National Free Flight Society

SEN 2166

Table of Contents- SEN 2166

  1. World Champs – F1B day
  2. F1B Result
  3. F1P from the flight line
  4. F1P flash

Jr. WChamps report #4 – Wakefield Day
From: Bob Stalick
The Junior FAI World Champs in Prilep, Macedonia — Report  No. 4 by Bob Stalick

Flash: US Team places second in F1B Wakefield.

Updates from yesterday’s F1A event. In addition to Joel Yori’s third place finish, Alex Stalick placed 15th and Cade Fedor placed 39th out of 47 contestants.

You can keep up to  date on the scores by individual and team on the Jr. World Champs website

Unofficial results from the field show the US in second place as a team, only 3 seconds behind the Russians. Interestingly, the US was firmly in first place at the end of the 4th round and needed to max its final flights to secure the victory. Here’s how it happened.

The contest got off to the prescribed 8 am start and the winds were not anywhere to be seen. In fact, what wind there was was light and variable. Since the first round was a 4 minute max, the lack of strong thermal activity would be a challenge. The team decided the order of flight, and Sevak Malkhasyan went first and easily secured the max with a strong climb into lift. Troy Davis followed, and he made his with ease. Jace Pivonka flew third, and his flight looked good to start then ran into some trouble with a prop blade, but due to some vigorous flapping by the support team, he sweated it out for his first max. So far, we were in great shape.

The second round saw Sevak put in another strong flight for an easy 3 minute max, followed by  by Troy’s 166 second flight–a real disappointment as he had a good climb but was done in by some tricky air, even though the support team did their bit again.
Jace broke a motor as he was preparing his model, and had to replace it for his next official, which was a max.

At this point, I’d like to interject an observation about current Wakefield rubber equipment and winding. Motor weight allowed is 30 grams, and all the motors I saw used 1/16” rubber strip, so a made up motor looks like a foot long bundle of spaghetti. Jace had 96 motors made up and stored in a cooler bag, and I’m sure the others had similar arrangements. Winding takes place outside the model, and the wound motor is fastened to a  U shaped tray and slid into the front of the model, where is is anchored in the back and fastnend to the prop assembly in the front. The tray is then removed and the model is ready. If a motor breaks, it typically breaks ouside the fuselage thereby causing no damage to the model. The sound of a breaking motor, however, is very distinctive. A loud POP, then a ping as the shreds hit the U shaped tray. As the day  progressed and the temps reached for 90 degrees, the POP-Ping sounds became commonplace.

Round three began with another strong flight from Sevak, but once again, Troy had some bad air and a 131 second flight ensued. Jace had some model difficulties as well and had to launch as the horn was ready to sound to end the round. He got the max.

Team Manager, Jim Parker, decided that since Sevak and Jace had perfect scores and a chance for individual honors that they should go first and second, so Troy was relegated to cleanup position. Round four saw Sevak get another max, but only after a motor broke in the model while he was in launch position. It was replaced and the flight went off well.  Jace followed up with another strong flight. Troy got his model performing better and he recorded a perfect flight as well.

At this point, at the end of 4 rounds, the US team was in the lead only 63 seconds away from perfection. Round five was a wait and see round. Winds were nil. The air was tricky. Thermals were spotty and small, waiting patiently (or not) was important. Sevak waited for nearly half the round before launching into a boomer thermal, but at 20 seconds or so into the climb, the model seemed to power stall and come to a near stop. Then, it veered left out of the main body of lift and headed away from the pack of other models. He recorded a score of 153 seconds, his first non max of the day. After his strong performance in the first 4 rounds, this  dropped flight was a heartbreaker.

Jace was next, and he waited for about 20 minutes before picking a nice patch of air and a perfect launch. Then, for some reason, the model began the glide left in an odd pattern. It later was determined that a prop blade had not folded correctly, causing the model’s glide to be affected. Jace’s perfect string of maxes was broken with a score of 173 seconds. Now Troy was under the gun as time was ticking away. The CD announced 5 minutes remaining when Troy got to the launch area. Air was dead, thernmals nowhere. Then, with about a minute to go, some life. A whisper of wind, LAUNCH! Troy went off in a great climb, his best of the day, and he recorded his third max.

