SEN 2361

1. Eurofly 2017
2. 21st Southwest FAI Challenge results
3. Fab Feb Entries

Eurofly 2017

From:  Ismet Yurtseven

A dream contest: Eurofly 2017

Eurofly free flight world cup contest is organized at every two-year period. It is generally at the end of October at Muhlethurnen town of Bern/Swiss. The web site is: http://wc-eurofly.ch

This year, October (Friday) was the training day, October 28 was the F1B, F1C, F1Q and Banquet day, October 29 was the F1B and F1Q morning flyoff, F1A and F1G days.

Sun rise: On October 27 and 28 at about 08:00 am, on October 29 at about 07:00 am Sun set: On October 27 and 28 at about 18:30, on October 29 at about 17:30
(On October 29 night, the clocks have been changed to 02:00 am at 03:00 am)

October 27 (Friday): Training and registration day
On October 26 (Thursday), the weather conditions were excellent for training. But training was strictly forbidden.

On October 27, in the early morning the weather was very cold and cloudy. There was a cold breeze with 2-3 m/sec wind. About 10:00 am, wind increased to 4-6 m/sec. About 12:00, the rain started. All the day, the training possibility was limited.

Registration started in Muhlethurnen Adler Restaurant at 6 pm. It was very well organized. As a usual tradition, a souvenir of Eurofly was given to each competitor. This year, the souvenir was a small screwdriver set.

October 28 (Saturday): F1B, F1C, F1Q and Banquet day
Parking and the starting line was very well organized. There were assigned people for helping car parking. Organization headquarter was in the big barrack where there was a small cafeteria. Near the barrack, a big tent was ready for use for the rest of the participants.

Time keepers were very well organized and informed. They were very careful and helpful. Announcements were good enough.

F1B contest opened at 09:00 am. Max time was 4 minutes. Weather was cloudy, cold (4-5 C). There was a very cold 2 m/sec breeze from the south of the field. The first 10 minutes was very difficult for 4 minutes max. The models launched early in the round did not climb high. After the first 10 minutes, the sun partly showed herself. The weather was getting better as time passed. 67 F1B fliers started in the first round. 18 of them was not max.

In the rest of the day, it was partly sunny and mostly cloudy. The temperature increased to 20 C at maximum. Generally, the wind speed was 0-3 m/sec.

There were light lifts in the second and third rounds. Thermals were strong in the fourth and fifth rounds.

For the fifth round, organizer declared 6 minutes max (4 minutes max + 2 minutes additional time) for the fliers with full max. For the rest of the fliers, max time was 4 minutes. 27 F1B fliers completed the fifth round with full max. Andriukov, Stefanchuk, Gorban, Roshonoks, Cihak, Seifert, Kusterle, and some other good fliers were not in the flyoff list.

Andriukov was using a totally new wing. He said the airfoil is much thinner than he used before. Mainly it was a six panel wing where the dihedral of the tip part was elliptic and the shape of the tip was backward elliptic. It was like the tip of Boeing 787 Dreamliner. All the wing was classical carbon D-box construction. Instead of his classical 2.9 dm2 stabilizer, he was using a 2.6 dm2 stabilizer. The wing geometry was very beautiful.

In the fourth round, Alex started in a turbulent but strong thermal. He did a very well start and for the first 20 seconds his model climbed perfectly. But suddenly, model made a loop and lost the balance. The model did not recover the balance. My opinion is that, there was a wind shear.

In the third round, Stepan’s model climbed very vertical for a long duration (maybe 6-8 seconds) but then the model started to slide back and until recovering the stable climb again the model lost some altitude. Maybe, the propeller fold at 40 meters’ height.

First flyoff time was set to 5 pm. Max time was 8 minutes. There was a light wind coming from the north. In some parts of the field, there was light lift. Some models got the benefit of the light lift. Most of the models did a performance flight. 13 fliers completed the 8 minutes max. Oleg Kulakovsky was not in the 13 fliers. Some people said he did an early DT.

Organizer decided to run the second flyoff next day morning at 08:30 am.

