Hallo,
Zelf kom ik voorlopig niet aan een uitgebreid verslag van Lauch toe. Daarom het onderstaande verhaal van Chriss Gibbs uit Engeland wat ik hier met zijn toestemming mag publiceren. Bedankt Chriss !
I've just got back from Laucha and what has to be one of the toughest yet most enjoyable flying competitions I've ever attended. To say I learnt a lot about F3K flying at this contest is an understatment.
I've written a full report, please excuse the length and detail, but it may asssist other people who want to attend future German F3K championship comps.
Firstly the location. This years main German F3K championship contest was held on a airfield approx 2 miles from the Village of Laucha in what was once East Germany. The local area is a beautiful unspoilt rural part of Germany, with rolling farmland, wooded areas and limestone cliffs often topped with Vineyards, very similar looking to the Dordogne area of France. The region is known as Salle - Unstrut region after the two main rivers there. Although a tourist destination for some Germans, the region appears to be largely ignored by foreign tourists. I did not see any other non-Germans in the 10 days I was there and few people spoke English. Food, wine and beer were
all of a good quality and The prices were very cheap compared to UK, with most goods being approx 2/3 of UK prices. I used a campsite in Naumberg for our base during my stay (I combined attending Laucha with a familly holiday) but good hotel rooms were available for 29 Euros (approx 20 pounds, or 36 US dollar). In short I would strongly recommend this area for anyone considering a holiday in Germany.
I understand that the competition venue for 2007 will be decided in November of this year. We'll have to wait and see where it is in Germany next year.
Laucha airfield is a large general aviation field, with grass runways which sits attop of a large plateau. One boundary of the airfield is on a ridge (approx 300 feet?) on which paragliders, hang gliders and sailplanes fly usiing the slope lift. The site for the F3K contest was held at the far side of the airfield and as such was too far away to be able to use this lift or be affexcted by turbulance. The contest area was on a large flat grass area, mown especially for the contest. the boundary for the lauch/land area was marked out with a white line painted on the grass. Adjacent to this was a very large field of sunflowers which was a popular flying area for scratching around over, although some found out the hard way that having to walk 200 metres into a field of 6ft high sunflowers to search for a DLG model ain't much fun... At one point it looked like Phil Barnes was going to be Christened 'Sunflower' due to his models apparent magnetic attraction for this area, but he seemed to clean his act up and all was ok ;-)
Although I'd had a few days practice earlier in the week courtesy of a farmers hay field near my campsite in Naumberg, I arrived at Laucha on the Friday for the official practice day. I met up with Richard Swindells, Bruce Davidson, Phil Barnes and Radoslaw Pilski. The weather was perfect DLG weather with light winds and warm sunny weather. Approx 30 other pilots had arrived and there was some great practice sessions flown. Lift was fairly abundant with some long flights flown and a very enjoyable day all in all.
The weather during my previous 7 days holiday had been very variable, with some very strong winds, thunderstorms, cold and wet weather, so I hoped that the weather had now changed for the better and that we'd see some nice warm weather over the weekend, more akin to what the weather normally is in Germany during August... how wrong I was ;-)
Saturday morning dawned to start the contest, with 96 pilots entered and some 88 pilots starting the contest. As the organisers announced during the pilots briefing, this high level of support for F3K at a major contest could have very positive ramifications for F3K with the FAI and also in general terms. I believe this was an approx 25% increase in entries compared to 2005 (?).
The weather on Saturday morning was cold (around 15 deg C), calm, misty and totally overcast with a low cloudbase. Not really August weather or condusive to decent DLG flights.
There were a wide range of DLG models there with many pilots flying Aspirin (moulded German DLG) as well as a selection of Turbo, Kisals, some own designs, a few Super Gees, XP4's and Taboos. (see my notes/views later on model performance).
