National Free Flight Society

Jury Report on Free Flight European Championships 1996 F1E for Seniors and Juniors

Jury Report on Free Flight European Championships 1996 F1E for Seniors and Juniors

FAI Jury

Andras Ree

HUN

President

Mihail Zanciu

ROU

Member

Milan Valastiak

SVK

Member

Mr Vilim Kmoch and Mr Pawel Wlodarczyk were unable to attend and were replaced by the ClAM-approved alternates Mr Andras Ree and Milan Valastiak.(F1E expert from Slovakia).

Dates

September 11-15 1996

Location

Turda, Romania

Information

Two bulletins were issued in time and contained the necessary information. Just one information was missing: road construction on hundreds of kilometres.

Participation

The final entry was the same as the preliminary, a total of 9 countries were competing with full teams. 28 senior competitors entered besides the 18 junior contestants from 7 countries.

Accommodation

Accommodation was organised in two hotels, one in Cluj-Napoca about 40 km distance from the flying area, the other in Turda at about 10 km distance. The hotels were at an acceptable standard, but the travel took more time than the distances show because the general road construction work mentioned above. The food in the hotels and the packed lunch on the field were good.

Flying site

The flying area was included in a military training territory without population and with a few agricultural activities and nearly without trees. Good place for F1E activity with several launching possibilities. On the other hand it was not easy to access the area by vehicles — except the military ones helping the organisation and there were no toilet facilities available.

Competition

The organisers had no luck with the weather conditions. The practice day was nice, but we had nearly all kind of weather during the contest, including changing wind direction and speed and heavy rain. There was a delay after lunch break because a heavy rain and the starting point had to reposition for round 4 and 5. The senior and junior contest ran according to the same schedule and at the same place, that tends to reduce the attention on the juniors. Timekeeping was sometimes difficult but there were only a few complaints, no protest. Foreign timekeepers were also used. Manual scoreboard display was used within difficult conditions, sometimes under three umbrellas. The final results were available in the form of computer printouts on the next day. During the last round the models were flying impressively in strong wind and rain. Finally, due to the hard conditions there were no fly off.

Opening and Closing Ceremony

The opening ceremony was organised at the main square of Turda, the town leaders also participated.

The closing ceremony was together with the prize giving ceremony and the banquet at the hotel restaurant in Napoca. There were no podium and flags, the anthems were played from tape. The organisers supplied and presented a big number of cups, medals and diploma also medals and diploma for all the members of the top three teams in both championships and for officials, the jury included.

Conclusions

The 1996 F1E European Championships was a successful event except some organising problems caused by the hard weather conditions. Thank to the Romanian Modelling Federation for their efforts to organise this competition.