1. Junior WC Update
   
2. Mongolian Report

ASIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS F1A, F1B, F1C, MONGOLIA, JULY 15 TO 22

This report originally appeared in the August 2012 Free Flight News and is re-printed here with Ian's permission. FFn had some color photos that are not included here but referenced by the text in italics. We included this report because of the interest several readers have expressed in going to Mongolia.

Report / travelogue by Ian Kaynes

At the World Champs in Argentina the Mongolian team had told me about their interest in running a future World Championships and later in the year they suggested an Asian Continental Championships in 2012. Although a late submission this was accepted by CIAM. This is the second time there has been a continental championship for Asia, the previous was in Kazakhstan in 1998.

Mongolia is not the most accessible country: Flying from Europe there the options of travelling via Beijing or Moscow. The Mongolian airline MIAT has some flights from Berlin, but most of these include a stop at Moscow. All these flights go to the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar which is close to the flying site.

The hotels recommended as convenient for the flying site were 50 or 60km east of Ulaanbaatar, with the airport 20km west of the city. However, the distances can be deceptive. I was met from my flight from Beijing and driven to the hotel, covering the 75km in 4¼ hours! This average speed of less than 12 mph was partly because of a traffic jam (the time of the Naadam national holiday) and there had been a thunderstorm near the city. You cannot cover distances in the time you expect, the fastest by far was the return journey to the airport on a quiet morning took 1¼ hr.. The scene was set by the road from the airport to the city, in the first 100 yards out of the airport there were potholes that needed driving round on the wrong side of the road and also cows wandering over the road. The roads in the countryside are somewhat worse with the original tarmac surface completely disappeared in places and drivers often taking to the neighbouring fields to overtake or avoid slow sections of road. Even when there was tarmac it was reminiscent of the old French chaussée déformée, but much more undulating. No wonder that 4WD vehicles are prevalent. There is also a good mixture of left and right hand drive vehicles – generally they drive on the right but sometimes would use the left if that part of the road looked smoother, whether on open road or approaching a blind corner. The same blind faith applied for overtaking, and major impacts were avoided mainly by the limited speeds possible. There were, however, a lot of cars broken down with damaged suspension or missing wheels, particularly when the road was flooded so that potholes could not be seen. In general it is not possible to hire self-drive cars but instead hiring cars with drivers is the norm.

The recommended hotels were tourist camp hotels, which included some regular rooms but most accommodation in Mongolian gers – the classic tent of their nomads but set on a concrete base. Electricity was from local generators which were sometimes switched off during the middle of the day or failed during storms.

The trip to the flying field “Darkhan Noyonii Khudag” was about 20km, taking about 45 min, half on “roads” and half on dirt tracks. It was an incredible site – miles of nearly flat grass land, no trees in sight, and a smooth surface with short grass. The only exceptions from the nice surface were a very few ridges or ditches that were easily seen. During the whole of my time there I found only two animal holes, much smaller than the rabbit holes in Argentina. The dimensions were about 7km by 5km. There was an airfield on one side but that was only relevant at the windiest times, the opposite side just continued over the start of grass covered hills.

There was a mixed herd of sheep and goats on the field but they never came closer and 500m from the line, often they were only encountered when they were crossing a track we were driving along. Elsewhere the animals on the open fields also included cows, yaks, horses and camels – just to show you were in a different country with lots more animals than people, where meat was served in the quantities you would expect from that.

Sunday July 15th was time for processing at a new building near to the field. It had been built by the Mongolian Air Sports Federation as a base and airfield for developing general aviation sport activities. It was also the site of a young persons introduction to aeromodelling. About 60 children aged about 6 to 9 attended with parents for a session making and the flying a Japanese simple rubber model which they all seemed to enjoy. The building just entailed sticking on the wings and assembling the remainder of the model under the expert tuition of some Japanese and local modellers and Per and Oscar Findahl. When the action moved outside the Findahl’s use of motor winders for their teams was judged to be out of bounds and the 4 strands of 3mm rubber had to be wound by turning the prop by hand!

The link with Japan had been established when Chimed Ganzorig, organiser of these Champs, had been studying in Japan. He had been taught about free flight and then he provided a contact point for Japanese help to Mongolia. Previous Mongolian external help had come from USSR during communist days, with aeromodellers posted to help in the same way that Verbitski went to Cuba.

After this it was a drive to the Chinggis Khaan Statue outside which the opening ceremony was held. It went quite quickly when none of the short speeches in English or Mongolian were translated into the other language. Then it concluded with drop of parachutists from a helicopter, one of whom had a partially collapsed canopy and spun to the ground, but we found later that she had just a broken leg and injured wrists.