The competition on Saturday started with Task B, last flight, unlimited launches with a 5 minute max. I went out to fly thinking there was no lift around, so to get a couple of minutes or so would possibly win the slot. I flew for approx 2min 25secs and was pretty happy with this time, considering the conditions and my past competition experiences. I was pretty certain I'd get a 900 or mayby 800 at worst - Walking back to the scoring tent I heard someone had maxed the round with a 5 minute flight!! I got a 497. I just couldn't believe it.
That set the tone for the whole day. With 11 people flying in each slot and with the very high standard of flying, in nearly every round someone maxed the score. This meant a few people got high scores in each slot, but most other pilots ended up with sub 700 scores (see
http://www.contest-modellsport.de/2006/f3kergebnisLaucha.html for more details).
It was incredible to see 11 people launch in very poor weather conditions and for someone in the slot get away and hammer everone elses score. As Saturday progressed the weather got worse with a strong breeze and the competition being paused three times whilst heavy rain showers moved through. Several slots were flown in light rain. There were a few slots later in the day when some more pronounced lift came through but generally the air was very challenging. The standard of flying was very high, with few 'sport' pilots flying and most people there to win.
The pilots who maxed, tended to be the ones who moved around the sky, found an area of 'non-sink' (I won't use the word lift) and followed it downwind, circling very carefully until they slowly gained altitude way, way downwind. I don't know whether it was a case that they found thermals which were in the process of developing, meaning that they were there in the middle of them when they popped, but this tactic worked time and again for the top pilots. The only issue was this meant 'balls of steel' were necessary as you had to go a long, long way downwind at a low altitude to stand any chance of gaining height and flying a task out. Many pilots fell foul of the lift
weakening or finding sink on the way back and having to land out way downwind with the resulting walk of shame ;-) The airfield was very flat with few nearby objects to help gauge distance, so it was quite hard to judge exactly how far a model actually was away. Many pilots followed weak lift downwind only to turn back to the field and realise to ther horror just how far away they actually were. Later in the day strong gusts of wind compounded this situation, as pilots half way back home but still hundreds of metres away, found their models struggling to make any headway in the wind. In a strange way the overall flying style at the contest was similar to F3J with many flights being conducted a long way downwind and little action upwind or to the side.
From my perspective the whole competition was incredibly educational. Launching and just hanging into wind was not really an option and just resulted in a very low score. You had to move around imediately and find something and whats more then disapear downwind with it, or you would be hammered. Watching the top pilots, it was puzzling at times to understand why they were circling in air which didn't look like lift,disapearing way downwind at a dangerously low height, only to slowly but surely wind the model up as if by magic a long, long way away.
Because pilots were flying most of the tasks fully, launching didn't really seem to play a big part in the contest. It was more down to flying skill and definately down to being able to read the air. I went to Laucha expecting to see an amazing display of launching and the resulting task success, but this just didn't happen. Sure, there were some good launchers there and it was interesting to see how it should be done, but there was nothing amazing being shown.
A word about the organisation. In typical German style the contest was very well organsied. A transmitter impound was used for the whole duration of the contest and a PA system announced the tsak, competitors and task countdowns, starts and ends. Camping and toilets were avaiable on site, with many people taking advantage of this. During the competition itself, coffee, beer, soft drinks, cakes, hot food and deserts were available to buy.
On the Saurday evening a meal was held in a marquee, were everyone got to talk, meet and discuss the days flying.
Sunday dawned with weather very similar to Saturday's. The only difference being it didn't rain at all until late in the afternoon.
We flew 8 rounds in all with one round's score being dropped to give the final results. There was a vote whether to fly 7 or 8 rounds due to impending rain, as a compromise the 8th round was shortened to a 5 min working time. This enabled the flyoffs to happen before the worst of the rain.
Bizzarely at the start of the flyoff the wind died down, the sun came out and the big lift moved in. Not to say the conditions became easy, but it made for a great spectacle as the top pilots battled it out in mega lift a long way downwind at high altitudes.
As this is my first year of F3K I'd set myself a personal target of finishing in the top half of the contest. As it was I just missed that goal coming 48th out of 88. In saying that my overall percentage was 75.14% of the winners and I did manage to win the 8th round of my group with a 1000, so I wasn't overally disapointed with my performance, especially as I now realise what I have to do to do better next time.
