[NSRCA-discussion] Latest update from the WC

Fri Nov 10 09:59:58 AKST 2017

Way to go TEAM !!!!!!

Bob Kane getterflash at yahoo.com

--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 11/10/17, Atwood, Mark via NSRCA-discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Latest update from the WC
 To: "Mike Mueller" <mups53 at gmail.com>, "General pattern discussion" <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org>
 Date: Friday, November 10, 2017, 1:29 PM

 All four in!!!

 On Nov 10, 2017, at 3:15 PM, Mike Mueller via
 NSRCA-discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org>
 wrote:

  This from my friend who is there about
 today.
  Sounds very promising:
  Hi Mike

 Hope all is well with you
 guys!

 The semis are done here in
 Argentina - awaiting the results - but I would guess that 3
 and maybe all 4 Americans are in the finals :-)

 Really, Andrew J and Jason
 flew incredibly well today in wind right at the FAI
 limit.... Andrew, in particular, was just
 incredible.

 Surprisingly despite the
 wind, the YS’s have not really dominated, but certainly
 have not been a disadvantage.

 Even in the wind, lots of
 biplanes and lots of contras - perhaps not with the same
 dominance as in Europe.

 The stand out models in the
 wind for me was the Zonda, and also Wolfgang’s monoplane
 flown by Reto Schumacher....

 Tomorrow’s forecast is as windy as today,
 so will make for an interesting (but scrappy)
 finals....

 Best regards

 President of F3AUnlimited.com, Gator-RC.com, and Caiman
 Distribution LLC.,
 Exclusive North American Distributor for TopRCModel, BJ
 Craft, CA Model, and the new An Hui Yang F3A (Formally Oxai)
 Model Airplanes.
 Check out our all new Gator Power Pack brand of Lipo
 batteries.
 Exclusive sales agent for the Brenner Sharp Contra
 Rotating Propeller units.

 F3AUnlimited.com
    800 591
 2875
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    800 380
 9373
 Caimandist.com
    800 803 3658
 TopRCModel-USA.com

 On Fri, Nov 10, 2017
 at 9:08 AM, Vicente Bortone via NSRCA-discussion
 <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org>
 wrote:

 That is 26.84 mph. 

 On Fri, Nov 10, 2017 at 9:02 AM Peter Vogel <vogel.peter at gmail.com>
 wrote:

 12 meters/second sustained for
 60 seconds pauses the contest

 Get

 Outlook for iOS

 From: NSRCA-discussion <nsrca-discussion-bounces@
 lists.nsrca.org>
  on behalf of Jeff Worsham via NSRCA-discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.
 org>

 Sent: Friday, November 10,
 2017 7:00:45 AM

 To: Jon Bruml; General pattern discussion; Vicente
 Bortone; George Kennie

 Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Latest update from
 the WC

 Australian
 Facebook post 1hr ago shows Anemometer reading 13.8 m/sec. 
 That’s 30.87 mph. Absolutely insane!

 From: 
 NSRCA-discussion
 <nsrca-discussion-bounces@
 lists.nsrca.org> on behalf of Jon Bruml via
 NSRCA-discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.
 org>

 Reply-To: Jon Bruml <jon at techstyles.com>,
 General pattern discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.
 org>

 Date: Friday, November 10, 2017 at 7:29 AM

 To: Vicente Bortone <vincebrc at gmail.com>,
 General pattern discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.
 org>, George Kennie
  <geobet4evr at gmail.com>

 Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Latest update from
 the WC

 Go Team USA 

 thanks Mark !

 Jonathan Bruml

 Techstyles

 www.techstyles.com

 _____________________________

 From: Vicente Bortone via NSRCA-discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.
 org>

 Sent: Friday, November 10, 2017 4:47 AM

 Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Latest update from the WC

 To: General pattern discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.
 org>, George Kennie <geobet4evr at gmail.com>

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY Derek
 Emmett!!!!!

 - Thursday – Round 4  
 FINALLY

 Previously on How the
 WC’s turn:  Kevin got cake, Joseph flew well, CPLR got
 high scores, wind blue, rain fell, dogs barked. 

 Tonights Episode: Team USA
 flying strong!

