DAY ..
29.April 2007 -
Cup event F3J - Cirrus club
First Cup event F3J for me
this year and qualifying for next years WC F3J
in Turkey. So it was important to have good
scores in both preliminaries and final rounds.
The conditions were awsome with sun and a thin
high cloudbase. The conditions in Nordic
countries are unlike most other places in the
world as we have strong and small thermals with
heavy sink outside the thermals. Then other
times you might have the whole area as an
elevator. It is extremely difficult sometimes
and so was it today. So many got a bad round. Go
200m the wrong way and you found yourself in the
treeline after just a few minutes if you were
unlucky. The ones going the other way might find
the elevator to the clouds. On the other hand
the thermals is fairly easy to spot if you have
practiced it. So one always have to make a plan
and watch the signs before a launch. 17 pilots
in 5 teams launched on winches with 150m to the
turnaround. My first 4 rounds were moving on
fine with 1000p in all but in the last and 5th
round I went right for a weak sign together with
all pilots but one that moved left. After 2
minutes I was below the treeline and needed a
relaunch so I did. Got 818p actually and it was
enough for a 4th place in preliminaries and 5
was to go in the finals. Only 2 final rounds and
in the first one I broke the line (stupid me
launching on a winch and line I did not know).
Was wuickly down and managed 14:05 but the best
one had 14:41. Second final I was the only one
with full time (14:49,1 with crosswind launch
F3B-style) so I was the winner of the
competition. Ok I lost some point in the Cup on
the preliminary score but got good extra points
in the finals. And since the next event in
National Championship it was a good feeling. I
flew my Pike Perfect all rounds and of 17 pilots
7 flew Pike Perfect. In the finals it was Pike
Perfect in 1st, 2nd and 4th (3rd Tragi and 5th
Graphite2). Othe planes was 2 Aspire, Victor,
Soarmaster, Eraser and E2.
Egil Roland have a good
writeup HERE (nor.txt.). The club
Cirrus have
results out.
Left: Tor thinks it is just as much work with
winches as with running.. Right: Thorbjørn
launching Stein Gisle
Here is a shot with the winches on line (See the
yellow flags). See the differences on a good and
"old" launch?
Tor launching todays team mate Øyvind's Graphite
2
Left: Happy winners. Right: Strange not happy
lunch.. I think they were smiling of camera..
DAY ..
28.April 2007 -
Crossfire
V
Arrived early for the next
day event and did some practice flying with my
Crossfire V. Did some good practice. Dont know
how many starts but got some good speed practice
in (though not on a course). Found that when I
launch with my hand in front of the wing you
need a "long" throw for teh model to settle
properly. With the hand under the hook or old
style two hand throw there is no problem.
Logs .gif
and
.csv
A bit too much up elevator in the launch...
DAY ..
26.April 2007 -
Crossfire
V
Nice weather with +20C and
sunny so I went to a local farmers field and
took some downwind launches with the Crossfire
V. I had corrected the V-tail linkage and
stiffened up the hingeline near the link a bit.
This seems to have done the trick on launching.
It now settles better with no snap. It is so
important to get good and not only slop free but
also stiff connections.
DAY ..
25.April 2007 -
Supra
Testing of Joker heli today
after getting new parts. That did not go well...
And Andre wanted a quick flight with his new
Easyglider and his battery was dead... So I
ended up flying the Supra from a slope with lots
of sink but some thermals passing by. Ever
grabbed and tip launched a Supra? That was cool.
Well I left with a smile in the end ;) AND in
the mail I got an older radar gun I had bought
from ebay. Seems to be working and will be cool
to finally get an idea of how fast we are flying
DS.
DAY ..
24.April 2007 -
New
Crossfire
V
Calm conditions in the
morning so I rushed to the field with my
Crossfire V and the winch. Great for testing. I
forgot my logger and considered 10g in the front
but not needed. As usual one can fly a model
duration a bit further behind in calm
conditions. Probably at 102-103mm now and it was
floating well. After 3 flights I threw in 6 bars
of ballast and started speed practice. Rock
solid and no bad tendences even pulling very
hard in the turns. Did a few 2 leg speeds to get
turns in faster mode and seems like I nailed the
settings pretty good. Elevator is now neutral in
all flying settings (speed, neutral and
thermal). It was calm but still I managed to
stall the winch half of the launches. I need to
work more on the throw since I cant get it to
settle properly even without ballast. It settles
ok with a normal "old" throw and normal camber
but I dont want to loose those meters waiting
for it to rotate. Its kind of strange because I
can circle tow it on the line and the rudder
input is nice. Got 8 starts and a good days
practice!
DAY ..
23.April 2007 -
New
Crossfire
V
Cool conditions today and
maidened the Crossfire V-fuse with my "old"
double carbon wings. The football field is a
cool place with limited space and only space for
about 140m to the turnaround. The field is a bit
up in the valley and normally windy or with lots
of broken up thermals. So was it today and this
is great for testing. Why? Well because if you
want to perform in a competition you want the
model to launch, fly and land ok in both heavy
sink, turbulent air and heavy thermals. It will
need to be tested in more even conditions later
but it gives some answers that I like. I had 10
starts I think and got to adjust the hook,
camber, differential, elevator settings and CG
(apx 101mm now)
pretty well. Interresting to see that although the
tail wiggles now and then in medium to low
speeds it seems to be finally a model with big
enough V-tail. So many producers make them too small
or badly designed (geometry and airfoil). One
can circle with full rudder (as much as possible
actually) and it does not let you down before it
really slows down. Had to finetune the throwing
but even here lots of rudder still had it flying
well. Offcourse not as nice as the X-tail but
that was not expected either. I wanted the
V-tail version to maybe fly a tiny bit faster in
the speed (and the wing had proven easy to fly).
Have to test more on tracking and elevator
control (especially speed/distance turns) but it
looks good so far. Sorry for the bad photos.
Only had my mobile camera. Next time maybe test
a bit against some other model ;) But for now I
got the settings fairly done.
Left: Coming in for a landing (handshot with
mobile). Right:
Ready for "maiden".
DAY ..
22.April 2007 -
New
Crossfire
V
Finished the V-tail fuse
today and ended ready meassured up at 719grams.
Very good. With my double carbon extreme wings
the all up weight is 2135g. So with the F3B
wings I should be at apx 2030g (each wing half
550 and 565g + joiner 91g).
DAY ..
21.April 2007 -
New
Crossfire
V
Excellent weather but it has
been windy and not the right direction. Came
home yesterday and a package from Germany on my
door. Excellent untill I looked at the other end
of it. No wonder the driver did not want any
signature... Two Crossfire V-tail. One for me
and one for Knut Vidar. Tips was offcourse
broken of... Idiots. Lets hope the insurance
covers it!
Now looking at the models I like what I see. The
V-tail looks big enough and no chances here. So
I have a good feeling for flying a V-tail model
again. Also excellent that it is two part V-tail
so I can easily pack it and travel anywhere with
a very small box. Quality is as always
good enough on these models. Some very small air
bubbles here and there but only cosmetic at
places you will not look anyhow. Waiting for
answer from DPD talking to DPD in Germany if I
need to repair or wait for new wing. But thanks
to Stefan for shipping. the box is 6 LAYERS
cardboard so no problem there... ;)
DAY ..
13-15.April 2007 -
Krystall Cup F3J 2007
No
english reports from the weekend but you can see my
Nor. txt.
report HERE and
More photos HERE
Detailed results -
Pictures Inge og Jo -
NEW
Faksimille Ringerikes Blad -
Pictures Knut Vidar Moløkken
This was a weekend at the beach ending with a
sunday competition on 1 man tow and 1 man
anchour. Very nice in +25C. Cool to have a
competition on the beach and very difficult
conditions with the wind from the land side (to
the right on the picture) On Friday I did some
pictures in Hamar with my electro heli (Joker2).
DAY ..
12.April 2007 -
Gossip and
MP3
yes I know... Very little
flying lately. It has been very windy here and
only small chances of flying. But this weekend
we have a F3J competition again. looking forward
to that!
A couple of updates on the
Timing site for those that wants to have a
competition or practice.
In both North Cyprus and Istanbul there were
mistakes in timing because of the computer
program. MP3 does not do those random mistakes.
In Germany and Czech they have sometimes used a
CD player (that also by tones run LCD display)
and that also does mistakes. I have for a long
time had MP3 files out and we use them in all
the Nordic countries including Nordic
championship.
But I have made some changes from beeps to a
countdown instead. The reason for these changes
are that the pilot will now be less dependant on
his helper. In finals on often loose your normal
timer. With a countdown there is less overflying
and we get more back to the pilots abilities. At
WC F3J in Turkey 2008 we will see MP3 player I
am promissed by Serdar ;) And the helpers will
have wireless transmission of times to the
computer so there will be less mistakes on
punching on the computer.
Now for another issue. Our own uncle Sydney have
again written some gossip.
Nice reading HERE. Lets your mind spin a bit
;)
DAY ..
8.April 2007 -
Adrenaline2
Some light snow on the ice
but that does not stop us. A couple of newbies
needed some practice and I brought my
Adrenaline2. A couple of flights before I went
home (have two packs for this baby)
DAY ..
7.April 2007 -
Supra
Day out on the ice to fly
the Supra. Took out the bungee (2x15m + 30m
line) and had some flights. Had some fun testing
a very rearward CG (115mm) and the plane flies
well untill you hit some sink. Then you see what
happens when you fly negative EWD. Its sinking
and your stuck there ;) So I fly mine for the
record at 102mm.
DAY ..
30.March - 1.April 2007 -
Istanbul Cup F3J 2007
This years first Eurotour
and I had to go off course. The way we are being
treated when we arrive in Turkey are excellent
and they do all they can so that we feel comfrtable
every time. We get picked up at the airport and
there is no shortage of either food or drinking
all weekend if you prefer sitting in the tent or
hotel instead of flying... This year some went
for North Cyprus and some for this event while
me and others choose both (how could I not). I
arrived Friday afternoon and should have had
with me Alex from Bodø but he missed his flight
at Gardermoen. The hotel we stay in is seated in
Riva and is a football training senter. It is
only a short way from the flying field they have
used it for some years now. Very soon they will
move to the new site were the World Championship
will be held in 2008. This is a good thing since
the old field have some slope in some wind
directions. This year we started out with calm
weather and first two rounds were rather
difficult for many. But this changed when the
announced wind came midday saturday. It turned into a
launch-landing contest for some of the best
pilots and this was rather cool. Maybe not for
the sport? But it was very cool to watch the
development of the competition. After each round
the results were up and we could see better and
better times on the score board. We managed 5
rounds saturday as a small drizzle turned into
some rain in the afternoon. Lunch was served as
a buffet on the field by chefs and if you were
hungry in beetween a burger/sandwich wagon were
on site with free food. Hot coffee, clean
toilets and drinks is always available. I wonder
when this will be available in Norway...
Sunday we started in clouded weather and the
forecast were rain. So the organizers announced
one last 6th round and 3 finals if we managed.
How wrong could the weather man be... We had the
coolest flyoff's ever when it comes to technical
abillities. Very fast starts and 3 finals but
also reflights of round 1 (mistake of timer) and
round 2 (crash beetween Mustafa and Primoz).
This made the most spectacular times I have seen
and been into. I dont have the details yet but
the winner Jan Kohout had all best flights
beetween 14:56 and 14:57 while I had 14:55 and
14:56 and ended "only" in 4th place.
Scores of
preliminaries HERE and
finals HERE
Details:
R1,
R2,
R3,
R4,
R5,
R6 Details finals:
R1,
R2,
R3 -
Juniors
A bunch of pictures HERE (some in the finals
by Jane).
NEW logs
of round 1 to
5 premiliniaries +
zoom of
start and
round 1 + reflight of the finals +
zoom of start
As for planes it was: 1. Jan Kohout CZE (Pike
Perfect with last prelim round with Espada RL
for testing with cool 9:57,2 flight). 2. Philip Kolb GER (Pike Perfect)
3. Sebastian Feigl GER (Experience Pro V). 4.
Jojo (Pike Perfect with last prelim round with
Supra for testing). 5 of 8 planes in finals were
Pike Perfect.
On Monday I stayed together with Primoz Rizner
in Istanbul surfing round the town center. We
had lunch with a nice turkish girl and after
that went to meet up with Philip Kolb in "Mustang
Hobi". This is no ordenary shop as they dont
look for the masses but for good customers in
Turkey that wants not only the best but also
help with the best. They also sells electronics
of various types and photo stuff. Nice shop. Me,
Primoz, Philip and Murat Esibatir (shopman and
finalist in the competition) went to eat on a
rather nice restaurant in one of the newer areas
of Istanbul (just 10min walk) were we had
traditional Turkish dishes. Thanks Murat!
