F1D World Champs: an inside look
John Kagan [[email protected]]
THE 2010 F1D World Championships in Belgrade, Serbia—oh, how bittersweet! On the positive side, the US team (Brett Sanborn, Steve Brown, and I) came away with the individual Silver Medal and team Gold. Our Juniors (Parker Tyson and Curtis Wernette) finished with the individual Bronze. The entire US entourage represented our country well and had a great time.
The session started, as it did at the last World Champs in Serbia, with the Dorćol (DOR-chol) Cup: a precontest named to honor a historic district of Belgrade. For those who can swing the extra days off, this is a great opportunity to get competition-ready in the unique Belgrade flying conditions. Almost everyone from the US contingent attended, with only our team manager taking a pass.
I had planned to wring out the number-two model during the Dorćol Cup and save the best model for the World Champs. I was pleased with the result; my top flight of 34:32 was the longest of the contest. My backup flight was only 33:00, though, so I had to settle for third place. France's Didier Barberis snagged second place by only 13 seconds, and reigning World Champ Ivan Treger of Slovakia won handily.
Brett Sanborn sat in fourth going into the last round, threatening to bump me off of the bubble. He needed a big flight, but the time required was well within his ability. I accidentally lead-visioned Brett's airplane, and he came up just short with a 33:58. (Lead [Pb] vision is an evil-eye energy beam that remotely increases a model's mass by something like 13%. Nothing good can come of it). Ok, I did it on purpose but apologized later during dinner.
Dennis Tyson, a US Junior team supporter, used the occasion to participate in his first F1D competition. An international event is a great way to start! Dennis was sure to have his hands full assisting the Junior team during the World Champs, but he got some great experience during the precontest, especially tuning his new variable-pitch (VP) propeller, and finished a respectable 14th.
Steve Brown hasn't had a local flying site for quite a while and isn't as "in tune" with his models and propellers as he would like to be. He entered only one official flight in the Dorćol Cup and chose to spend the rest of the time getting ready for the World Champs. Over on the Junior side, Parker Tyson and Curtis Wernette also got a lot of good practice time with their new VP propellers. They finished fifth and sixth respectively, behind the strong Romanian team and one of the French Juniors.
With the Dorćol Cup complete, we had a couple more practice days before getting down to the real business. You'd think there would be some time to check out the sights in downtown Belgrade, but after an early breakfast, six to eight training flights, adjustments and repairs, and a meal or two squeezed in, it's suddenly 10 p.m. and all you're thinking about is getting some sleep.
Before we knew it, it was the big day. Opening ceremonies included a neat performance by a traditional Serbian dance troupe and a series of low-and-close flybys from a variety of spectacular full-scale aircraft. We all wished each other luck and then retreated to our figurative corners to prepare for battle.
My World Champs strategy was ambitious but simple. I wanted to put up two strong yet under-control flights early and then attack the world record that Ivan Treger set last time. I'm no good at last-round comebacks—a position in which I had previously found myself, either from starting too conservatively or by leaving the gate with last-round reckless abandon.
I do best when I start strong, and this time I managed to get a 35:09 and a 35:57 in the first two rounds—the highest times of the first day and the only total exceeding 70 minutes. A few people told me that they thought I had it in the bag, but I knew there was strong talent in the field who wouldn't let it be that easy.
I almost achieved my second goal. My fourth-round flight landed with 36:33, besting the 36:23 world record set in 2008. The only problem was Ivan's third-round flight.
The air from roughly 1 p.m. until 4 p.m. was traumatic. A plethora of portal windows in the dome's roof beamed noon sun into brilliant hotspots on the floor, causing turbulence as at no other site that I've experienced. Models launched through the heat columns would rear up straight or flip over completely and stall back to the ground.
In 2008 the rounds were shifted into the evening to avoid the problematic air. This time promoters couldn't keep the site as late, so a compromise was reached; early rounds ran from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m., and the late rounds were from 3 p.m. until 6 p.m., providing a reasonable amount of time to fly on either side of the most volatile period.
I avoided this air, because I had several training flights ruined by either turbulence-induced launch stalls or excessive partial-motor altitude on settings that were spot on in the calm conditions. What didn't fully occur to me at the time was that both the stalls and the altitude were caused by a little thing the outdoor fliers like to call thermals!
We indoorists sometimes call gently buoyant air "thermals," but this was unprecedented. It was also only part of the story.
Ivan was in a hole after the first day. He had only a 34:08 on the board after losing his second flight to a steering mishap, and he hadn't exceeded 35 in the Dorćol Cup days earlier. He needed a big change.
With that extra motivation, a lot of experience, and a little luck, he put together a "perfect storm" of a round. He called it a "once in 10 years" flight.
First, Ivan used a motor that had previously taken 1,600 turns and, leaning heavily, packed it full of 1,800 volatile winds. He managed to get it on the model without either the motor or the airplane exploding into bits. Launching directly into what glider fliers call the "moon balloon," Ivan's ultrastable model held steady through the low-level trauma. It got extremely high and fortunately lost a bit of altitude before beginning its next slow climb back up to the ceiling.
Ivan identified the best air and pulled his airplane back in whenever the thermal spit it out. And, finally, in the last few feet of the descent—when other models were stalling out and backing up into the ground—his got a few good boosts and maintained its flight attitude all the way until the end.