Richard Swindells flew very well with his Aspirin, to not only get in the flyoff but to come 3rd overall which considering the conditions and the very high standard of competition was a fantastic achievment. Richard was one of those who actively searched for good air and then used it by going downwind time and again. Congratulations Richard.
Phil Barnes flying a Taboo also did very well, making the flyoff with some impressive thermal seeking and long downwing flights at low altitudes. Phil suffered however when a return flight back to the field from way downwind in the first flyoff task resulted in him landing out. With the high level of competition, that was to end his chances of a top 3 place.
Bruce Davidson flying a XP4 also flew well posting some impressive flights and scores and only missed the flyoff by one place and 0.3%.
Radoslaw Pilski flying a self-built Super Gee also did amazingly well, making the flyoff (Rad told me this was his 5th ever DLG contest!!) and came 10th. Way to go Rad !
A few of my own thoughts;
- Models; There were a large number of different models being used. I'd say about 75% of contestants were using moulded rather than bagged models. As well as Drela sections, there were quite a few other wing sections being flown (eg, Aspirins and the team FF guys' own design models). From my perspective the models made little or no difference to the results. it didn't matter if your model launched 5 metres higher than the next guys or whether it was 3% more efficient. What mattered was that when you launched you found some lift (or in many cases neutral air) and used it efficiently. I expected the models to have more impact, especially with the poor conditions, but it didn't apprear to be the case. That's not to say you could compete with a poor model, just that the slight differences between the top models din't win/loose the contest. For me it's a case of stop messing around thinking of ways to improve models and learn to fly better and better!
- Launching; A bad throw could mess up a round but as long as you got a decent launch what really mattered was the subsequent flying, not so much the launch itself. There was some good launching happening, but nothing amazing or spectacular of note. I need to work on my launch and keeping my arm straight... but I knew that before Laucha anyway ;-)
- Finding lift - This is what this contest came down to for most pilots. The pilots who could either read the sky just before launch and head to good air or those who could quickly find it and then use it. Due to the poor conditions it was very hard (at least for me) to recognise very weak lift from neutral air and then use it efficiently and effecively. This is a core area I'm going to be traing on over the coming months, I know if I can find lift I can normally do OK in a contest. My trouble at Laucha was I often just couldn't find lift, when others were.
Penetration - The models that could move around the sky quickly and make it back to the field from a long way downwind did well, but again this due to pilot skill as much as the model and no one design of model seemed to win here.
Ballasting - Some pilots were ballasting in the gusty conditions. I think (but don't know) that many were adding approx an ounce of weight in some rounds, but flying empty most of the time, even though the wind was quite powerful at times.
- Going downwind a long way at low level, even in weak lift - This also determined who was successful at Laucha. I watched many times as the top pilots found 'something' in terms of air at around 100ft height and went downwind with it, not really gaining any height. They would follow this way, way downwind until they would slowly gain height. Quite often they would eventually gain a significant height (>400ft) but that would not be acheived until they were a long way downwind. This required nerves of steel, confidence and skill. Many of the top pilots played risky strategies doing this in order to win. Sometimes it didn't pay off and landing out with a long walk was the result. Finding weak lift and going downwind with it a long way is again a core area I'm going to be training on over the coming months.
- Attitude - If you want to win you must be prepared to risk your model (and score) and fly with 'balls of steel'. There obviously needs to be a balance of risk, but if you are cautious you will not win.
In closing a big thanks to everyone who organised Laucha '06. Thanks to Phil and Bruce for sharing their thoughts and tips on F3K flying and being so open and helpful, I learnt a lot from you, thanks guys. Thanks to Rad, the team FF guys (see you next year at one of your comps too) and everyone else who were so friendly and made Laucha 06 such a great experience.
I'll post some photos in my next post.
...See you in Germany in 2007.
Cheers!
Chris.
roost: