Diary March month 2007

DAY .. 28.March 2007 - Supra
Still searching a bit on fast downwind starts and I took out my Supra but this time with the old light glass tips. I want just 2 second launches downwind and optimized as much as possible for both speed AND pretty high tension. Had 7-8 starts and my son got a flight with the Easyglider (flew the whole flight alone though I launched it (on the winch). Arild and Morten was also on the ice. Delicous weather... Warm and only a small breeze. Ice is still in very good shape. It will be a great easter for the guys (I am going to Istanbul on Friday)

Vote for Inge (Norwegian "stem" and plug in you email adresse) . Message from Inge:

Jeg er gått videre til Finalen som "Nike Testpilot 07", og det er kun 6 personer igjen :-O Vi konkurrerer nå om en tur for to til Nike Headquarters i Oregon USA, men det er fortsatt et moment av brukerstemmer inne i bildet for å komme videre i konkurransen, så da håper jeg dere bidrar med deres stemmer, gjerne èn gang i døgnet...

De som stemmer kan også vinne Nike solbriller, til den nette sum av kr. 1.500,-

PS! Jeg har sett at ved enkelte skjermoppløsninger, så kommer ikke feltet der du kan legge inn din E-postadresse riktig frem, men ved å endre størrelsen på hele Explorer-vinduet, så dukker disse feltene opp.

Gå til: http://synsam.p4.no/
Klikk på bildet mitt, et "litt laidback" bilde, der jeg har på meg mine "Shell-Bans"

DAY .. 27.March 2007 - Crossover
I had an idea of setting up my Crossover for fast starts (looking at Tony Vale at Cyprus) as it might zoom quite well. Had 7-8 short starts and it looks ok. It might also serve as model for Alex in Istanbul since he has not received his model yet. Dont know if I like that but.. My son also wanted to fly so we had 10 flights with his easyglider on the winch (from www.martinsen-hobby.no )

DAY .. 25.March 2007 - Cirrus'21 competition
Competition day with a small format LSF competition. 3 rounds and 17 pilots. This is mostly a landing competition but we install resistors on the winches so that we only get about 20kg of pull. This ensures only small zoom and no line breaks. Fantastic weather and only a small headwind so I took out my Supra but also had a test flight on my Crossover before the competition if it were to be more windy. I won the competition with full times (only 1 sec off) and 3 good landings (0,25m, 1,25m and 0,5m). Results might be out later I think (I did not do the results this time). Some Apsire's also came in the air today and they seem to be good machines although it might be worth the wait to check the X-tail version. The rumours on the field were 2,4kg on the V-tail version (this is early production I think?). After the competition I pulled out the bungee and attached it at the end of the field (were we have the depot) and stretched it out downwind 100m along the runway. Sadly one guy with electric sailplane flew above us and glitched in the ground a few meters away. He was standing at the end of the field flying apx 100m away from me and my son flying the Easyglider. Maybe we should have stayed together? Anyhow be careful flying above another ones transmitter when you are not nearby with your own transmitter.

DAY .. 24.March 2007
Went a day earlier for a competition together with my son (9) and met up with Inge and his kids (12 and 9). We had a nice day teaching the kids to fly and got some flights in ourself before we ended the day with barbeque, some beer and a poker game in the cabin. I flew my Supra and and my sons Easyglider (sailplane version).

DAY .. 23.March 2007
Indoor and 4 pilots had some fun untill we either had used all our batteries or crashed our models!

DAY .. 22.March 2007
On the ice for some flying and I had prepared my Adrenaline 2M and a Threedee I got from Thomas Lorentzen. The Threedee was a fun plane. Not a hovering model but easy to fly and nice to throw in the car. My Adrenaline is out again and with 22x10 prop on my Hacker C50 it is over powered ;-) Arild flew his Velox and Rune his Mustang. BTW While I was away they had a big airshow on the ice. They had some great days Thursday, Friday and Sunday but on Saturday the winds was high.

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.
Just after the pictures? Go HERE - some pictures by Jane (finals)

I would like to thank the Czech team a lot for
helping me with towing and spotting when I am
on these travels!!!

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!

A prelim throw

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.