The Slovakian team's applause and the handshakes and hugs that Ivan got from everyone he showed the watch to indicated that it was a special flight. Sitting nearby, I figured that it was something exceeding the record—a high 36 or maybe even a 37. But when word trickled back of 39:27, I thought "no way." That must be before prop stop was subtracted. But no; Ivan had boosted the Category III world record by more than 3 minutes.
Speaking with Didier Barberis's girlfriend later, I found that he and I had similar reactions to the news: "Forget this; it isn't fun anymore. I'm taking up fly-fishing." Fortunately the self-pity party lasted each of us only approximately an hour, and then we got back to business.
Doing the math, Ivan had a 39:27, sure, but his backup was only 34:08. Theoretically, if he didn't improve his second flight I could beat him with two 36:48s. It was similar to being down by 4 points with 10 seconds left in a basketball game. I'd need to sink a 2 and a 3, and Ivan would have to miss all of his free throws.
His Round Four was 34:03. Free throw miss number one. Mine was 36:33. Then I needed a 37 (only!). His Round Five was 29:41. Miss number two.
Day Three was hotter than 100° and very humid, and my miraculous comeback began to falter. (Hey, I said I wasn't good at this kind of thing.) I got 1,700 turns into a motor I'd been winding to 1,600, so that was good. But it was so hot that my fingertips were sweating. They wouldn't stay dry between the time I wiped them off and when I reached to pick up the airplane.
I connected the propeller end and squeezed the front O-ring hard to keep a grip on it while I hooked up the back. But when I looked to the front again, I was crushing the motorstick. Darn! It was a simple mistake, but with a structure that minimal the model was toast. Then, using my backup aircraft, I folded a wing at the roof at 22 minutes. (I'm not using boron composite wing spars anymore.)
Ivan finally put me out of my misery with a 35:42 in Round Six. I finished with the second, third, and fourth best times of the meet, and I was the only one with two flights of more than 36, but it was good enough only for second place. I was more disappointed with slipping to the Silver Medal at this World Championships than I was by climbing to the Bronze last time. Germany's Lutz Schramm campaigned his National Free Flight Society Model of the Year to third place. The host country's Slobodan Midic edged out Brett Sanborn, who finished fifth.
Three-time World Champion Steve Brown found himself in the same spot that eight-time World Champ Jim Richmond did last time: needing a highly achievable flight to secure the team win, but running into trouble getting it completed. This time it was Round Four and Steve needed just a low 20. However, every flight had either been way too high—hitting the roof in less than four minutes—or way too low—landing before the propeller even began to change.
I joined Steve in the middle of the floor to help in any way I could, and the last flight must have been too low because this one was on the roof again in record time. Argh! Luck was with Steve, though. After a little rafter banging, his model drifted toward the side, pulled off a good steer, and completed a 30:36 for the team title. Hungary and Romania were second and third, respectively.
Czech Republic's Gabriela Kaplanova was the runaway winner in the Junior category. She racked up the only two flights exceeding 30 minutes in rounds one and two, and then tacked on another 31:05 in round six for good measure. Lucas Marilier, French Senior competitor Thierry Marilier's son, finished a solid second.
Parker Tyson and Curtis Wernette were neck-in-neck for the last Junior podium spot, with Parker edging Curtis out by only 16 seconds. Parker is young enough to attend two more Junior World Champs, so expect to see his name again. Curtis is joining the ranks of Junior grads who have to kick it in the big league now.
Team Manager Rob Romash wants me to convey that he's fairly sure that the Senior team would have been wandering around like lost puppies without his expert guidance and that he takes full credit for the team win. All kidding aside, he provided support and coordination where needed and stayed hands-off where it wasn't—just the way I like it.
Junior Team Manager Ben Saks supplied continuous color commentary for a week and a half, furnishing entertainment both intentional and otherwise. We joked that it would take years for the Juniors to unlearn everything he stuffed into their heads, but his team's result speaks for itself. In addition to the individual podium finish and fourth-place spot, his group would have had a strong shot at the team title if only it had had a third member.
I'm sure that at least a couple of us would have perished from the heat if team supporters Debbie and Craig Wernette hadn't kept us hydrated. They went on frequent store runs and made sure that the refrigerator was well stocked with water.
Check out the "Sources" list at the end of the column for the official contest Web site, complete results from the FAI, and a blog by the Tysons.
FLOAT Documentary Update:
Cinematographer Phil Kibbe and producer Ben Saks reached their fund-raising goal and took the FLOAT production to Serbia. As I wrote in the previous column, they are working on what promises to be one of the best model airplane films ever made, focusing on the magical beauty of indoor free flight.
Phil hired a local Serbian film crew and worked them to the bone during the course of the World Championships, collecting loads of interviews and flying drama. They did a great job of following the action, quickly moving camp, and setting back up to interview the perpetrator of the last big flight or deftly capture rare events such as a practice-day midair between two top competitors.
Check out photos and a new video clip, and consider donating to the project via the following web site addresses.
Sources:
- FAI FF World Championship results: http://bit.ly/cFWTJB
- MODELAR aeromodeling club in Belgrade: www.modelar.org.rs
- The Tysons’ World Championships blog: http://tysonf1d.blogspot.com
- FLOAT documentary: www.floatdocumentary.com
- FLOAT Kickstarter: http://kck.st/d5sS10
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