The official results were not available when this article was completed. So we  believe the team placed second to the Russians by 3 seconds, but information about the individual placings and how other teams fared will be contained in tomorrow’s report or can be viewed on the JrChamps website.

Our team was one to be proud of, even though they lost out on the chance for individual honors, they worked very well together and helped each other, a mark of true teamwork.

Tomorrow  is F1P (power) day. Team members are: Cade Fedor. Sevak Malkhasyan and Alex Stalick. In a quirk of the FAI rules, power flies by a different rounds system. Whereas F1A and F1B have a first max of four minutes and 4 subsequent maxes of 3 minutes prior to flyoffs, F1P has a seven round format with 3 minute maxes. This anomaly might be worth a review t the next CIAM meeting.

F1B 
1. Dmytro Merzilakov, UKR +348 s
2. Bojan Gostojic, SRB +325 s
3. Dawid Lipski, POL +315 s

Note that there appears to be an error in the F1B results as posted as we send this that affects all places below 7th and the
team placings

F1P – from the flight line (corrected version)
From : Jim Parker USA Team manager
USA, F1P, Prelip
Per last teport, we’re flying 7, 3 min flights.
Rnd 1 Solid calm air. All max, Sevak motor down 1 to 2 K, working plug and shims
Rnd2, Air starting to moved.  Alex max- dialed in motor run time. Cade had  a bit flat launch and model ended up in down air for 134 sec.  Sevak max
Rnd 3 Alex launch just left enough do.to get full altitude in solid but not up air and dropped 11 sec. Cade launch a bit flat but the model knew were the thermal was, at 5 minute  we send chaser in car, model.landed on the feild 12 minutes hitting a tent about a mile away. Sevak flew while was still soaring for max.

In 2nd team about 60seconds behind Russians. Only 3 clean thru 3 rnds, Sevak being one.

Much more flying to come.

USA F1P report 2
Thrill of victory..
Short report. Though thermal picking again. Cade dropped 2 minute  on flight after hitting tent.. several of checked it out, spotted a crack in pylon, fiberglass/ CA but something was off and model recovered low. Alex had off launch, dropped 11 seconds. They maxed out after that. Sevak was only one clean after 5th.

Sevak was key in picking air for Cade and Alex. Sevak maxed 6th. 7th, Alex maxed quickly but the wind shifted to the equivalent to Ike’s hole. After 30 minutes had Sevak get his model, I took Cade out and had Sevak ready his model. The air turned around, looking good but alas a poor launch sent the model up wind and recovered low. As as always, second thinking, I should have screem RDT and sacrifice  the model. About 100 sec, field was stunned.  Cade maxed in good air with a few minutes left in the round.

Good news is Alex placed third and the team 2nd.

Those that know Sevak know what a fine young man he is. His leadership on this Jr team was outstanding and key to the success he had. I also can say great things about Jace and Troy and Alex, our senior Jrs. The Jr WC is competition at the highest level and those of us that have been there know the thrill of victory.and agony of defeat. Let these fine young men know they are of an elite group of flyers, all worked hard and had a driving desire to become a World Champion but it was not to be in Prelip Macedonia.

A better way to look at is is this team won :

Joel F1A Bronze
Alex F1P Bronze
Sevak, Cade, Alex  F1P team silver
Troy, Jace, Sevak F1B team silver

Everyone come home with a medal.

As always, WC’S are an amazing experience. I’m  thrilled I was part of this team.
Jim Parker


F1P Results

F1P

1 Daniel Bogomaz – POL
2 Arthur Moisiadi – UKR
3 Alex Stalick – USA

Very tough thermal conditions , NO Max outs

…………………
Roger Morrell