As usual, the traditional banquet was at Adler Restaurant in Muhlethurnen at 8:00 pm. Many of the friends were there. In addition to the classical food of the banquet, there was live music. Unfortunately, Bernd Silz was not there. We could not listen the famous “Kalinka” from his voice.

October 29 (Sunday): F1B and F1Q morning flyoff, F1A and F1G day
Sun rise time was 07:00 am. The weather was very cold (about 3 C) but the wind was very light. The weather forecast was showing storm and some rain. Weather was completely cloudy and cold but there was not wind and rain.

F1B and F1Q second flyoff opened at 08:30 am. Max time was 10 minutes. The air was poor. In some parts of the field there was some little lift. Most of the F1B fliers started in the middle of the flyoff round. Mickael Rigault from France did a perfect start. The climb was perfect and his model climbed very high. The glide was perfect. It was a totally perfect flight. He was the winner with 376 seconds. Young F1A and F1B flier Andrist Christian from Swiss was the second and Richard Nouvian from France was the third. In flyoff, many of the models were flying together in the same air. The time difference between the third result and the tenth result was 30 seconds.

Mickael Rigault and Richard Nouvian used Stefanchuk production four panel carbon wings with Tony Mathews and Brian Eggleston designed airfoil (BE6949FVNC3).
Andrist Christian used Stefanchuk production six panel carbon D-box construction wings with Tony Mathews and Brian Eggleston designed airfoil (BE6156sn).

Top three fliers used Stefanchuk production wings with Tony Mathews and Brian Eggleston designed airfoils. Tony, Brian and Stapan can proud of this success.

F1Q flyoff started at 08:30 am too. There were two fliers. Both of them made 10 minutes max. They started almost in the same weather conditions like F1B. Their models climbed higher than F1B models. Maybe, the good air at the higher altitudes is the reason of difference between the F1B and F1Q results.

A few more words for the rest of the day:
For the rest of the day, the weather was totally cloudy and cold. In some moments the wind was high and in some moments it was low. Between 12:00 pm and 3:30 pm. it was almost calm air.
For the fifth round of F1A, organizer declared 7 minutes (4 minutes max + 3 minutes additional time) max for the fliers with full max. For the rest of the fliers, max time was 4 minutes. In the fifth round, the weather was cold and calm and it was very difficult to complete 7 minutes max. Most of the models did a performance flight without any lift. In this very difficult weather conditions, Volker Bajorat from Germany, Michael Bleuer from Swiss and Mikhail Kosonozhkin from Russia made 7 minutes max.

Elouan Rigault, 6 years old son of the F1B winner Mickael Rigault was flying F1G. He was very cute boy. Among the strong F1G competitors, he was fourth. This was the beauty of free flight.

My opinion for the 2 and 3 minutes additional time decision:
At the beginning, I thought that the max time in the round should be the same for all fliers and different max time for some of the fliers was not a correct decision. Later, I changed my mind. Organizer simply said, the fliers with full max result should do additional time to go to flyoff. From this perspective, that decision was fair.

But on the other hand there were five fliers in the poles. The weather conditions were changing very fast and some fliers liked to wait too long to start. I think this created inequalities between the fliers. From this point of view, the additional time was not fair.

Some conclusions:
In Eurofly 2017, weather conditions were generally very good, organization were excellent, the nature was so beautiful and relaxing.

In my opinion, at least from the F1B perspective, Eurofly was like a mini European Championships.

In free flight, the performance of the models and the fliers are always increasing. This makes the free flight more challenging and beautiful. Winning is not easy. But increase in the performance makes the management of a contests more difficult.

In F1B, four of the top ten fliers were young. This was good for the future of F1B.

Just a small comment; in the future, organizer may allow for one more training day (Thursday and Friday).

I have a few comments to the free flight fliers who registered to the contests from the internet. It would be very helpful for the organization if they inform the organizers that they could not attend the contest beforehand.

Thanks to everyone and special thanks to Walter Eggimann then to contest director Micheal Jackel.

Sorry if there were any mistakes in my observations.

I will miss Eurofly and wait for 2019 in patience.

Ismet Yurtseven

21st Southwest FAI Challenge results

From: Mike Richardson

Hello Roger,

Here is a brief description of the 21st Southwest FAI Challenge held this past weekend on El Dorado Dry Lakebed.

