SEN 2164
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The Junior FAI World Champs in Prilep, Macedonia -- Report No. 2 by Bob Stalick
Tuesday, August 2 is set aside for test flying and model processing. The processing center was located in downtown Prilep and organized so that each country has a specific time slot. We were on deck from 1:30 to 2 PM, following The UK. Our team members presented their models to be weighed and measured to see that they meet the required criteria for each class. The process seemed to go smoothly, and even though it took longer than the stated time, all the models were qualified by the officials.
The evening festivities kicked off at 7 pm with the assembly of all of the contestants by country in alphabetical order. Each country had a designated local young woman holding a sign with the country’s name on it and dressed in traditional Macedonian garb. Ours was named Evgenja (I had her spell it for me). After the whole group was assembled, we marched in a procession from the assembly area and crossing the main street in town. We continued to the town square where we reassembled in front of an historic wall upon which was fastened a welcome banner. A few speeches were given by local dignitaries (in Macedonian, but translated into English), and the event was over. Total time was about 45 minutes. Then, it was time for pictures--many were taken. The US contingent located an ice cream stand and finished the evening with some local delicacies. Tomorrow is the first day of competition, so it’s early to bed.
Wednesday is F1A Glider day, and our team of Cade Fedor, Alex Stalick and Joel Yori will be ready for the first flights at 8 AM.
Tomorrow, How the US F1A team did.
The Junior FAI World Champs in Prilep, Macedonia -- Report No. 3 by Bob Stalick
Flash: US F1A Team takes Fifth Place. Joel Yori takes Third Individual Honors
Wednesday dawned early for the F1A flyers at the Junior World Champs in Macedonia. On the field at 7 am, Cade, Alex and Joel were getting their ships ready for a bit of early last minute test flying. The contest had an 8 am announced start, but when the designated time arrived, the contest management was just getting organized. Start was postponed to 8:30, and our team was ready to go. We were assigned pole position number 9 for our first round flight. This was the 4 minute round, and supposedly a calm wind round, but the winds were not that calm. Unfortunately, the winds were to get less calm as the day wore on, sometimes reaching gusts of over 15 mph. As with the previous 2 days, temperatures were to get into the mid to high 80’s.
The 3 team members determined who would fly first, so Alex was up, with Cade in the on deck circle. Alex’s first flight was a nice max followed closely by Cade, who suffered a line interference and an attempt. A reflight gave him his second max. Joel got off a high speed launch that must have doubled the line length. His was an easy max. A nice start. with perfect scores.
After a 15 minute break, round 2 started,after a pole position switch. Alex went first again, and made an easy max. Cade went next but a decent launch into some tricky air left him with a score of 1:45. Our teams first non max. Talk about tricky air, it was generally thought that the thermals were hard to pick but if you got in one, you would be in for a nice ride. All the while the winds kept on blowing. Air picking continued to be tricky, but Joel got into nice lift for his second max.
Round 3 began with Alex dropping a flight as he went a few seconds early and just missed centering in lift. His flight scored 2:47, 13 seconds short. Cade went next and had another line snag, allowing him to refly. This time he centered his model in a nice boomer and scored the max. Joel had another immense zoom launch and got his third max in a row.
After a 30 minute break to allow for models to be retrieved, the fourth round started. Once again, Alex got his max, but Cade dropped out of his weak thermal for a disappointing 1:34. Joel continued his winning ways and got an easy fourth max.
About this time in the meet, I witnessed some serious flapping from the Czech team. It seemed about a dozen or so Czech supporters were running under a model waving their arms, and flailing shirts attempting to break loose some lift. It seemed to work. I am sure that anyone not used to freeflight would see this Keystone Cops routine and wonder just what is going on with these crazy people!
After another 30 minute break, It was time for the fifth and final round. A quick look at the scoreboard showed that only one team, Germany, had no dropped flights.