 We have Blue Sky!!! I even
 have a photo to prove it!   I think the organizers are
 finally learning what the weather is like here in
 Argentina.  From 5am – 9am it’s beautiful!  Then it
 turns to ... well, it turns bad.

 We started earlier than
 normal in an effort to finish up the final round of the
 preliminaries and still leave time for some practice prior
 to the Semi-Finals.   First flights were at 7:45 with Demo
 flights starting at 7:15.   It was a pretty
  sky with puffy clouds.  But don’t get too attached to
 any cloud in particular because if you blinked, it was
 GONE.  Winds aloft were ripping, and the winds on the
 ground were doing their best to keep up.  Winds were from
 the WSW which is a new direction for
  us, left to right pushing in.  

 AC and Andrew are both
 fans of the early morning practice flight, which with an
 early start to the contest means a über early trip to go
 practice.  AC and Chuck were on the road at 5:30am and
 Andrew not long after.  Minor issue though,
  if you recall from yesterday, we had major rain storms and
 the practice site was a mud bath.  One of the vans got
 stuck and thankfully there are enough other knuckleheads
 that get up early to practice to help push them out.

 AC, Andrew and Jason all
 still needed to fly their final prelim round and like
 you’ve heard me say over and over…they all put up great
 flights.  Scores though were sort of meh, and as I
 mentioned yesterday, CPLR scored a 505 on his flight,
  so all but a few people dropped this final round as a throw
 away.  

 We finished up round 4 by
 11:50, but scores weren’t going to be posted until 3pm, so
 it was off to the practice field once again for a few rounds
 of F-17.  By now the winds were quite strong,  ranging
 between 10-14m/s (approx. 20-28mph)
  pretty much straight down the runway.  It’s survival
 flying.  There was definite concern that flying in these
 high winds could end the contest for someone. On the rough
 and muddy grass field, anything shy of a good landing could
 mean ripping out gear or worse.
  The practice site was packed (see the photo of the vans…)
 as a lot of people “on the bubble” were anxiously
 putting up F flights in hopes of making the finals
 cut. 

 By now most of you have
 seen the results, but if not, check out the main WC home
 page for the preliminary results. The USA has ALL FOUR…
 let me repeat that,  ALL FOUR of our pilots currently in
 the top 10.  Jason – 4th, Andrew – 5th, Joseph
  – 9th, AC – 10th.  More over, with no other Junior
 making the cut for the Semi-Finals, Joseph has secured a
 repeat title of Jr. World Champion.  We’re all extremely
 proud of him, especially Don.  But he’s staying focused
 on the job ahead which is making the
  cut for the finals.  

 I’ve been watching all
 of these guys fly for many many years, and have the fun and
 honor to get to fly with them and compete with them on many
 occasions.  I’m always impressed by their precision,
 consistency, and most of all, their ability
  to handle the wind.  Today though I sat with the team from
 the UK, and several others groups, all of whom are here
 competing at this world championship level, and watching
 them marvel at our team’s ability to not only fly in this
 wind, but execute precision
  geometry, maintain pace and rhythm, hold their line and
 center maneuvers in Extreme wind.  It’s a pretty neat
 thing to be part of.

 After returning from
 practice, I attended the Team Manager meeting at 6pm to find
 out the standings and draw the flight order for the
 Semi’s.  The process is simple, 30 pilots (representing
 15 countries) will fly 2 rounds of F-17.  They
  put all the names in a hat and had each country (in
 alphabetical order) draw a name for each subsequent
 position.  Argentina went first and pulled Stephan Kaiser
 to lead things off and we went on from there.  BJ Park (Of
 BJ Craft fame) from Korea pulled the
  first American pilot, Andrew, for the 16th slot. 
 Unfortunately with 30 pilots in the list, and only 2 rounds,
 they will rotate 15 pilots for the 2nd line, which means
 Andrew is up first on line 2    It happens.    The other
 guys all have good draws and fly
  mid pack.  I’ve added a photo of the flight order for
 both lines.  With luck we will be done by 1pm before the
 winds get too aggressive to even have the contest.  For
 those that are wondering, winds at 12meters/second,
 sustained for 60 seconds would require
  a delay in the contest.  That’s a high bar though, as
 “Sustained” above that threshold for that long is truly
 storm conditions. 

