Jury Report on Free Flight European Championships 2006 F1A F1B F1C
FAI Jury
Andras Ree |
Hungary |
CIAM Vice President |
Ian Kaynes |
Great Britain |
Chairman F1 S/C |
Igor Vivchar |
Ukraine |
|
Dates
July 16-23 2006
Location
Odessa, Ukraine
Information
Three bulletins were sent out to NACs in time and were also displayed on the well prepared championship website before the event and contained the necessary information.
One technical meeting was organized for team managers, officials and the jury. The meeting was rather short and efficient. Another meeting was held for the timekeepers.
Participation
The final entry was a total of 190 competitors from 29 countries, with a slight increase, mainly in F1C class, compared to 2004. The respective numbers in the three classes were as follows:
F1A – 81 competitors from 28 countries
F1B – 67 competitors from 25 countries
F1C – 42 competitors from 19 countries.
Accommodation and food
Accommodation was organized in 2 main hotels and a camp site on the field. In the hotels we had packet breakfast, the lunch and dinner was at the hotel restaurant. For lunch we returned to the hotels between the seventh and fly-off rounds. The accommodation at the hotels and the food was good, some sportsmen were complaining because of the amount.
Flying site
The flying area was an old military exercise area, still guarded but out of use. It was large enough but covered with high grass and weeds and was not fully flat. There were “objects” as well from the exercises like holes, concrete and metallic pieces (not well seen because of the grass and weeds). Indeed, during the Black Sea World Cup event directly before the championships one competitor was injured falling into a hole while towing F1A.
Just a few “roads” were going through, so the retrieval of the models (mainly on the F1B day) was a very hard task. We had some problems with stolen models and at least two models “landed” in the Black See (both were recovered).
We had to increase the usual 5 min. break in several cases to let the models be retrieved. Motorized model retrieving was allowed, motorbikes for rent were offered.
Weather
The weather conditions were rather windy, changing a lot, first of all the wind direction and speed. Therefore the contest was hard, there were not so many competitor in the fly-offs as expected. The best conditions were at the F1C contest day, specially in the fly-off rounds.
Competition
In F1A the beginning of the contest was delayed by one hour because of the wind and the wet terrain caused by the heavy rain at the previous evening, then the max. was reduced to three minutes for the first round. After the second round the round gap was extended, and this was applied for all the following gaps. Some models landed in the closest part of the town that caused retrieval problems and some finders wanted money for giving back the models they collected. The sixth and seventh rounds were the most hard and finally only 8 competitors maxed out and two fly-off rounds (with 3 competitors in the second fly-off round) were necessary (5 and 7 minutes) to decide the winner. The visibility was good enough to have reliable timekeeping.
In F1B the conditions were better, we had lower wind and more distance to fly but more hard terrain for model retrieving. The maximum flying time for the first round was 4 minutes. Again the round gaps were extended. After round three the line was changed, this action was fast and smooth. The wind speed increased for the last rounds and was again not easy to max. Finally we had again quite low number of competitors (14) in the fly-off. During the 5 min. fly-off some models flew to the town again, therefore the next fly-off with 5 participants was delayed for the morning of the first reserve day. This round decided the winner surprisingly with a slightly shorter than 5 min. flight. The visibility was good enough again, therefore there were no problem with timekeeping.
The F1C contest started with less wind and the maximum flying time for the first round was 4 minutes. After round 3 the line was repositioned and after round 5 the round gap extended again because of the longer retrieval time caused by huge thermals. The last two rounds were harder again, so only 12 competitor maxed out. For the fly-offs we had perfect weather with easy retrieval conditions, and 9 of the 12 maxed quite smoothly in the first round. The 7 min. round was successful only for 2 competitors, and still had enough time for the 9 min. round. An impressive nice flight decided the winner with a rather huge margin.
Timekeeping
It was the general opinion the timekeeping was the best we have seen since a rather long time. Only one foreign country and Ukraine provided timekeepers.
Opening and Closing Ceremony
The opening ceremony was organized by a professional company at the complex Chabanka, the main accommodation place, in a rather unusual way. That was a kind of show with professional participants (ensembles, dancer, singer and speakers). The five new individual and team challenge trophies donated by Ukraine were presented, the Ukrainian and FAI anthems played and the event officially opened by the FAI jury president. All in all it was variegated, not too long, a bit noisy but appreciated by the majority.
The prize giving and closing ceremony was at a park at the vicinity of Chabanka. It was also unusual, organized by the same company. We have seen again show elements, a video report from Sandy Pimenoff, and the championship logo became living. The new individual trophies, which have been engraved with the names of all previous European Champions and (most likely the first time) the new champions as well, were handed past all the previous champions who were present before presentation to the 2006 winners. The F1A winner, Per Findahl, thanked the championship and lowered the FAI flag which was handed over to the representative of the next organizer, Bulgaria. The FAI and Ukrainian anthems were played and impressive fireworks closed the ceremony.
The buffet-like banquet with rather high decibel music was at the main hotel (at the place of the opening ceremony) up to early morning.
Protests
There were no protests filed during the championships. This resulted – mainly – from the good quality of timekeeping and the good cooperation between the contest director, Victor Stamov, and the FAI jury.
Observations
A pre-recorded (by professional speaker) computer controlled program was prepared to help the CD with automatic announcements. It failed during the first official round because of a computer freeze, but later it worked with additional announcements by the CD when we could not follow the pre-recorded program (e.g. in case of longer braek between rounds).
One extra reserve/rest day was inserted between F1B and F1C day, mainly accepted. The F1B flyoff was held in the morning and a brain storming meeting to discuss free flight rules was held during the afternoon.
A debriefing meeting was held on the second reserve day to discuss the experiences and tasks for the 2007 world championships also to be held hear in Odessa.
Too much of the organization was handled by a single person. There were no serious problems, but the sharing of tasks and responsibility is important to be effective and work under lower pressure and stress.
Conclusions
The 2006 F1 European Championships was a successful event in all of the three classes. Thanks to the hard working organizers, led by Victor Stamov, timekeepers, helpers, family members, local ones and from abroad as well. Thanks to them for the work and efforts made for the free flight aeromodelling community.
The jury attached to the report a summary of proposals how to even improve for next year.