Alex started the round again and after waiting for over 30 minutes launched into what seemed good air, but rapidly it became apparent, it was not. At this point, our own troupe of helpers went running downwind waving their arms and flailing their shirts. It worked. Alex squeaked out his fourth max. Because Joel was having a good day flying, Cade allowed him to fly in second position, and he did the most spectacular zoom launch of the contest. There was no question that it would max, so he was our only team member with a perfect score and would move on to the flyoffs. Cade got his final flight in, another Max.
Joel ended with a perfect 960 seconds, Alex had 943, and Cade had 794. Joel qualified for the flyoffs which were set to begin at 6:30 PM. He was joined by 12 other flyers who had maxed out.
Tomorrow is F1B (Rubber) day. The routine is the same (start at 8 am and one hour rounds), but hopefully, we will start on time and the winds will be kinder to all contestants. We believe we have an excellent team of seasoned veterans in Troy Davis, Sevak Malkhasyan and Jace Pivonka. All have competed at the Jr. World Champs before and are expert fliers.
I’ll have a report on their exploits tomorrow.
Congrats to Joel
Looks like a good result for Joel Yori in F1A at JWC. Tough event, but
excellent result. Congratulations.
George Batiuk
General Comment on WC reporting
These days the responsibily of running a big event like a World or Continental Championship includes providing the press and the world with an up to date information flows
It is not difficult to put the results on line. So far the effort by the organizers of the Junior World Champs has been disappointing. Most information coming from FaceBook posts and blogs like the ones we have mentioned.
Even hard core information junkies (that's a compliment) like Bogdan Lemut of Solvenia who has lots of local connections had difficulty in getting the information.
While we face many challenges today in advancing competition Free Flight the means of making the infomation available is not one of them. The organizers need to do a better job.
From experience in flying and helping in events it is very hard to send off a report in the evening when everyone is tired. So special thanks to Bob Stalick and the British and German bloggers as well as the Facebookisters who have kept us posted,
Roger Morrell
- JWC - 2
- JWC - F1A
- Congrats
- Reporting?
The Junior FAI World Champs in Prilep, Macedonia -- Report No. 2 by Bob Stalick
Tuesday, August 2 is set aside for test flying and model processing. The processing center was located in downtown Prilep and organized so that each country has a specific time slot. We were on deck from 1:30 to 2 PM, following The UK. Our team members presented their models to be weighed and measured to see that they meet the required criteria for each class. The process seemed to go smoothly, and even though it took longer than the stated time, all the models were qualified by the officials.
The evening festivities kicked off at 7 pm with the assembly of all of the contestants by country in alphabetical order. Each country had a designated local young woman holding a sign with the country’s name on it and dressed in traditional Macedonian garb. Ours was named Evgenja (I had her spell it for me). After the whole group was assembled, we marched in a procession from the assembly area and crossing the main street in town. We continued to the town square where we reassembled in front of an historic wall upon which was fastened a welcome banner. A few speeches were given by local dignitaries (in Macedonian, but translated into English), and the event was over. Total time was about 45 minutes. Then, it was time for pictures--many were taken. The US contingent located an ice cream stand and finished the evening with some local delicacies. Tomorrow is the first day of competition, so it’s early to bed.
Wednesday is F1A Glider day, and our team of Cade Fedor, Alex Stalick and Joel Yori will be ready for the first flights at 8 AM.
Tomorrow, How the US F1A team did.
The Junior FAI World Champs in Prilep, Macedonia -- Report No. 3 by Bob Stalick
Flash: US F1A Team takes Fifth Place. Joel Yori takes Third Individual Honors
Wednesday dawned early for the F1A flyers at the Junior World Champs in Macedonia. On the field at 7 am, Cade, Alex and Joel were getting their ships ready for a bit of early last minute test flying. The contest had an 8 am announced start, but when the designated time arrived, the contest management was just getting organized. Start was postponed to 8:30, and our team was ready to go. We were assigned pole position number 9 for our first round flight. This was the 4 minute round, and supposedly a calm wind round, but the winds were not that calm. Unfortunately, the winds were to get less calm as the day wore on, sometimes reaching gusts of over 15 mph. As with the previous 2 days, temperatures were to get into the mid to high 80’s.