 This evening we celebrated
 another birthday as Derek Emmett leveled up to 54.  We’ve
 decided we really like having cake though, so we may elect
 someone else to have a birthday tomorrow.  

 FINALLY, our translator
 arrived!!!  My wife Linda, who is quite fluent in Spanish,
 arrive from Buenos Aires via bus this evening to stay with
 us for the rest of the contest.  She’s been in Argentina
 the entire time, but let’s just say Vacation
  and Model Airplanes are two terms that in her mind do NOT
 go together, so she’s been busy touring the rest of the
 country.  I’m hoping with her here that we’ll have
 substantially less trouble departing town than we had
 arriving since we’ll be able to communicate
  a little better.

 Wish us luck tomorrow!  I
 don’t believe we’ve ever had a US team positioned this
 strongly in a World Championship before (I don’t really
 know to be honest, but not in my memory).  We will be
 working very hard to hold our positions and ideally
  improve them against a very competitive crowd.  

 BTW, a very sincere thank
 you to everyone that has left a note thanking me for posting
 updates.  It’s very much appreciated.  I know there is a
 lot of info out there from other people so it feels good to
 know that someone is reading this
  and the effort has value.  A lot of people, LOT of people
 helped us get here $20 t-shirts and $10 raffle tickets at a
 time.  So the teams efforts, these updates, the guys early
 morning practices, and late night battery charging is a
 small thank you for that
  support.

 Photos:

 - Blue Skies over the
 Airport!!!  It eventually clouded over, but this was still
 one of the nicer and warmer days here thus far.

 - Tim Jesky and Don
 Szczuzrz in our Wifi “nook” at the inn we are staying
 at.  There’s no wifi indoors (our rooms anyway) so
 we’re typically outside in this little courtyard trying to
 connect.

 - Andrew getting ready for
 his final preliminary flight

 - AC and Chuck in Ready
 Box 1.  Notice the clouds are a bit thicker, and everyone
 is pretty bundled up.

 - Jason’s new look…
 Delta knit cap over bucket hat, with ear muffs.  Yes, this
 is what he actually flew in.  Not for warmth so much, but
 as a way to keep the bucket hat on in the high winds. 
 You’ll notice in many photos we have our hood’s
  tied over our caps for the same reason.

 - Van’s Van’s and more
 Van’s.  All with hoods open and charging battery’s at
 the practice site.  Too expensive to consider shipping
 generators, especially when you have to drive one to the
 field.  

 - A foam version of Gernot
 Bruckman’s Pandora.  We are ALL interested to see how the
 2m version performs in the high crosswinds tomorrow and
 possibly Saturday.  Thus far though it has surprised
 everyone.  

 - TEAM USA!!!  AC Glenn,
 Andrew Jesky, Jason Shulman, all posing for a photo at the
 practice site.  Derek lined them up for a photo and the
 next thing we knew there was 20 other people in line to snap
 a pic.   This was a promo photo for
  Team Futaba, so that’s why Joseph isn’t also in the
 photo.  No worries, we will not let the 2 time Jr. WC go
 un-promoted.

 - Derek’s B-Day Cake!! 
 And yes, it was delicious.  No ham OR cheese was to be
 found.

 - Semi Final’s Flight
 order!

 On Wed, Nov 8, 2017 at
 7:55 PM Vicente Bortone <vincebrc at gmail.com>
 wrote:

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEVIN
 YOUNG!!!!!

 - Wednesday – Round 4  
 Sorta…

 There appears to be only
 two ways to wake up in Villa Gesell.  To the sound of
 barking dogs, or the sound of pouring rain.  They are as
 reliable as they are mutually exclusive. Given the forecast
 for the day, I was fully expecting to be
  awakened by the rainwater hitting the sand and concrete
 outside our rooms which can be quite loud.  It was an
 ironic twist to enjoy waking to the sound of barking dogs at
 5:45am… it meant no rain.   

 Indeed the morning turned
 out to be reasonably nice and flyable. True, we’ve
 substantially lowered our standards for what constitutes a
 “nice day to fly” but none the less the wind was
 moderate from the North East and it wasn’t actively
  raining.   Yet.    

