Jury Report on Free Flight World Championships 2015 F1E for Seniors and Juniors
FAI Jury
| Wilhelm KAMP | AUT | President |
| Marius CONU | ROU | Member |
| Srdjan PELAGIC | SRB | Member |
Dates
August 23 to 29, 2015
Location, Flying Site
FAI Jury
Zlatibor, about 200km southwest of Belgrade, Serbia. Grass covered hills with scattered bushes and trees. This is a summer-resort-region, during winter there are ski-resorts.
The flying-hill has slopes for most wind directions. There was some concern about a lake about 1km away. But during competition there was never a wind direction, which would have made this lake a danger. A road about 500m East of the hill was close enough to be overflown by several flights. Another road about 2km West was rarely reached by flights going this way. Unfortunately, one model blew up in a power-line well behind this road.
Information
2 bulletins were published and contained the necessary information.
Participation
12 nations in senior, 11 complete teams, 36 competitors including the defending senior Champion as well as the over 18 defending junior Champion who both flew outside of their national teams.
9 nations in junior, 7 complete teams, 23 competitors.
Board and lodging
Head quarter was at Hotel Palisad where officials, jury and many competitors were lodged and had their meals.
Breakfast, lunch (on non-competition days) and dinner were presented as a self-service-buffet with a wide variety of dishes and in excellent quality. Lunch on competition days was brought to the field. Plastic bag with a small drink, fruit and a double-decker bread of enormous size stuffed with well tasting goodies. Some people could share this bread with others, especially juniors, who had not ordered lunch on the field.
Also from those who had board and lodging outside the Hotel Palisad, I have only heard positive reports.
One thing which can be improved is that there was no drinking water to buy on site – and the weather was really hot !
Model checking and marking
Ran smoothly and was performed thoroughly. 3 tables, ample time, marking by a small sticker on each part.
There were 3 time-slots for re-checking models.
There were 3 time-slots for re-checking models.
Team Managers meeting
Short and precise, a nice drink at the end.
Competition
On both days the time for one round was 1 hour. The breaks in between were 10 minutes minimum and were modified to permit changes of starting positions or to give more time for retrieving.
Junior day
The beginning of round 1 had to be postponed from 10 to 11 o’clock because of fog.
The rest of the day was partly cloudy with north-easterly winds increasing from 2m/s to nearly 9m/s in gusts in round 5.
Round 1 had a maximum of 3 minutes. Only one competitor did not make this max. Interestingly, he finished 10th at the end.
Round 2 and 3 were flown to a max of 4 minutes. The first 3 rounds were flown from the upper position on the North-slope.
For the 4th round, the CD decided to go down the slope to a lower position. The choice of this demanding starting point as well as later the point for flyoff was made together with the jury and in cooperation with the participating (in senior) Free Flight subcommittee chairman who made several helpful test flights to confirm the choice.
First there was moaning among some senior team managers and helpers – “too hard for juniors” – especially as the max time for the 4th round was put to 5 minutes. At the end of the round we knew that 11 out of 23 competitors had managed to fly a max.
The 5th round was flown from the same position in partly strong wind again with a 5 min max. 9 maxes in 23 flights.
At the end of 5th round, there were 1 girl and 2 boys left for the flyoff. A rather low starting-position was chosen, again with test flights by Ian. The max was set to 7 min.
The flyoff gave a clear result with a max by the winner Mikolaj Stryja from Poland. The team was won by Italy.
Senior day
The wind forecast was southerly winds for all the day. So the competition began on time at 10 p.m. on the South-facing slope. The max was 5 min. for all rounds.
No problem in the 1st round and also in the first part of the 2nd round. Then the wind began to turn to East, shortly came back and turned away again. As the hope for southerly wind – according to the forecast – was not fulfilled at the end of the round, the starting line was changed to the North-slope in the upper position of the day before and the competition was continued with the 3rd round.
The rest of the day could be flown on the North-slope in prevailing northerly wind.
CD and Jury discussed several options of handling the 2nd round results. From keeping the maxes and granting a reflight for those who had dropped to cancelling the whole round. All those options did not seem justified considering that nearly half of the participants had flown maxes or near maxes.
So the competition was continued with the 3rd round.
For the 4th and 5th rounds, the lower starting position – the same as the day before – was used. After 5 rounds, 4 competitors – among them one lady and the defending junior champion – had qualified for the flyoff.
Flyoff-line also the same as the day before. The max was set to 7 min. but no one could fly it. The winner was Jaromir Orel from Czech Republic with 202 sec, 2nd Marian Popescu, Romania, only 8 sec behind. The other 2 with clearly lower times. The team event was – like in junior – won by Italy.
Timekeeping
Enough timekeepers. One timekeeper who seemed to have problems with his eye-sight had to be changed.
Ceremonies
Opening and Closing were held on the market place of the town of Zlatibor.
Opening: Serbian anthem at the beginning, few and short speeches, FAI anthem at the end of the official part. Then a nice performance of a folklore dancing-group.
Closing: Together with price giving again on the stage on the market place. This stage was rather high so that photographers could not have a good view of the podium. So they wanted to mount on the stage and the organizers did not want them to do so. This led to an escalating discussion which could quickly be stopped by the interference of the Jury President and a French Team member, the photographers were admitted to the stage.
FAI medals and diplomas, cups from the organizer, only 1 FAI trophy for junior team.
Short speeches, the Serbian and FAI anthems were played.
The banquet took place in a restaurant on the edge of the market place close to the price-giving stage.
A nice idea was – maybe even a first – to invite the timekeepers to the banquet.
Food and drinks were excellent, low background music. People could talk to each other without problems – that’s exactly what they want to do. Later there appeared a live group which was so loud that any conversation was impossible. Some of the locals obviously liked the music and participated in singing. Some of the others went outside to continue their conversation, others left completely.
Why is it necessary to have music at the banquet, where people who meet rarely want to talk to each other.
“Banquet – no music” could be a good advice.
Protests
No protests, no formal complaints. All problems could be settled below this level.
Observations
The communication between Organization and FAI Jury was very good in the beginning. Slight language problems could be easily overcome with the aid of the Serbian-speaking jury member. Near the end, there seemed to be some misunderstandings and there was not very much interest to bring things to an end. E.g. the results were ready, checked and signed early and it was agreed – as written in the Code – to distribute them before price-giving. But at the prize-giving there were no results. Only on request we were told that they were on the internet.
The proposed excursion had too little response to be made. Only a few of the staff and 2 jury members did it in a small van, to a lovely open air museum of traditional Serbian farm houses. Those who were not there have missed a nice site.
Information on the flight-line was improved after intervention of the jury, especially an information board with round duration, max flight-time and previewed duration of the next break which was updated after each round or when necessary.
Conclusions
It is not possible to look into the future how the weather will develop. This would especially be helpful for F1E free flight. Together with some improvements suggested by the FAI Jury we can look forward to a sometime later Championship in Zlatibor.
The Jury and CIAM have to thank the Aeronautical Union of Serbia for running a successful event.