Jury Report on Free Flight European Championships 2016 F1E for Seniors and Juniors
FAI Jury
Sdrjan Pelagic cancelled his jury president position because of an important personal reason, so the Jury was formed by:
| Andras Ree | HUN | President |
| Wilhelm Kamp | AUT | Member |
| Marius Conu | ROU | Member |
Dates
July 20 to 23, 2016
Location
Turda, Romania
Information
Three bulletins were sent out to NACs before the event in time and additional information were issued on the spot at arrival and contained the necessary information. One meeting was organized for the team managers, the main officials and the jury on the training day, after the opening ceremony. It was short and effective including only one discussion which concluded to the CD instruction that all helpers and team managers should stay behind a line established behind the timekeepers to leave them timing undisturbed.
Participation
The final entry was a total of 32 senior competitors from 11 countries (9 full teams) and 22 juniors from 8 countries (7 full teams). This entry was about at the usual level. The registration and model processing was on the flying site on the training day. This way the teams could well use the day for training flights.
Accommodation
Accommodation was organised in different versions. The Motel Stejeris for the jury, some officials and some teams was good except the noise of the main road traffic, right beside the motel. We haven’t heard about major problems. The food in the hotel and at the contest site was good and plentiful.
Flying site
The flying area was the Bogata hills (known also as “tankodrom”, a military training area). The official training was at the same slopes as the ECh. It was seen, the industrial zone between the hills and the town Turda has expanded in the direction of the hills since the last championship has been organized here.
The actual slope was selected according to the wind direction. In general, the wind was low and the direction was not stable and not optimal, strongly influenced by the thermal activity, except for the last round on the junior contest day. The conditions are well characterized by two facts: during the championship the max time was never set for 5 minutes, and there was no fly off.
Competition
Junior day, July 21: low wind (1-3 m/s), no stable direction, all day sunny.
The maximum flying times were 3, 4, 4, 4 and 4 minutes, round times were scheduled for 60 minutes with 15 minutes breaks and 60 minutes lunch break after round 3. The starting line was the same all day long.
During the three forenoon contest rounds and also in the fourth after the lunch break the wind was light and the slope was tricky, so the number of full scores was dropping down from the 14 in the first round to 11, 9 and only 2, so there was no full house after the fourth round. Finally, for the fifth round the wind speed increased and more or less stabilized, therefore again more (13) maxes were flown, but there was no fly-off.
The individual winner was a small girl, Laura Kozuchova (SVK) with just one second before Nils Finke (GER). The team winner was Slovakia.
An unusual accident happened on this day during retrieving of the models. The Hungarian team manager was bitten by the sheepdogs of one of the shepherds grazing around on the slopes. He was transported to the hospital in Turda where he got the necessary treatments and injections. Finally he had to go home and could not participate in the senior championship on the next day.
Senior day, July 22: low, unstable, changing wind speed and direction (0.5-3 m/s) influenced strongly by thermal activity. Sunny, clear sky for the first three rounds, in the afternoon some clouds. The weather conditions caused hard task for the CD and competitors as well.
All rounds were flown on the southern slope with 4 min maxes and were influenced strongly by luck. It was hard to adjust the models correctly, to keep the right track in the valley, not to land too early on the left or right hand slopes. This way already in the first round only 8 maxes were flown. In round 2 and 3 the conditions were a bit better with 17 and 19 maxes, but after three rounds only one competitor had full score.
The results dropped during the after lunch rounds (10 and 8 maxes), as it was again really hard to keep the right direction in the valley. As a result of these hard conditions finally there was no fly-off.
The individual winner was Franciszek Kanczok (POL), and the team title was going to Poland with a safe margin to the second team.
Trophies
The “Europa F1E Pokal” senior individual CIAM trophy was handed over to Franciszek Kanczok (POL) and the junior individual “Rhön-Pokal” trophy to Laura Kozuchova (Slovakia).
Both trophies are in good conditions.
FAI Opening and Closing Ceremony
The simple opening ceremony was organized on the training day afternoon on the contest site. This arrangement pleased the participants but this way it had no publicity in the home town Turda. After greeting the participating countries short speeches were held by the chief organizer and the jury president who also opened the championship.
The prize giving ceremony, the simple closing ceremony and the banquet were organized after each other in the evening of the reserve day in Turda down town at Hotel Salis. The place and food was fine, unfortunately the prize giving was influenced by the not working radio microphone and at first the Czech anthem was played for the Slovakian junior winner.
During both ceremonies the FAI and the Romanian anthems were played.
Protests
The jury had no protest to handle.
Conclusions
The 2016 European Championship in class F1E was a successful event for the seniors and juniors as well. Thanks and congratulations to the local organizing staff and the timekeepers, local ones and from abroad. The contest director, Aurel Popa, was new in this position, but did good job, was powerful enough to keep the contest well in hands.
The organisers, led by Marius Conu and Ioana Dumitru, used the experience they collected through the previous events, several world cup contests, world and continental championships, some smaller problems were solved soon. The weather was not ideal in the high majority of the rounds, but that was out of their responsibility. Thanks to them for the work and efforts made for the F1E modelling community.