 Our schedule for the day
 was fairly relaxed as Joseph was our first pilot up at
 11am.  That meant the morning was free for everyone to get
 in some quick practice before we camped out the rest of the
 day at the competition site.  As the
  morning wore on, it became clear the rain wasn’t going to
 be the problem today as all were prepared to fly in it. 
 But the cloud ceiling was a different matter.  Each
 successive flight seemed to spend more and more time in the
 clouds.  If a maneuver was completely
  obscured such that ALL of the judges concurred that it was
 not observed, then the pilot was offered a reflight.  The
 rules around this are simple.  The reflight must take place
 inside of 30 mins (there are a few exceptions to this) and
 the pilot flies the
  entire flight, and the judges judge the entire flight,
 however only the missed manuever’s score is kept and
 replaced in the original flight.  

 This happened several
 times and it became a bit of a game to see if you’re tall
 maneuvers would synchronize with the holes in the cloud
 cover.  Some light rain also began to fall but that
 didn’t seem to deter anyone (did I mention we lowered
  our definition of nice weather to fly in??).  Joe flew his
 flight on time, and the “now you see me, now you
 don’t” routine resulted in his best raw score of the
 contest with a 468.  The score was mellowed a bit upon
 learning that CPLR had previously put up
  a 505 on the same line, but it was a good flight and a good
 score none the less.    Unfortunately that would all but
 end the flying for the day.

 Just a few flights later
 the clouds continued to drop in altitude and one of the
 Turkish pilots had their plane completely disappear.  It
 was seen again some long distance out, but too far to
 recover control and it crashed.  They found
  the plane FOUR KM away.  I’m not sure which part
 requires more emphasis… 4 Kilometers (2.4 Miles) or
 “Found”.  Given the terrain, I’m amazed that it was
 recovered.   We all know the pain of losing an aircraft,
 much less an Oxai Galactik at the world championships. 
  It had to hurt after traveling so far.

 The crash made it clear
 that the ceiling was too low to continue and they suspended
 the contest for an hour.  Rain began to get heavy at times,
 and the clouds only lowered.  By 3pm, after almost a 3.5 hr
 break, they officially postponed
  flying until tomorrow.  We will complete round 4 in the
 morning, and have the remainder of the day off to practice
 for the semi finals.

 You’ll see in some of
 the photos what a truly miserable day it was.  The
 temperatures weren’t particularly cold, at around 63
 degree’s, but with wind and rain, it was cold to be
 outside in it all day.  

 We all headed back to the
 inn to dry out and warm up.  We all decided that our dinner
 plan last night was a good choice so we opted to head there
 again.  Tonight we were joined by another USA Supporter,
 Peter Collinson!!  He flew down to
  Buenos Aires a few days ago and will be with us for the
 rest of the contest.  It’s great to have so many people
 come all this way to support the team.  

 After dinner we had a
 little Happy Birthday celebration for Kevin who turned 34
 today.  We were a little worried that the cake might be
 chocolate covered Ham and Cheese, but it was actually quite
 good.  Our singing left a little to be desired,
  but I think he got the message.  

 Tomorrow will be another
 early start.  It’s thundering and raining hard outside
 now, but we’re hopeful for a clear, albeit windy
 morning.  The winds the next three days are supposed to be
 epic.  Shifting from the west to the South (so blowing
  straight IN) at 15mph tomorrow, 20mph on Friday, and
 22-30mph on Saturday.  Were really hoping that there will
 be a rainbow after the rainstorm so we can find the end and
 make a wish…to be somewhere else. 

 AC flies at 9:30, Andrew
 at 10:06 and Jason at 11:28.  I would expect to get
 standings sometime early in the afternoon.  They will take
 30 people into the Semi-finals.

 Photos!  

 - The Brazilian Teams
 Motor Home which is right on the contest site.  They really
 have quite the nice set up.  It was a 29 hour drive though,
 comparable to what our beloved Nor-Cal group endures every
 Nats.  Originally we thought they had
  the easy, inexpensive route to get here… but then we
 noticed gas was 24 pesos a litre ($5.50/Gallon).  

