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2006 Junior World Championships Report

The Jr WC is Overwm_200 By Ken Bauer August 26, 2006 From SCAT Electronic News The F1P flyoff started at 7:30 this morning in good conditions with moderate drift and cool smooth air. Anthony Ferrario went off first with a normal pattern and started gliding well. Then Cody Secor fired up his Astro Star and put up another perfect corkscrew power pattern just like he did all day yesterday. He got higher than Anthony and started gliding well. The Polish flyer then launched but the model went somewhat off pattern and did not get as high as the other two. As they drifted downwind Cody’s model was nearly blocked by trees as it decended and we were worried that he would get clocked off early, but it fortunately skirted just to the side of the trees and the timers saw it for 311 seconds. Anthony did 296 seconds and the Polish flyer was less than that, so Cody is the new world champ with Anthony placing second. The F1A flyoff started at 8am in the same conditions with 7 flyers. Tyler Secor was one of the first to go up and start circle towing upwind and to the right of the line over the runway. About halfway through the 10 min window Tyler decided to go and got off a beautiful launch. About the same time several of the other flyers went off as well, some straight towing up and off. Tyler’s model glided well and came down slowly and did about 3:49 as I remember and ended up in 4th place. The official scores are still not posted. The winner was a girl from Slovakia that I believe did around 4:30. The model looked like a normal thermal model so she must have found a sweet spot in the air. Overall Tyler and all the US kids were very happy. Tonight is the closing ceremony and tomorrow we leave. The US team shirts are a hot commodity as all the other kids are already trading to get them. There is a great sprit of friendship as all the kids are hanging around together. This afternoon the German kids were at our hotel swimming and having fun with our team. Our hotel accomodations were great as the hotel is part of a sports center. There is a bowling alley right under our room where the guys have spent some time, but the big hit is the indoor pool and spa which features a big water slide. Our entire team goes swimming about every day now, and the whole bunch of them will pile into the entrance of the slide and go down together all crashing together in a big pile at the bottom. I’ve got pictures of this. Apparently one of the hotel people was yelling at them in German saying something like “one at a time”, but they just responded with, “sorry, we don’t speak German”! These boys have gotten about as close as any team I’ve witnessed and they are thrilled with the team victories. So despite the poor weather and barbed wire fence, it all turned out OK. I’ve giving the US perspective of course, so others please write about your own teams. Our boys encountered several problems which resulted in attempts, but each time they pulled together and got off a great reflight. Paul Shailor had his F1B motor start prematured on the ground and broke some prop blades, but recovered and flew fine. Later he was called for a model processing check and told his model was too big which really rattled him, but then it was discovered that they were not measuring correctly and all was actually OK. Then there is a TV crew watching him and apparently his stab is not hooked up right and he crashes with a 5 sec flight. Evan Simon then flies while Paul gets another model ready and he throws up another max. About the 6th round of F1B Evan Simon is the last one to go with about 10 minutes left in the round. He launches but the DPR time is set too long and the model stalls before the prop starts and then crashes. Taylor Gunder helps him get the backup model ready and he winds an launches with about 4 minutes left and gets the max. Chasing was made more difficult because almost every max flight went over the fence almost every day, and there was only a couple open gates in the fence for the entire airport perimeter. Sometimes models came back by car and sometimes they were handed over the fence. Only a couple of our flights landed in trees but they were recovered thanks to the pole than Henning rought. Cody had one flight in a huge thermal which was up for about 6 minutes and went 2.5 km. I helped track it using GPS coordinates but Taylor Gunder beat me to it and found it in the backyard of a house in a nearby village. All the models came back OK. F1A 1 Gabriela DOMOKOVÁ SVK 1352 2 Sergey PROTOPOPOV UKR 1331 3 Anrijs PLUME LAT 1315 4 Tylor SECOR USA 1309 5 Luca ARINGER AUT 1303 9 Kyle JONES USA 1064 12`Brian BAUER USA 1041 F1B 1 Daniel BILLHAM GBR 1802 2 Bartlomiej SKIBICKI POL 1784 3 Paul COUTINEAU FRA 1252 4 Oskar FINDAHL SWE 1250 5 Taylor GUNDER USA 1239 6 Evan SIMON USA 1236 9 Paul SHAILOR USA 1229 F1P 1 Cody SECOR USA1571 2 Anthony FERRARIO USA 1556 3 Robert SAWKA POL 1509 4 Matthias SEREN GER 1245 5 Altxander NAZAROV RUS 1229 8 Brian PACELLI USA 1191 US Juniors Sweep Team Events By Ken Bauer August 25, 2006 From SCAT Electronic News Latest news: our Junior team won the team event in both F1P and F1A today which makes for a sweep of all the events. Thursday started out with the best weather we have seen all week and F1P went smoothly. Cody and Anthony both maxed out and will be in a 3 man flyoff in the morning with a Polish flyer. Brian P had only a couple small drops and ensured the team victory. Round 4 of F1A was then started afterwards at 4pm but by this time the wind was almost as strong as when they postponed on Tuesday. Our kids maxed the remaining flights through round 6 with Kyle dropping only 10 seconds one flight. Rounds were delayed because of a full scale plane trying to use the runway for takeoff and then because a thunderstorm was coming very close. There was plenty of drama – Brian B was the last flyer to go in the 6th round and was circle towing with the thunderstorm approaching. His model then DTed on the line for a still unexplained reason, maybe electrons from the storm or moiseture or switch failure, but it was an attempt since the model came down with the line still attached. Just at that moment the wind direction shifted 90 degrees and the velocity picked up dramatically as the storm started to hit. Brian picked up the backup model and immediately towed staight up and off with a perfect bunt. The model was in good air and maxed as the rain started coming down and everybody headed for cover. A few other flyers finished the round in the rain. At this point the F1A team was maintaining their lead in the team standings and at 7:15pm and with rain coming down it was clear that all flying was done for the day. The only question was when and if round seven would be flown. For the next hour various rumors circulated that round 7 would be flown tomorrow morning with the flyoffs to follow, then there were more rumors that the contest would be stopped after 6 rounds. After a meeting of the Jury, organizers, and team managers it was announced that there would be no round 7 but that the flyoffs for both F1P and F1A would be in the morning. Most aggreed that this was the only reasonable solution since flying round 7 in the morning would push the flyoffs later in the day into the thermal activity which could be a mess. At that point the US kids could finally celebrate. In F1A the second place team was Ukraine and the third place team was France. I can’t remember the others for F1P. Tyler Secor will be in the F1A flyoff along with 6 others. US F1B Team wins F1B team at Jr WC By Ken Bauer August 24, 2006 From SCAT Electronic News
Here is the latest news from Germany. George asked me if I would cover this report for him. It started off very cold and windy again this morning. The first round was postponed until 10am because weather reports indicated conditions would improve throughout the day. It was still blowing pretty good at 10 but the contest started anyway. Our F1B kids Taylor, Paul, and Evan did very well. Conditions were tough, especially early when it was cold, overcast, no sun and difficult to find lift. Taylor and Evan each had small drops of less than 20 seconds and Paul remained maxed out the whole day until the 7th round when he model came down near some trees and he was clocked off at 2:29, although many other watches has him at about 2:49. That dropped him out of the flyoff which had only two left, a Polish flyer and a Brit. But Paul was still very happy to be part of the winning US team. Plenty of drama for the US guys including a couple crashes and attempts, but they kept cool and pulled it together. The weather actually got much better as the day wore on. Wind slowed down and we could finally remove our jackets. Predictions for tomorrow are good weather and the rumor is that they may try to finish F1A tomorrow as well as fly F1P.

