F3J World Championship - 2011/05
by Mike Verzuh
How much total energy is involved when 15 high-performance sailplanes, built from state-of-the-art carbon fiber and fiberglass technology, are simultaneously rocketed higher than 600 feet in less than 6 total seconds, using 30 strong towmen and 150 meters of more-than-200-pound-test monofilament line? Nothing compares to the excitement of a mass F3J (FAI RC Thermal Duration Soaring) competition launch, and the 2010 F3J World Championship, held last summer in France, was the place to be. If you couldn't make it, I'll share a bit of the excitement with you.
The 2010 US F3J Soaring team is the most successful to date, capturing four out of five top honors at the World Championship. Daryl Perkins won the Senior Gold Medal, Brendon Beardsley won the Junior Gold Medal, the Junior team won the Gold Medal, and Cody Remington won the Jura Cup. New Zealand captured the Senior Team Gold Medal, led by Joe Wurts—a former American who now resides in that country.
The F3J World Championship was held in Dole-Tavaux, France, July 28–August 8, 2010, and finished with a large banquet, complete with a French flourish. More than 120 contestants from 29 countries participated—43 Junior and 80 Senior pilots in all.
The US Senior team consisted of:
- Richard Burnoski
- Daryl Perkins
- Cody Remington
Junior competitors were:
- Brendon Beardsley
- Michael Knight
- Connor Laurel
Supporting personnel included:
- Towmen: Chris Keller, Frank Burnoski, Dave Kalamen, Phil Barnes, Richard Helgeson
- Team manager: Mike Verzuh
- Junior team manager: Dave Beardsley
- Team photographers: Barry Kennedy and Jim Laurel
- Plus additional helpers and supporters who contributed to the US team’s success.
From the perspective of organization, an F3J event this size is in stark contrast to a typical US Thermal Duration event. Each team manager is provided with a “matrix,” in which all pilots and their flight groups are identified with flightline lane assignments. No one announces a contestant’s name for a flight—ever. The team managers communicate and coordinate all the pilots and tow crews and the flight order. If you don’t make it to the flightline for your slot or your tow crew is not ready, you earn a big, fat zero on the scorecard.
Team organization and readiness at the F3J World Championship are critical. At this contest, as in the past, the US team excelled. Out of 12 preliminary and 6 flyoff rounds for each pilot, we had zero problems with equipment, line, personnel, or pilot readiness.
The first flight started at 8:00 a.m. each day (not 8:01). Round and group number announcements were made 10 minutes before the start of competition, and then the daily rhythm began. To start a flight group, only three announcements were made: pilots to pick up their transmitters, towmen were allowed on the flightline, and fliers to enter the flight lane as the field clock started the working time.
The flier, caller, and team manager marched like soldiers, with the caller and team manager carrying the backup sailplane and transmitter down the launch corridor to the appointed lane assignment. The team had 3 minutes to start its stopwatches, complete up to a 200-meter walk if it drew “lucky” Lane 15, get the aircraft powered on and ready, signal the towmen, hook up, and get ready for the final countdown to the pilot’s personal “rocket launch.”
The lovely female countdown voice announced over the loudspeakers: “Start of working time in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,” and then what must have been the foghorn captured from the Queen Mary blasted loud enough to be heard at least a mile away—certainly by the thrower straining to hold back a model. And then bam! All that energy exploded on the field as 15 airplanes accelerated to close to 100 mph, rocketing almost straight up—and the round began.
Launch time for a full tow was 0.7–3.0 seconds. After a 200- to 300-foot zoom off the line, without hitting your neighbor’s gliders (which were 15 meters on either side of yours), your aircraft just had to stay aloft for the remaining 9 minutes and 56.75 seconds. Pilots had to be careful not to midair their models into one of the other 14 vying for the same thermal as they completed the task time. After finishing the task time, contestants landed their aircraft precisely on a spot, saving that last quarter second of window time to ensure that their gliders’ noses touched down before the Queen Mary went off again.
