[NSRCA-discussion] Latest update from the WC

[Vicente Bortone]

Sunday – It doesn’t seem like we’ve been here for a whole week already!
FINALLY the competition is upon us.  There are many advantages to getting
here a bit early, not the least of which is that everyone knows there way
around the area at this point.  Early in the week we are pretty strict
about all staying together.  “no man left behind” so to speak. That usually
means a lot of patience when trying to coordinate a group of 9-12 people
caravanning with 5 vehicles.  Every destination takes about twice as long
to get too (so as not to lose anyone) and every task and decision seems
painfully slow.  But as we become more and more familiar with our routes,
and the various destinations, it becomes easier and more reasonable to
separate from time to time.

Such was the case when AC said he was leaving at 5:30am to go practice.

“um, Yeah… go for it.  Let me know how that works out. We’ll meet you at
the contest site”

“Oh…and take Chuck”

The real surprise??  The Russians we’re already there and set up to
practice.

The reality is that’s how all these guys are wired.  Andrew and Kevin were
also gone early while the rest of us to headed to the contest site with
Joseph and Don who were scheduled to fly 2nd at 9:09am.

Let me start by saying this was THE nicest day we have had BY FAR.  Sunny
most of the day, moderate winds (7-10mph and even calmer in the afternoon)
and around 70deg.  For the first time we were able to spend a good part of
the day without coats and hoodies on.

The organizers were kind enough to put all our pilots on the same line so
we all flew on line A today.  It’s nice because it saves a lot of driving
back and forth between the two lines which are at opposite ends of a mile
long runway.  At 8:30am they began warming up the judges with several demo
flights from Argentinian F3A pilots all of whom did a really nice job.  Up
first for the entire contest was Steve Underwood from the UK.  He put up a
nice flight and tolerated a lot of ribbing about having flown the best
flight of the contest and being in 1st place.  It didn’t last long though
as Joseph was second up and really put up a smooth, well paced sequence.
He got pushed out a little more than planned in his spin and was forced to
move the plane back in a bit aggressively in the next maneuver, but all in
all a great effort.  He was rewarded with a raw score of 439.  More on
where that puts him in a bit.

I want to digress slightly to mention that without asking, without being
told, our entire team was in the ready box area to watch and support
Joseph's flight.  That meant that the guys at the practice site 25 min away
had to pack up early and get on the road long before their own contest slot
would have warranted, just to make sure they watched their teammate fly.
It’s a good feeling when the whole team is focused on the whole team.

I’ll cut to the chase a bit and just say that the entire team put up
fantastic first flights.  If nerves were present, and I’m sure they were,
it didn’t show in their performance.  AC's debut on the world stage was not
only well executed, but well received, putting up an admirable 449.

Andrew followed with a 465, and Jason batted clean up in the afternoon with
a 462.  Some relative scores on Line A for comparison, Stephan Kaiser flew
a 453, and CPLR flew a 484.

Notables on the other line, Gernot (Austria) flew a 462, Robin Trump
(Germany)  a 451, Lassie (Finland) a 447 and Onda (Japan) a 427.

We won’t be able to compare the two lines until after flying is done
tomorrow.  I wish I could post ALL the scores, but they never listed them,
and they’re not yet up on the web site.  These are all from memory and
discussing them with the various pilots.  It’s like trading baseball cards,
“I’ll tell you Andrew’s and Jason’s score if you tell me Robin's and
Gernot's…”.

The atmosphere was quite festive at the competition venue all day.  There
were actually a lot of spectators, many with families of kids.  The nice
weather certainly helped the turn out, but it was encouraging to see so
many people in attendance.  It sort of proves that with the right
marketing, there is some interest from the community.

I think the organizers have to be very pleased with everything about the
event.  It seems to be running very smoothly.  That’s not to say there
weren’t a few issues.   The most alarming was the full scale plane that
attempted to land (the airport is officially closed) in the middle of the
morning.  It was a little dicey as line chief stood in the center of the
runway trying to wave him off.  For a minute we were getting ready to make
a mad dash to clear the runway of people and planes, but he eventually got
the message and we heard him throttle up to continue on.  His flight path
following implied that he was a little confused as to where to go from
there, but he eventually went on his way.  I’m guessing he’ll start paying
more attention to NOTAM’s in the future.