A few of us arrived on Thursday for an absolutely perfect day. The temperature was in the low 80’s, winds light and variable. Friday afternoon it started to blow 8 to 10mph. The most interesting thing that happened Friday night when 4 cars and a U-Haul box truck pulled onto the lakebed around 8 o’clock and parked about 3/8 of mile from us. An hour later it started, Rav Techno music. All night long you could hear and feel the bass and kickers thumping away. Needless to say that sleeping did go well for us campers. They finally stopped at 7:30 in the morning and left.

This year we had 25 contestants, three more than last year!!! Saturday started off with light and variable winds but as the 3rd round came around so did the wind, gusting to 20mph. The F1B flyers opted to not to fly rounds 3 & 4, not so much due to the wind but the possible damage of tumbling on the ground. So we all agreed not to fly and wait it out. It had briefly crossed my mind to sneak in a flight at the last minute to gain an advantage but I overheard the other flyers talking about a shovel and they would never find the body. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. A one hour lunch delay was started in hopes of the wind calming down. Linda Piazzi cooked up a batch of hot dogs with all the side dishes, including Halloween decorations. You’re the best Linda, everyone thanks you!

We ended up moving the line after lunch and dropping the max to 150 seconds.The wind did drop a bit just in time for a 6 minute F1B fly off. All 4 flyers made the max, so first thing in the morning it was going to be a time to the ground fly off between Booth, Jones, Jensen and myself.

F1A
Brian Van Nest was the only one clean for 7 rounds. Jim Parker was right on his tail up to the 6th round then Murphy’s Law stepped in.

FAI Power Combined
Ed Carroll came out to fly C, thank you Ed. Randy Secor put up his P ship for 6 straight maxes. Ed stopped after 5 maxes due to concern about damage his folder due to tumbling on the lakebed hard surface. Great flying Guys!

F1Q
We had 5 entries in Q this year with Drake Hooke and Dick Ivers coming all the way out west to fly. Only one person was clean after 7 rounds and that was our CD, Tom Ioerger.

Sunday was a gorgeous day, winds light and variable and massive thermals from time to time.
Tiffaney O’Dell won F1G after 2 fly off rounds.

The F1H boys all finished clean after 2 fly off rounds and was it decided by the time to the ground morning flight.

F1A: (7 entries) 1st Brian Van Nest, 2nd Mike McKeever, 3rd Jim Parker, 4th Randy Secor
F1B: (6 entries) 1st Charlie Jones, 2nd Bill Booth and 3rd Blake Jensen, 4th Mike Richardson
F1Q: (5 entries) 1st Tom Ioerger, 2nd Jack Murphy, 3rd Dick Ivers
Power: (2 entries) 1st Randy Secor, 2nd Ed CarolF1G: (7 entries) 1st Tiffaney O’Dell, 2nd Peter Brocks, 3rd Alan Petersen
F1H: (4 entries) 1st Blake Jensen, 2nd Mike McKeever, 3rd Brian Van Nest
F1S: (5 entries) 1st Dick Ivers, 2nd Drake Hooke, 3rd Jack Murphy

AMA Events

In E36 it was battle between Clint and Drake with Clint finally coming out on top with 7 maxes.
In Catapult Jack edged Lee out by 1 second.
E36: (4 entries) 1st Clint Brooks, 2nd Drake Hooke, 3rd Jack Murphy
P30: (4 entries) 1st Jon Zeisloft, 2nd Clint Brooks, 3rd Mike Pykelny
Catapult Glider (2 entries) 1st Jack Murphy, 2nd Lee Hines

Thermals to all,
Mike Richardson

Fab Feb Entries

In the previous SEN, the one with the wrong SEN number of 2222 which should be 2360  we published the line to the Fab Feb online entries.  One pointer to International entries – if you have flown in the Feb Feb events before be sure to check the expiry date of the AMA membership card that the AMA mailed you before you make your entry.  It may well be valid for Feb 2018.  Be sure to enter the AMA number on the form and bring the card with you.

And the link to the entry form again  is : https://goo.gl/forms/e5CgRY0C3zcN91sL2