DAY .. 16-18.March 2007 - North Cyprus F3J Open
Sorry for the late update but my laptop got broken in X-ray at Istanbul airport.
Some pictures by Jane (finals)

So what is there to say about a competition beetween friends in North Cyprus? A lot I think and I will try to get some of it down. The F3J community is all about good friends. Some of the friends invite each other and are asked to bring some friends. This time we ended up with 58 pilots (12 nations) on a huge airfield in North Cyprus. The reason was also that the new aeromodelling federation in North Cyprus wants to get youngsters involved in modelling and show them what this is really about. They seem to have a large organisation already that will take care of youngsters with problems and youngsters with a wish to fly planes. Many, many years ago a big man in Cyprus said: "Look to the sky and the future" (correct me if I got it wrong). This is remembered by all in North Cyprus so planes have a good anchorpoint here. The airfield we came to was a part of a bigger airport and is probably going to be kind of National center for aeromodelling. Two large tents were set up permanently, power from a large generator, good toilets and accomodation was to be in a youth camp a bit away. The youth camp had probably not been used for a while so some rooms did not have working hot water, etc. So after the first night we were moved to a nice hotel closer to the flying site. They actually wants to show the youngsters some future (normal kids and also kids with problems) and this is government money that is spent to promote the sport at North Cyprus. Amazing!

Friday was a practice day and we enjoyed sunny weather with a small breeze. I just plugged a line into the ground and circle towed for some flights with my Giant and Perfect. Tony Vale got a few flights with my Perfect as well. One carnage as a home built model blew up on launch. In the competition we got one mid-air but other than that we had no accidents during the weekend.
Saturday was first competition day and who else than Sydney Lensson took the word and was CD all weekend while other Brittish guys also helped out on organizing. Together with all the Cyprus guys it formed a pretty well driven competition.
Sydney ran it well and managed to just make the last group in round 4 before the sun came down. I flew in group 7 (8 groups each round) after Jaroslav Vostrel had managed a 9:04 with his brand new Pike Perfect SL (super light). There was no air to speak about so only slight corrections and flying maybe in the right areas was the clue. I got some meters halfway on the others in my group and only one guy could take me. Karel Koudelka with Starlight 3000 XL (on my team as I was together with the Czech) was below me and I could fly "Piggy back" the rest of the flight to beat him by 30sec or something with a 9:08 and 100p landing. Very happy with that as my older Pike Perfect is almost 2,3kg. There were several guys meassuring my CG after the flight ;-))) (CG 112mm and 1,5mm camber).
Breakfast, lunch and dinner was served on the field and it was nice with free drinks all day. On Sunday we finished the two last rounds. I had a small mishap in round 3 but other than that I had good points and was in the finals with two good rounds. I got what I needed and was in the finals with good margin (lost 20p, 12 of them in round 6). To get there you could loose 38,4points.
58 pilots, 12 nations, 10 in the final. I was in 5th place after prelim and 6 after finals. Did one 95 landing (round 2 finals). all the rest were 100. Lost some seconds in the landings because Jaroslav Vostrel (my timer) was also in the finals. I used Jaro Muller and he is a nice man but we were not on 100% track to be timer for heavy landing tasks in the finals. I asked him to use my watch instead of the official LCD display and that was a mistake. But spotting he did good and I thank him for stepping in on short notice after Jaroslav my normal spotter was also in the final.

If I should be picky I would say that I dont like a computer driven timing system. A timing system MUST be driven by a PLS or MP3 player. Although it has been common to use a computer now we must understand that in other sports they do not drive the clock by a computer. But on this competition we also had two large LCD displays and that is so nice to have ;-) This can luckily also be driven by a MP3 player.
Before the finals Jaroslav asked me to be conservative since I always find my own thermals when I feel something before the start. Did I manage? No offcourse not ;-) In round two I spotted a build up of a dark cloud and since it started to be cloudy (only clouds all weekend) I went for it. Took me a long while to get it and while Jaroslav also went for it the other pilots had an easy task while we struggled. After 2 rounds three guys had lost points (Benedikt Feigl on a short start, Jan Hlastec? and Tony Vale). In round 3 I again went for some of the air near the cloud and struggled again. But with reports from Jaro M. that the others came down while I circled my way up I was very happy. But the "pack" again got some "lucky" air and it came down to a landing contest in the last of 3 final rounds. Looking back I should be very happy as I only lost 7 points to the winner and won a dead air round in the preliminaries.
We had an awsome prize giving ceremony and I think all pilots were smiling. Thanks for a wonderful weekend and I did get some sunburn ;-) So any new stuff? Well The first flights of Pike Perfect SL (1950g, 80% spar, lighter details of wing, light fuse and elevator), Starlight 3000XL (Karel Koudelka), Vision Plus (stretched tips), Tony did nice rounds with his light Europhia (1700g), The Ned. guys had light models homemade. I think that covered the most.
Looking for more pictures? Go HERE

Most of the pilots with one model each. Photo Sydney Lensson