Jury Report on Free Flight World Championships 1989 F1A F1B F1C
FAI Jury
Pierre Chaussebourg | France | President |
Pawel Wlodarczyk | Poland | Member |
Jorge Cromberg | Argentina | Member |
Dates
May 22 to 29
Location
Embalse, Rio Tercero, Provincia De Cordoba, Argentina
Information
The information bulletins were good and the organisers made a great effort to obtain good discounts on air transports. There has been some local problems with car rental, which have been solved as local cars and motorbikes could have been rented directly from the next village inhabitants .
Transportation
The Mini-Dome of the East Tennessee State University is a relatively new site for indoor flying and the air conditions proved to be superb, both consistent and with little air movement.
Accommodation
The teams were accommodated in the Touristic complex at Embalse in two big hotels. The timekeepers and officials are in a third hotel and secretary and different offices in little bungalows. All these buildings are situated in a wide park, near a lake with very high trees, horses, and thousands of different beautiful birds. Food was served in the three hotels for breakfast and dinner. Lunch was available at the airfield. Food was excellent and in good quantity.
Contest site
The organisation of the competition was thorough and efficient. The geometry of the site and peripheral obstructions, tended to concentrate flying in a small, central area. To minimise model collisions, air traffic control was operated to delay launches when the air space was too crowded. This worked well but was one factor in making the allotted 6 hours on days 1 and 2 barely sufficient for completion of two flights by all members of teams. It was decided to allow reflights at the start of the following day’s flying if there were mid-air collisions after the last launch time on the first two days. This was used by the two models involved in one incident.
Layout of the competition area was capitol L shaped. Seniors and juniors competed simultaneously without any problem. Time-keepers where gathered in a pool and a pair of time-keepers was always available for competitors. So, time-keeping was without any problems or complaints in spite of unusual illumination of the competition space for those accustomed to sunny weather in free flight events.
Opening Ceremony
It was held in a stadium at Embalse, with presentations of the teams, model demonstrations, parachuting and aircraft demonstrations.
The most appreciated moment happened when hundreds of children from the local school rushed to the team members, each child giving a flower and a personal message to each participant. This was the first demonstration of the warm hospitality of the South American people
The opening ceremony was followed by an enormous barbecue for all participants
Contest organisation
The Chief timekeeper had prepared very good instructions for his timekeepers The timekeepers meeting was very well run and I heard later that the timekeepers had been carefully selected a year in advance and then especially instructed and tested at various contests and championships. They were equipped at each pole with two pairs of binoculars, one of them being fixed on a tripod specially made for the world champs. A special board was used to hold score card, pencil, and a form which had to be filled before each flight, showing the number of the plane, the shape and colour, to help to identify the models in flight. A model of this board will be shown at the ClAM meeting. The tripod was particularly useful and it must be mentioned that there has been no timekeeping problem for the four days of competition. The winning F1C model which did not DT has been timed for 18 minutes until it disappeared in a cloud of dust very close to the ground.
Competition
F1A could be flown and finished on the scheduled day.
For F1C, the wind which was too close to the speed limit would not have given the possibility to run the flyoff in good conditions and without lost models. The Jury decided to postpone the F1C flyoff to the Sunday morning
On Saturday the wind became too strong after the F1B 4 minutes flyoff, so we decided to have the 5 minutes flyoff round also on Sunday morning in turn with F1C.
Because of fog in the morning, we had to wait for more than an hour to start the first round for F1C. Then we had the 5 minutes F1B flyoff and later the 5 minutes F1C flyoff, then the thermal activity started and we got the final classification in F1B. But we had to wait until the 8 minutes flyoff to have the F1C winner and the thermal decided who would be the 1989 World Champion.
In these particular conditions of a flyoff in the early morning, it should be possible according to new rules, to have a 7 or 8 minutes flight, as early as possible, out of the thermal activity to avoid such a lottery.
Closing Ceremony
The closing ceremony and Prize giving took place in a theatre with an excellent student choral group from the university of Cordoba. FAI medals, diplomas and trophies were awarded to the winners. Then the traditional banquet followed with Argentinian traditional music and a very warm atmosphere, as usual at Free Flight World Championships.
Conclusion
This 1989 Free Flight World Championship was very well organised and the organisers did so well that it is only when coming back to Buenos Aires that we realised how difficult the situation was at this moment in the country. The Argentinian Federation of Aeromodelling should be congratulated for its hospitality and the success of this championship which will be long remembered.