This is nothing short of a pure adrenaline rush—similar to that moment just before the crazy driver coming at you in a large 4x4 regains control and just misses crushing you and your little Honda on the way to work.
The start of an F3J World Championship round bears precious little resemblance to a typical Thermal Duration launch. But even with the close launching proximity, there were no launch midairs, although there were a few stabilizer failures.
Those competitors were Soaring’s best, as expected. After short launch tows, strategy and flying skills emerged. Before the contest started, French authorities applied serious field-flight boundaries, cutting off the entire west half of the site. You would expect some competitors to venture to both sides of the field, but pilots tended to stay in “packs” on the east side.
We studied the air and located a good “read” prior to launch, and then flew in that direction. With the limited field, other competitors often went the same way. You would see groups of approximately five to six sailplanes in thermals, separated by about 1/4 mile along a “thermal street.” We were most often able to “cover” any better air that developed, leaving poor conditions to get to better air. This strategy was dominant.
The US pilots frequently got deep, and there would be several marked thermals on the path home. This limited risk and clearly mapped good air from sink. With 15 pilots in a group, midairs during flight turned out to be a greater risk than during launch. The American pilots practiced a simple rule: no overlaps, no matter how far apart you “think” you are from a competitor. I think of this as the “Blue Sky Rule”: keep sky between you and any other object and, by definition, you will fly without mishap. With so many models in the same thermal, the pilot must plan turns ahead to avoid overlaps.
To sum it up, the team’s strategy was to locate air before launch, decide on the tow time required (preliminaries did not require aggressive less-than-1-second tows, but the flyoffs did), launch well and fly to your air, and then adjust position as dictated by the competition. We tried to be in the best air, but sometimes space between airplanes dictated a position.
Flying conditions during most of the seven competitive days were great. Eighteen rounds were flown between preliminaries and flyoffs, and 14 of them were generally flown with no difficulty finding air or negotiating tough wind conditions. Each pilot was dished out four tough rounds, which determined the World Champion. It took five days to provide those challenging rounds.
We generally had high overcast to start the day, with light winds. Lift started to work at 9:00–9:30 a.m., so a high launch could have been a determining factor if you drew an early flight. As the day went on, the lift developed stronger—particularly well off to the east, near the paved airport landing strip and newly plowed ground. This situation developed a thermal street, with thermals cycling roughly 1/4- to 1/2-mile apart.
In general, sink was not bad (compared to Muncie “everyone is landing out in the corn” sink). The lift worked well into the evening until 6:30–7:00 p.m., which was good. To make up for the one rainout day, we flew some evenings until 7:30 p.m.
There were a couple of higher-wind periods during the Championship. The wind came up to 12–15 mph, which provided a challenge for many fliers. Thermals were still being generated during the windy periods, but they were not always strong and most pilots got way downwind. That was the situation that bit Richard Burnoski. He drew two rounds with weak lift and high wind, and he ended up landing out short on time. With only one throwout, that took Richard out of the flyoffs.
The other US pilots managed to get through these conditions clean or using only one throwout. Daryl and Cody were heavily ballasted during the wind, and that strategy paid off for them. Even with wonderful conditions, making the flyoffs required clean flying with just one throwout. This was not a landing contest. The American competitors landed extremely well, averaging scores of 98–99 with 1–2 seconds off time, but flight success determined the finals flyoff roster.
Cody barely missed the flyoffs (placing 18th with the cutoff at 16th), in large part due to bad luck when his super-light Espada failed during a launch. The breeze came up a bit too much for the model, and it folded in spectacular fashion under the extreme pressure of a two-man F3J launch.
What were the models and team strategies that led this US team to be the most successful ever? One factor was model selection. Our pilots flew the top designs in competition: the Icon 2, Supra Pro, Satori, Espada RL, and Explorer 3.9. The real key was that each competitor worked extraordinarily hard in practice with the model that fit his style. The flier stuck with that choice and knew the capabilities of his sailplane.
Senior pilots flew only one model type for all three that they could enter. This limited the variable of adjusting to a different kind of glider between rounds.