F1A Update By Ken Bauer August 21, 2006 From SCAT Electronic News

Here’s a bit more news from Germany. The weather continues to be windy, rainy and cold. This is the 5th day in a row of this stuff since we’ve been here. Today was F1A day and our 3 boys got started pretty well in very difficult conditions. Wind was blowing about 15mph and the team decided to pick everything on the ground and straight tow up and off. Tyler maxed the first round but both Brian and Kyle dropped a few seconds in very turbulent air. Retrieval is tough – over the fence, in the corn, one in a tree, just in the first couple rounds. It is taking ofter 30 to 60 minutes to get the models back. The kids all maxed in rounds 2 & 3 and then the lunch break came and it started raining for a couple hours. The Jury and organizers then decided at 2pm to cancel for the rest of the day and try to finish on Friday morning. After 3 rounds USA is in first place in the team score, around 45 seconds ahead of Ukraine I heard. Weather reports are supposed to be improving the next couple days so we’ll see what happens.

WC word from George Hi Roger. This is report 1 from The Jr. WC. Flew, or started to fly F1A today. Very windy conditions and rain. Only 3 rounds possible. Kyle Jones dropped 6 sec in first rd, Brian Bauer 39 sec in same round. Tyler Secor still clean. US Team is in !st place so far. Will finish on Friday, the reserve day. F1B is tomorrow, and I think we will do pretty good. The guys really have their heads in it. It is pretty exciting.