Trophy

Jojo in the sun

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

DAY .. 12.March 2007 - F3J....
Just a few days now and I am off to Cyprus for some F3J-flying with friends. Then at the end of the month I will travel to Istanbul for Eurotour F3J. Cant wait to get some sun on my white legs and meet all the very good friends in the F3J circus! Today I was on the ice checking the conditions for the show my club is holding for the 32nd time. 80-100 pilots is expected and I should have been here... It is getting warmer here but the ice is still ok since we started removing snow so early. The middle of the field is actually much higher since this is like ice in a glass. The ice pops up higher than the water and ice without snow have become thicker than that with snow on.

DAY .. 11.March 2007 - Winter F3J
A good F3J competition to start of the season is nice. Weather was calm though the first rounds had some winds at higher altitude. Pilots were for sure rusty after the winter as I did some poor preparation and broke the line in the first start. Should have changed it offcourse... Inge landed late and so did Alf Erik after being late for the start too. Tor had too few trim flights and 3 out of 7 had planes new for the day! (2 Perfects and 1 Viktor). I guess Erik and Inge is very happy with their result today since Inge programmed yesterday and Erik this morning! But we had a good time and there was thermals around to make sure that we had lots of 10min flights. Last two rounds were very calm yet still the lift could be found as so also the sink. The ground was very hard so bounce of was typical. At one time I thought about changing my landing style but naaah cant do such boring things ;-) I won the 4 rounds competition and we did not bother to have finals. Thanks for a good day out guys. Results HERE
BTW Thanks to the helpers for bringing lines and Inge's daughter was so proud of here father that she made a prize (since there were none in this competition)

DAY .. 10.March 2007 - Diablo
A flight with the Diablo and a few shots with the Joker heli. Some other guys were there having fun also.

DAY .. 9.March 2007 - Indoor
Could probably have flown on the ice today also but did some work with the Adrenaline 2m instead and did a indoor session in the evening. Both my two NoLiemits got a spin.

DAY .. 8.March 2007 - Perfect
Sunny day and a good day for flying anything on the ice. I have been putting together a Pike Perfect for a friend/customer and it was time to get it in the air. Two clicks on the trim and I could put the radio on the ice ;-) Thought his receiver crystal was bad so sudden glitches was fixed with a new crystal for flight 2. Had two flights with it and then later 4 flights with my own Perfect. Arild flew maiden on his P-38 that ended with the motor mount was not strong enough. One motor came off sadly. But his Ultimate flies well as always.

DAY .. 7.March 2007 - Crossover
Wonderful weather with around zero and sunshine stopping by now and then. Still need to work on the dead air launches on the Crossover but atleast found what did not work today. Used the Giant as a reference point.
BTW next weekend I will go to Cyprus.. And then at the end of the month I will go to Turkey. Both F3J event with sun and maybe a drink or two... Possibly a bit warmer than here ;)

DAY .. 4.March 2007 - Joker
Wonderful weather and I got a few flights with my Joker while Arild flew Velox.

DAY .. 3.March 2007 - Extra
The last day of my Extra for a while... Today I had a flight with a small blip on the motor but had forgotten about it after the landing. Next flight after a couple of hard core snap-rolls it just flew straight ahead and the motor stopped. It went down in a good angle in the high snow but ripped of the wheels and bent the output shaft on the motor (luckily a cheap part). The problems was a green Multiplex contact that goes into the switch. This had come out resulting in no power to the whole system... I have a security pin that should have hold the contact in place but I had not used it. So I can only blame myself :-(
We also had vistors from Årdal and Oslo that had virgin flight on a Somenzini Yak. They had problems with LiIon Rx packs but got one flight in with success. Arild flew his Velox again.

DAY .. 2.March 2007 - Extra
Yet another day on the ice and we had a visitor that did not have a good field. So we had a good time in ok weather. Jostein (the visitor) had a small electric Yak and a Extra with 40 gas. Arild flew his Velox and had some problems with throttle in knife-edge. We found the problem fast as we had opened up the cowling a bit and with a piece of tape the airflow to the carburator was again fixed.

DAY .. 1.March 2007 - Extra
Cleared the field for some snow together with Arild and we got a couple of flights in afterwards. I flew my Extra electro and Arild his Velox. Nice temperature but flat light today.