The Jury office on the field was a ger (a yurt in Russian)

The following day saw the start of competitions with the mini events of the Mongolian Cup. The initial puzzle for competitors was to find their starting position – no list had been produced. The first round was very windy but this dropped later. Per Findahl won F1H with a full score except for 4 sec in round 1 when the model dropped below a ridge and then up again but the timekeepers just stopped the watch immediately it went out of view. Seeing the small models in the strong wind served as a difficult introduction for the less experienced or novice timekeepers. We requested the organisers to mention the various problems during their evening briefing of timekeepers. This appeared to be successful in that few timekeeping problems arose for the rest of the week. 3 North Koreans followed Per (but see later about them) and then Mongolian flyers. The Chinese took the first 2 places in F1G and there was a sole Mongolian F1J flyer.

After the contest was over and we had just finished lunch there was a severe thunderstorm with heavy rain.

The Mongolian Cup World Cup event for F1A was on Tuesday. This time a list of poles was provided but only by nationality, which was alright for most of the visitors but presumably retained the problem for the Mongolians with 4 poles to search. It had rained again during the night but at the 7.00 start it was dry with low cloud. At least Per Findahl’s first launch didn’t disappear upwards so the cloudbase was just adequate. During the morning the wind decreased and it became brighter. After lunch it was sunny with strong lift. There were seven full scores – the entire North Korean team joined by one each from Japan, Sweden and Switzerland. A Mongolian, Tumur Sanjaa, would have been with them had he not dropped his last flight.

The first flyoff round was the 5 minute max at 18.00. The wind had increased to 4 or 5 m/sec and the line was moved to the top of a gentle slope which gave good visibility downwind with the sun from behind. Most people towed for a short while and launched, except Gottfried Bachmann who went straight up and off. Only one of the North Koreans appeared to be in good air, joined by Mitsunobu Wada as the last to launch, except for Per Findahl who towed until almost the end of the period. Per’s launch was, as usual spectacular, but the air that he had launched into was appalling – the model was down in just 2½ minutes.

Only Lim Won Chol and Wada had maxed. The schedule now called for a 7 minute max at 19.00 and the organisers were then saying that for another flyoff after the start time should be brought forward from 20.00. Getting models back from a 7 minute flight in half an hour sounded too tight, so I suggested going for broke and increasing the flight at 19.00 to 9 minutes – on the basis that the weather was exceptionally good and this would take most advantage of it. The timekeepers for this 9 minute flight were carefully selected from the pool and at the start time the wind remained at 4-5 m/sec. Both flyers started towing and launched within a minute. Soon both were high in strong lift but after a couple of minutes drifted apart and Wada’s was soon much lower and looking unlikely to max. However, it held on and gradually worked back into lift and was high at the end. It had covered 5.5km. This had been extended as a result of my change without achieving a result and so we were back on the field at 6.00 next morning for a nominal 10 min max flight. Chol had a good launch but on his launch attempt Wada’s line did not come off. He caught it, towed for a while longer and then launched. It was soon apparent that there would be a Japanese victory and the margin was 40 seconds.

The day then continued with the regular F1B and F1C competition. Some mist came across during the first round but cleared to leave a day with some sunshine and the wind stayed very light. After the 4 minute first round the next four rounds before the lunch break were treacherous with long dead spells and deceptive slight temperature changes (like a central European afternoon). At lunch there was just a single max in F1B and 2 in F1C, from which Artur Kaitshuk would drop his last round flight and no flyoffs were needed. Sukhbat Batsuuri of Mongolia had won F1B and Sychov F1C.

Yakolenko’s F1C placed 3rd. 2 stage folder – on climb inner panels with winglets, in transition 2nd panels fold out and 15 sec after that the tip panels come out with reduced dihedral gull-wing pattern

Thursday was the F1A part of the Asian Championships. Again there had been heavy rain overnight and the morning was cold and overcast with the wind very light and quite variable in direction. And it soon started to rain, quite like a typical British summer day apart from the lack of wind. Most people had some concerns about not having brought enough layers of clothing or adequate footwear.

There were 3 full teams (Mongolia, South Korea, and North Korea), only 2 flyers from China and a sole representative from Japan. There was also an unofficial event run in parallel, but with the scores kept separate and the starting positions spaced apart – competitors were the Findahls and some Mongolians who were not in their national team.

The surprise of the first round was when Mitsunobu Wada had his model go into the ground soon after launch. His second attempt had the same result so the winner of the World Cup event scored a zero. Considering it after the second attempt he realised that the hook had not been initialised because of it being launched by a helper not familiar with his model. In typical Japanese manner he took it remarkably calmly.

There were just 3 maxes in the first round, but the next rounds to 3 min max were easier. By the lunch break there was just one full score, by Chimed Ganzorig. In most rounds he had towed for a long time and then often had the model fail to come off the line when he did decide to launch. Following this he had caught the line and towed for longer then usually managed to get it launched eventually. This all related to having changed recently to an impulse hook.

Soon after the start of round 6, the sound of a helicopter could be heard from the local airfield – remarkable because it was the first activity all week. Once it became airborne it headed straight towards us. Urgent calls were made on the PA, in Mongolian only, but Oscar Findahl understood to tow in his model. It was a Mongolian Air Force attack helicopter and it made a number of passes over us, finally a very low one pulling up just over the start line. The organisers explained later that helicopter was to have visited the Champs at midday (during lunch break) before flying off on its intended task – but it was over an hour late. The round was extended by 10 min to cover the interruption.