A few crucial strategies provided an advantage for the US. The team established and met the goal of having the best on-field preparation—the second cycle in which that goal has been critical. The Contest Director commented that the US was always in place, prepared for the conditions and ready to go. Preparation was not an accident. Throughout the year leading up to the Championship, the team was focused on teamwork, group dynamics, and readiness.
I challenged the members to high standards for landing. They accepted that challenge and routinely shared their results with the other team members; that stepped everyone up a notch. We were able to connect all the pilots for team work several times during the year. This enabled them to work out individual preferences and caller dynamics. When the US competitors stepped onto the field, they knew who they wanted to call. And the callers knew what each flier wanted in terms of information from start to finish.
We practiced launch drills, and we planned roles if a relaunch was needed and the process to follow. Both team managers broke down the matrix information so that each pilot-and-tow team knew when and where it needed to be at all times.
Jim Laurel and Sherman Knight operated a model-repair “shop,” which was amazing. They immediately took care of all minor fixes. Little things such as aircraft storage in the organizer-provided “barracks” went smoothly, thanks to an outstanding wing rack that Jim Laurel and Dave Kalamen designed and built. Processes were established and rigorously followed. Everyone on the team and those who supported us were ready to help at any time.
A critical success element was the tow team. Phil Barnes led by example. He built and provided individual tow kits, line sheathing with a coordinated line-size marking system, and managed all of our line. Phil gathered the whole tow team daily. They inventoried the line and had everything soaking and ready. All of the towmen—Chris, Frankie, Dave, and Rick—supported Phil and each other in an outstanding fashion. They meticulously sorted and removed questionable lines.
The US team required 96 launches and recorded zero missed assignments, broken lines, or launch faults. Any one of those incidents would have required a pilot to burn a precious throwout, which likely would have led to missing the finals.
The 2010 US F3J team has been the most successful to date. This was achieved by everyone on the team pulling together and, most important, through the outstanding funding provided by the AMA, Premium Team Sponsors, Individual Team Sponsors, Corporate Team Sponsors, and Soaring pilots across the country and around the world who unselfishly supported the team with financial donations. None of that success could have happened without such a high level of backing. The entire US team thanks all of its supporters.
Mike Verzuh [email protected]
F3J World Championship Results
Senior
- Daryl Perkins (USA) 4994.6
- Benedikt Feigl (Germany) 4990.8
- Carl Strautins (Austria) 4989.9
- Joe Wurts (New Zealand) 4989.3
- Arend Borst (Canada) 4987.1
- Philip Kolb (Germany) 4980.7
- Tobias Lammlein (Germany) 4976.2
- Primoz Rizner (Slovenia) 4966.8
- Ricardas Siumbrys (Lithuania) 4907.5
- Kristof Pavel (Czech Republic) 4879.5
- Les Stockley (New Zealand) 4725.1
- Scott Chisholm (New Zealand) 4708.8
- Jo Grini (Norway) 4694.6
- Jan Hlastec (Slovenia) 4510.7
- Marlon Luz (Brazil) 4005.4
Junior
- Brendon Beardsley (USA) 4996.0
- Arijan Hucaljuk (Croatia) 4995.4
- Jan Littva (Slovakia) 4989.7
- Connor Laurel (USA) 4987.8
- Giovanni Gallizia (Italy) 4981.5
- Manuel Reinecke (Germany) 4972.9
- Carlo Gallizia (Italy) 4970.1
- Tomás Kadlec (Czech Republic) 4965.1
- Arnou Verheijen (Belgium) 4959.7
- Jason Weber (South Africa) 4957.3
- Robin Galeazzi (France) 4953.7
- Mas Finck (Germany) 4945.9
- Michael Knight (USA) 4873.6
- Meolic Metod (Slovenia) 4757.8
- Miro Suver (Croatia) 4439.7
Sources
- 2010 F3J World Championships — www.f3jfrance2010.fr
- 2010 USA F3J Team — usf3jteam.com
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
