SEN 2691
- North American Cup
- Kiwi Cup Comments
North American Cup
Firstly – this year the contest is on Tuesday – NOT on Wednesday and Tuesday is tomorrow
Secondly – if you want enter your team go to the tent by the RV park with the score board
Thirdly – if you have not paid or entered at do go to the tnt but goes to Lindy Murrell who is most likely in the “Stealth” 5th Wheel trailer near the above tent
Kiwi Cup Comments
First the weather conditions were close to perfect, this means that the was no rain and the virtually no wind. It does not means that flying was easy. There was lift and good air but not as easy as a typical February with unexpected downers taking many experienced flyers by surprise. Some newer flyers were a bit disappointed in their results but I do not think that they appreciated how challenging the conditions were.
The event was flown from a flight line with no poles or official timers. The results were displayed electronically on an on field screen. They wee also available online though links published in SEN and post on the Free Flight group
World Cup day started with virtual no wind at all and the second round was also made a 4 minute max. Rounds 3 and 4 were transition rounds with slightly more wind in the last few rounds. The 7th round was also a 240 second MAX. We waited until 4 PM fo the fly off. The wind had risen to 2-3 metres second at times during. The Max was 7 minutes. During the F1C fly off a few models went into the orchards. The last fly off was F1Q and by taking advantage of the ability to reduces the energy allocation to 2 joules from the normal 3 we were able to fly that round. Omri Sirikis’s model showed a better climb and was the only one to make the Max, giving a result for that event. Originally the plan was to fly at least one more Flyoff with F1A but it was decided that it a little too windy and close to darkness to make a flight with a 8 or 9 minute Max.
The flyoff started at 7 AM the next morning from the same northern flight line as the previous day. At ground level the wind was a extremely slight southerly but this changed to about every other direction just a few meters off the ground. There were no problems in seeing he aircraft. In F1A the finishers were very close with winner Jama only beating second place man Yuri by 4 seconds. One F1A sportsman , Ken Bauer was not able to be at Lost Hills that morning so missed the fly off and ended up in 7th place. There F1B results showed that there was a definitely a very helpful layer in the air an Bill Booth found it, making 167 seconds over Stepan Stefanchuk. With 566 seconds Bill had the best flyoff time of any class in the flyoffs . In F1C Sasha Shapiro beat her father Artem Babenko, and everyone else to win, a perfect launch and transition. Hard luck story was local World Champ Taron Malkaysan who broke a wing fold line, fortunately before launching the model and did not get a flight in.
Summary
F1A
Jama Danier
Yuri Grushkovskiy
Per Findahl
F1B
William Booth
Stepan Stefanchuk
Michael Seifert
F1C
Oleksandra Shapiro
Roy Summersby
Edward Carroll
F1Q
Omri Sirkis
Ben Tarcher
Shmulik Sitton
For full results follow the link.
The Mini events started directly after the World Cup Flyoffs, in the first round models were timed to the ground and the additional time is used a tie breaker if a final result is not achieved before contest end at 3 PM. This gave rise to a couple of 10 minute flights, others found the air more difficult. The forecast had wind rising early afternoon but this was not the case. One fly off round was held. As expected some of the F1Js put up a spectacular performance. I’m not sure if it was just good air or a d/t hangup but Shigeru Kanegawa did a 14 plus minute flight for the 4 minute max, retrieving the model. For both F1G and F1S the air must have been more tricky and winners were found with resorting to the tie breaker. In F1H Yuval Bichet from Israel Maxed so he beat he more experienced Per Findahl and Jim Parker by virtue of his 10 minute first flight.
F1H
Yuval Bichet
Per Findahl
Jim Parker
F1G
Tiffaney ODell
MichaelRichardson
Ladislav Horak
F1J
Roy Summersby
Faust Parker
Shigeru Kanegawa
F1S
Jack Murphy
Don DeLoach
Robert Donnelly
For Full results follow the link
Special Awards
As usual the Grand Master awards were presented to the top 3 sportsmen in the World Cup event over 75 – they get a special hat plus a bottle of New Zealand wine.
The Electric Champ award with prize money donated by Lee Hines that goes over both the Kiwi and Ike electric classes was won by Jack Murphy just edging out Robert Donnelly.
The Jean Batten Awards for the Top Lady flyers went to Oleksandra Shapirofor the World Cup classes and Tiffaney Odell for the mini events.
There were 3 Junior flyers in the FAI Events, all young ladies : Noa Goldstein(F1A) , Skylar Donnelly(F1B) and Skilly DeLoach(F1S), all acquitting themselves well in the tricky conditions. The numbers were a bit down this year with less USA participation and no International. The latter particularly affected because the Chinese team could not make it.
The results from the Ike AMA events will appear in a future SEN