in time to greet Tim and Linda Jesky who had just arrived from their long journey from Michigan, via Toronto and Santiago, Chile. We all went out for dinner to a close (walking distance) restaurant and that pretty much wrapped up the day.

Tomorrow is the opening ceremony in the afternoon, followed by Team Manager meetings where I hope to get our flight orders and any last information before we start round 1 on Sunday!

Photos: Again, not in order most likely.

- SNAILS!! Giant (1” round) Snails that really POP when you step on them in the dark. Which we do a LOT. They’re everywhere!!

- Andrew’s second plane being processed, weighed, measured, sticker…etc

- Alexei from Russia with his Angels Shadow.

- F3A Legend Wolfgang Matt who is not flying this year, but is here to help Switzerland’s Reto Schumacher

- A look at Site 2 where we had our official practice flights

- Part of the German team taking a page from Robert Caglia’s fashion guide. Notice some of the international flags flying in the background.

- Onda Tetsuo and his new Fall Leaf Leader Biplane with a contra unit. Electric is a departure for Onda but his other plane is glow, and with the high winds he will likely fly the glow plane.

- Outdoor eating area at the central site. Nice that they have food trucks on the premises.

- David, me, Leslie and Joseph, taking a break after our official practice session.

- Akiba’s Super Passion. The photo does NOT do this plane justice.

- Sound testing one of the Japanese airplanes.

- Don diligently working to do a field repair on Joseph’s primary airplane.

- Cloud forming RAPIDLY in front of us forcing us to pack it in for the day.

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