 - Picture of the lunch
 area on site.  A little barren and wet.

 - A crowd of cold pilots
 waiting to hear what the plan for the day is going to
 be.

 - Creative tenting between
 two cars.  The wind was not kind to this particular
 approach.

 - More plastic covering
 planes.  With virtually no shelters on site, this was a
 common scene throughout

 - A photo of pure
 sadness.  Parts reclamation on what was a beautiful
 airplane.

 - SNAKES ON A
 PLANE…er… SNAKES UNDER A JUDGE!!!  A little surprise
 pet for one of the judges on line 2.  Hamish from NZ has
 another excellent photo of the snake attempting to wind
 correct its flight as it was hurled out into the weeds.

 - Welcome Pete!

 - Kevin and his cake!!!

 - I may have mentioned the
 number of stray dogs here before.  They wake you in the
 morning, and accompany you all day.  Every day.  Every
 where.  Here were a few in the restaurant tonight.  One
 found a home in the booth next to us, and
  the other decided it would be best to lay at our feet.

 On Tue, Nov 7, 2017 at
 8:01 PM George Kennie via NSRCA-discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.
 org> wrote:

 Hey Jay,

 Good performance my friend
 ! Keep takin' it to 'em buddy !!!!!  Ya know , that
 Frenchman

 really ain't that good
 !

 Is this the first Worlds
 that Gerhardt Mahr has missed ? I don't see his name
 among the 

 regulars !

 Thanks for doing a
 superlative job of representing the good 'ole USA along
 w/ the rest

 of the gang ! Pass along
 my congratulations please.

 Go Team USA
 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Georgie

 On Tue, Nov 7, 2017 at
 5:59 PM, Jas S via NSRCA-discussion<nsrca-
 discussion at lists.nsrca.org> wrote:

 Judges are the same
 groupings and on Site 1, almost all the scores are with-in 1
 point of Day 1 scores.

 Jas iP

 On Nov 7, 2017, at 12:28 AM, Derek Koopowitz via
 NSRCA-discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.
 org> wrote:

 Christophe flew his flight
 2 yesterday...

 Get Outlook for iOS

 From:
 NSRCA-discussion <nsrca-discussion-bounces@
 lists.nsrca.org>
  on behalf of Jeff Worsham via NSRCA-discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.
 org>

 Sent: Monday, November 6, 2017 6:27:35 PM

 To: John Gayer; General pattern discussion

 Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Latest update from
 the WC 

 Should have said Flight
 2.  Maybe Christophe practices in the rain? 

 Team USA is looking
 strong!  

 On Nov 6, 2017, at 7:17
 PM, Jeff Worsham <jeffryworsham at gmail.com>
 wrote:

 Interesting results on
 Line 2.  

 On Nov 6, 2017, at 7:09
 PM, John Gayer via NSRCA-discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.
 org> wrote:

 First 2 days results at:
 http://www.f3argentina.com.ar/
 day2.pdf

 On 11/5/2017 9:16 PM,
 Patrick Harris via NSRCA-discussion wrote:

 https://www.facebook.com/USA-
 F3A-World-Championship-Team- 541836459181879/

 Virus-free.

 www.avg.com

 On Sun, Nov 5, 2017 at
 8:15 PM, Peter Vogel via NSRCA-discussion<nsrca-
 discussion at lists.nsrca.org> wrote:

 Facebook. 

 Get Outlook for iOS

 From:
 NSRCA-discussion <nsrca-discussion-bounces@
 lists.nsrca.org>
  on behalf of Robert L. Beaubien via NSRCA-discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.
 org>

 Sent: Sunday, November 5, 2017 8:13:36 PM

 To: General pattern discussion 

 Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Latest update from
 the WC

 Where is this being posted
 so I can see the pics?

 Robert
 Beaubien Drone
 Plastics  

 From:
 NSRCA-discussion [mailto:nsrca-discussion-
 bounces at lists.nsrca.org]On Behalf Of
 Vicente Bortone via NSRCA-discussion

 Sent: Sunday, November 5, 2017 8:04 PM

 To: Derek Koopowitz <derekkoopowitz at gmail.com>;
 General pattern discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.
 org>

 Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Latest update from
 the WC

 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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