The 3 team members determined who would fly first, so Alex was up, with Cade in the on deck circle. Alex’s first flight was a nice max followed closely by Cade, who suffered a line interference and an attempt. A reflight gave him his second max. Joel got off a high speed launch that must have doubled the line length. His was an easy max. A nice start. with perfect scores.
After a 15 minute break, round 2 started,after a pole position switch. Alex went first again, and made an easy max. Cade went next but a decent launch into some tricky air left him with a score of 1:45. Our teams first non max. Talk about tricky air, it was generally thought that the thermals were hard to pick but if you got in one, you would be in for a nice ride. All the while the winds kept on blowing. Air picking continued to be tricky, but Joel got into nice lift for his second max.
Round 3 began with Alex dropping a flight as he went a few seconds early and just missed centering in lift. His flight scored 2:47, 13 seconds short. Cade went next and had another line snag, allowing him to refly. This time he centered his model in a nice boomer and scored the max. Joel had another immense zoom launch and got his third max in a row.
After a 30 minute break to allow for models to be retrieved, the fourth round started. Once again, Alex got his max, but Cade dropped out of his weak thermal for a disappointing 1:34. Joel continued his winning ways and got an easy fourth max.
About this time in the meet, I witnessed some serious flapping from the Czech team. It seemed about a dozen or so Czech supporters were running under a model waving their arms, and flailing shirts attempting to break loose some lift. It seemed to work. I am sure that anyone not used to freeflight would see this Keystone Cops routine and wonder just what is going on with these crazy people!
After another 30 minute break, It was time for the fifth and final round. A quick look at the scoreboard showed that only one team, Germany, had no dropped flights.
Alex started the round again and after waiting for over 30 minutes launched into what seemed good air, but rapidly it became apparent, it was not. At this point, our own troupe of helpers went running downwind waving their arms and flailing their shirts. It worked. Alex squeaked out his fourth max. Because Joel was having a good day flying, Cade allowed him to fly in second position, and he did the most spectacular zoom launch of the contest. There was no question that it would max, so he was our only team member with a perfect score and would move on to the flyoffs. Cade got his final flight in, another Max.
Joel ended with a perfect 960 seconds, Alex had 943, and Cade had 794. Joel qualified for the flyoffs which were set to begin at 6:30 PM. He was joined by 12 other flyers who had maxed out.
Tomorrow is F1B (Rubber) day. The routine is the same (start at 8 am and one hour rounds), but hopefully, we will start on time and the winds will be kinder to all contestants. We believe we have an excellent team of seasoned veterans in Troy Davis, Sevak Malkhasyan and Jace Pivonka. All have competed at the Jr. World Champs before and are expert fliers.
I’ll have a report on their exploits tomorrow.
Congrats to Joel
Looks like a good result for Joel Yori in F1A at JWC. Tough event, but
excellent result. Congratulations.
George Batiuk
General Comment on WC reporting
These days the responsibily of running a big event like a World or Continental Championship includes providing the press and the world with an up to date information flows
It is not difficult to put the results on line. So far the effort by the organizers of the Junior World Champs has been disappointing. Most information coming from FaceBook posts and blogs like the ones we have mentioned.
Even hard core information junkies (that's a compliment) like Bogdan Lemut of Solvenia who has lots of local connections had difficulty in getting the information.
While we face many challenges today in advancing competition Free Flight the means of making the infomation available is not one of them. The organizers need to do a better job.
From experience in flying and helping in events it is very hard to send off a report in the evening when everyone is tired. So special thanks to Bob Stalick and the British and German bloggers as well as the Facebookisters who have kept us posted,
Roger Morrell