US Team news from Croatia
Monday, July 20, 2009

 

This should be a quick update.  It is now Monday evening here and F1A will start Tuesday, only 12 hours away.

 

The contest on Saturday in the nasty weather was finished after 6 rounds.  All the details are probably on the website, but Russell Peers from Great Britain won F1B with the only clean score.  I don't remember the F1C results, but very few of the original entries chose to fly, maybe 40 out of 100 entered in F1B actually flew and maybe 20 or less flew in F1C.  BTW, there was 119 guys who flew F1A Friday.  After my bull encounter in Argentina Blake asked my how I do in dealing with bears.  Apparently some local guy said that if any of the models end up in the forrests along the hills he can help us retrieve them because he hunts bears there all the time!  Then at our team meeting today we were warned of snakes in the hills as well.  Fun stuff!

 

But if the rest of the week is anything like Sunday and today we have nothing to worry about regarding chasing.  Conditions have been gorgeous.  Totally calm mornings, sometimes lasting into the afternoon, and Sunday was much cooler as well following the cold air on Saturday.  The weather reports show this to continue the rest of the week but with temperatures increasing.  Our main concern is that the conditions the first couple rounds can be extremely difficult with calm down air and few thermals.  There were periods this morning at 9am when the first round begins when models would not stay up.  Steve had a great launch on his long F1A in what seemed like decent air and was on the ground in 90 seconds!  This is like the "tweener" rounds at Lost Hills which sometimes happen around 10am on hot dead days when a glider flyer cannot keep his model in the air only I think it lasts longer here.  We spent the morning studying the different areas of the field to figure out where the air tends to be better developing strategies for the week.

 

Sunday evening was the opening ceremonies which were conducted on a local soccer field.  The event was short and to the point without a lot of fluff, which I think most people were glad for.  The scene was very nice and comfortable with the sun going down over the mountains and a view out over the local town and valley.  No fancy banquet but many were happy with the free beer and stuck around.  It was reported that this is the largest world championships ever held.  They mentioned a number of 565 people, which must include all the supporters as well as flyers but I'm not sure.  There are about teams from Mongolia, China, South Korea, Japan, etc.., as well as the expected strong response from many small european countries.

 

Processing was done today in a local school gym and seemed to be well organized and running ahead of schedule.  There have been hiccups and the organizers mentioned losing a couple of sponsers just days before the events, but overall they seem to be doing well.

Brian asked me if I'll be disappointed if I don't win, but I told him all I care about is making every flight as good as I can possibly make it and then I'll be satisfied.  But my stuff is ready and I'm going to give it everything I have....

 

One last note on journalism - anyone or any publication is welcome to use any or all of my notes if desired as part or any reports or articles.  I don't think Roger will mind.

 

Later, Ken

Roger,

I want to send my best wishes to the Louisiana contingent at the World Champs in Croatia. Don and Richard are excellent modelers and both capable of winning F1C. Good luck to the rest of the United States Team as well.

Ross