Chimed Ganzorig continued to max, in the last round having his usual drama with a failed release this time in the last few minutes of the round. He found good air and he was thus the Asian Champion – good reward for his efforts in proposing and organising the preparation of the Champs.

The team result had been closely fought between Mongolia and North Korea with the lead swapping places with times only seconds apart. By the end of the day the gap had expanded to 22 sec in favour of North Korea.

Yet again there was heavy rain overnight, but this time it left partly sunny weather with a stiff wind (about 6 m/sec) for the F1B and F1C events. F1B had 3 full teams (Mongolia, North Korea, China) while F1C had a Mongolian team and solo flyers from China and Japan.

The Mongolians had good first round in F1B all maxing, while one North Korean and one Chinese had dropped. It was a sad situation in F1C with a single max (Mongolian) and zeroes from China and another of the Mongolians, over-runs and engine problems to blame.

2 Ri Kwang Il 1268 4 Ri Kyong Ho 1228 

3 Kim Won Chol 1262 8 Kim Hyon Chol 1071 

6 Choe Nam Il 1212 8 Choe Chung Il 1071 

F1A teaM F1B team 

1 3742 3 3370 

F1 Challenge 3 7112 

1 Ganzorig Chimed MGL 210 180 180 180 180 180 180 1290 

2 Yuan Gao CHN 209 153 180 180 168 180 174 1244 

3 Tumur Sanjaa MGL 207 180 125 180 180 180 180 1232 

4 Amartuvshin Avirmed MGL 210 180 180 180 107 174 167 1198 

5 Yang Lusong CHN 205 138 180 180 131 180 180 1194 

6 Mitsunobu Wada JPN 0 180 180 180 155 180 180 1055 

7 Kim Hyung Mo KOR 190 118 180 126 161 75 180 1030 

8 Son Sung Hwan KOR 163 180 180 130 0 166 180 999 

9 Jeong Giyeon KOR 119 137 80 48 61 176 146 767 

Number of maximum in each round 1 5 7 6 2 5 6 

            Number of full scores up to each round 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 

1 Sodnombaljir Shagdar MGL 240 180 180 180 180 180 180 1320 

2 Wei Yuan CHN 240 180 180 135 180 180 180 1275 

3 Dong Kunjiang CHN 175 180 167 180 180 180 180 1242 

4 Wu Yunsheng CHN 137 180 180 180 180 180 180 1217 

5 Batzorig Davaa MGL 240 180 147 180 180 166 123 1216 

6 Batbayar Chimed MGL 240 143 180 50 121 180 180 1094 

Number of maximum in each round 4 5 4 4 5 5 5 

Number of full scores up to each round 4 3 2 1 1 1 1 

1 Erdenbat Batzorigt MGL 137 128 180 180 180 180 180 1165 

2 Yang Wei Wei CHN 0 180 180 180 180 116 160 996 

3 Erdenebayar Ulzii MGL 0 83 174 169 180 162 180 948 

4 Atae Yamazaki JPN 84 180 107 152 180 80 85 868 

5 Enkhbaatar Ochirbat MGL 240 0 103 6 0 180 180 709 

Number of maximum in each round 1 2 2 2 4 2 3 

Number of full scores up to each round 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 

Country AbbrevTotal 1 China CHN 3734 

1 Mongolia MGL 3720 2 Mongolia MGL 3630 

2 Korea KOR 2796 F1C team results 

3 China CHN 2438 1 Mongolia MGL 2822 

4 Japan JPN 1055 2 China CHN 996 

   	                   3 	Japan JPN 	
            868 	

time time time time 

1 Mongolia 10172 3720 3630 2822 

2 China 7168 2438 3734 996 

3 Korea 2796 2796 

4 	Japan     1923 1055 868 

1 S Batsuuri MGL 1320 
2 W Yunsheng CHN 1292 
3 B Davaa MGL 1272 
4 B Sosorburam MGL 1248 

5 	O Findahl (J) SWE 	1247 	

1 	M Wada        JPN 	1290 	+300 +540 +252  	

2 G Bachmann SUI 1290 +168 

3 P Findahl SWE 1290 +149 

4 S Hwan KOR 1241 

5 T Sanjaa MGL 1234 

6 	O Findahl (J) SWE 	1201 	

1 O Findahl SWE 1201 

2 A Ganzorig MGL 1048 

3 	K Hyung Mo KOR 	1030 	

1 O Findahl SWE 1247 

2 	E Belyash RUS 	940 	

1 S Volodymyr SLO 1320 

2 A Kaitshuk RUS 1303 

3 L Yakovenko RUS 1223 

4 A Mikhailenko RUS 1219 

5 	A Yamasaki    JPN 	1192 	

.................
Roger Morrell