Kevin had a minor wardrobe malfunction as the ties on his contest bib tore
off one by one, but some creative cutting and some shoe laces alleviated
that issue.  At least for the day.   We also had a little entertainment at
Linda Jesky’s expense as a bum knee decided to temporarily give way leading
her to re-enact the public service announcement for Stop, Drop, and Roll.
She was ok, but more importantly, it was caught on camera :)

After all our contest flights were finished, we headed back to the practice
field for a few more flights.  This time is was Andrews turn to be in the
air when a full scale jump plane came in for a landing, touching down
almost on Andrew’s centerline, while he was still in the air.    The
practice site is still an active airport, but with minimal traffic.  On
this occasion there was a group skydiving over the airport and the full
scale was coming in to take them back up again.

The day ended with some rain moving in, packing up, and heading back to the
inn.  We stopped at a local grocery/Walmart style big box store called COTO
for some suppies, only to learn that Sunday is clearly shopping day in this
neck of the woods and we waited in long, slow lines to check out.  Urgency
doesn’t not seem to translate into Spanish here.  Speaking of Spanish, I
doubled my Spanish vocabulary today by adding the word puntuaciones???.
Scores???  The constant question I'm asking to get our score sheets and
hope to see a list of scores.

Tomorrows schedule has us flying on site B, with AC up around 9:40,
followed by Andrew and Jason before the lunch break, and Joseph rounding
out the day with a 3pm scheduled flight.

We’re hoping for another strong day!

Photos –

- Leslie finds an interesting surprise outside her room.  Seafood raining
from the skies. NO clue how this got there, but the ocean is about ¾ mile
east of us.
- Close up of aforementioned surprise.
- Steve Underwood (kneeling) and his caller preparing to kick off the start
of the 2017 World Championships!
-  Don and Joe, watching Steve and mentally prepping for their flight.
- Our judge panel.  If you look closely, you’ll see our very own Don Ramsey
is 3rd from the left.
- Joseph in ready box 1, about to fly.
- Andre from South Africa getting ready for his flight.  Andre has been
SA’s top dog for many years, and now has Roston Dugmoor, former Jr. World
Champion nipping at his heels
- Andrew and Kevin enjoying some lunch outside at the competition site.
- Likewise, John Bentley and his wife from Canada enjoying the lunch
offerings.
- Russian Canopy!!!  The rebuilt Angle’s Shadow Canopy.  80gms (10 lighter
than the original) comprised of foam ribs and central spine and Nylon
reinforced tape!  It was an excellent fit and flew well for their young
pilot.  A real lesson in overcoming adversity.
- Linda J. taking a roll down the hill.  She really was ok   And no, we
don’t have a callous cameraman (chuck??), he happened to accidently capture
her in the background of another image.
- Jump plane about to touch down.  Note the wind sock with we have been
using as a center pole.
- Chuck, me, and our innkeeper friends that came out to the practice site
to see what all these crazy American’s are really up to.
On Sat, Nov 4, 2017 at 11:22 PM Derek Koopowitz via NSRCA-discussion <
nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org> wrote:

> Courtesy of Mark Atwood…
>
>
>
> Saturday
>
> SUN!!! We can see the SUN!!! Seriously, we woke up to not only a pretty
> day, but a warmer one. The highs were in the upper 60’s and with the sun
> out it was quite pleasant IF… ok, it’s a big if, IF the wind wasn’t
> blowing. But even the winds gave us a little break today, blowing in the
> low teen’s rather than the low 20’s.
>
> We left for another early start to the practice field today that was made
> all the better thanks to Leslie Hockhalter who with diligent searching
> managed to find us cheap insulated travel cups that actually hold more than
> a thimble full of coffee (or in my case tea). It’s the little things in
> life…
>
> The practice sites were full today as everyone was getting in their final
> efforts. Even with an early start we were behind the Taiwanese who
> apparently must sleep at the field. The winds as I mentioned were less
> severe, but still not light. We traded obscene wind quartering out from the
> North East for merely heavy winds at a 90deg cross pushing in from the
> South. Better??
>
> AC started with a few flights of F-17 before he retired that for the next
> 4 days and focused his remaining time on P-17. The noteworthy event of the
> morning came during Joseph’s flight when low and behold, we heard a full
> scale!! Now bare in mind, we have not seen ANY signs of general aviation
> here what so ever. So it was a bit of a shock to not only see a small
> private plane, but to see it at 1000’AGL coming straight through the center
> of the box. Joe had plenty of time to get down low while it passed. He
> resumed his sequence only to here Andrew yell “he just lowered his gear…”.
> Sure enough, Joe managed to land and clear the runway less than 30 seconds
> before a Bonanza touched down on our runway. We were told later that the
> airport isn’t actually closed. They just see very little traffic. NOW you
> tell us.
>
> A few more flights and then we all packed up to go get ready for the
> opening ceremonies. For those that are unaware, the host country organizes
> an opening ceremony in the same vein as you see for the Olympics, albeit on
> a significantly smaller scale. But the idea is the same, with a parade of
> teams by country, and a little fanfare. We try to do our part to represent
> the US, dressing and working as a team. We arrived well in advance, were
> grouped behind a local representative holding our USA sign and proceeded to
> walk into the main area in a long parade among a surprisingly large crowd
> of spectators. Admittedly it’s fun to have a large crowd of people clapping
> for you as you’re introduced.
>
> After the opening statements and playing of the anthems, we were treated
> to a small airshow that included an RV-7 doing some low altitude aerobatics
> with smoke (lower and closer than would EVER be allowed in the USA I might
> add). They also performed a nice synchronized 3D heli demonstration (Also
> lower and closer than felt comfortable safe!). After that it was a nice
> party atmosphere with music playing, some food and beverages for the pilots
> and supporters, and a general meet and greet for all involved. A little
> social relaxation before the stress of the competition takes hold.
>
> Last event of the day was the team manager meeting for me, to learn the
> flight schedules and discuss any rules issues or procedural nuances to the
> venue. Mostly normal Q&A about various procedures along with some
> guidelines for how timing, scoring, weighing will be done. Most notable was
> a short lecture on the inappropriate use of some of the new gyro technology
> (it’s prohibited in any way, shape or form) and a reminder that this
> constitutes unsportsmanlike behavior which can result in disqualifying not
> only the offending individual, but their entire team. In other words, they
> take it very seriously.
>
> We make a very concerted effort to have the whole team at every flight to
> support one another, which will make tomorrow a very very very early start
> as the guys will try to put up a practice flight in the morning and be back
> in time to see our first pilot, Joseph, put up his official contest flight
> at 9:09am. The others fly later in the day, AC @ 10:40am, Andrew @ 11:16am
> and Jason @ 2:24pm.
>
> Fair warning, scores will NOT be posted real time. We will get our
> personal raw scores upon completing the flight, but a summary of scores
> will not be posted until the end of the day. On a plus side, with only 2
> judge panels, we will get normalized, ranked scores after 2 days, rather
> than having to wait 4. I'm sure others will post, but I'll try to be sure
> to post the days scores here as well.
>
> Update on the lost Russian canopy: It was never found, so they were up
> until 5am fabricating a new one, and successfully flew it today! When
> you’ve traveled 12,000 miles to compete, you find a way. Kudos to the
> Russian team for both ingenuity and perseverance.
>
> Photos:
>
> - Random Beechcraft that arrived in the middle of Joe’s flight
> - Sergio (flying) and Marcelo (Calling) from Columbia. I’m pretty sure
> they’ve been appointed the official translators of the US F3A team. Without
> them, we’d be surviving solely on McDonalds, Oreo’s and Pringles.
> - Local aerobatic pilot and his RV-7.
> - Team USA!
> - A look at all the teams as they filed in and lined up near their
> respective flags
> - Robin Trumpp and team Germany working on his new Karat biplane
> - Team Canada: Xavier Mouraux, Michi Akimoto, John Bentley and his wife,
> and Hartley Hughson and his wife
> - Team China – in an embarrassing twist of language diversity, Jenny,
> their helpful translator, had to help out the event director during the
> Team Manager meeting in explaining his English explanation, to other native
> English speaking TM’s. Say what??
> - Collection of Team Managers from 27 countries
> - Honey bee that decided the S in my hat was its soul mate.
> - Flight orders for all 4 days!
>
>
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-- 
Vicente "Vince" Bortone
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