National Free Flight Society

SEN 2775

  1. California Contest Clarification
  2. 50 plus at 50th USFFC

California Contest Clarification

There has been a little confusion about FAI Free Flight contests in California.
Traditionally there are 2 major FAI Free Flight World Cup events in California, The Sierra Cup in October and the MaxMen International in February.  Here is the status

October
There are no  World Cup contests this year …and travelling to Lost Hills for some is difficult for some because of the pandemic BUT

The Sierra Cup will be held on the extended weekend  of 8-12 October and as in recent years that date will be shared by the Kotuku Cup . This means there will be 2 FAI Free flight events, the  “big” events on the Saturday and Sunday.  The Mini events for both is on Monday 12.  This is a public holiday in some places being Indigenous Peoples Day and others Columbus day. F1E is on 8 and 9 October.  The full schedule was in SEN 2768 and will be republished later.


February
The situation in not as clear.  We do not know enough about the pandemic and down stream consequences nor what decision the FAI/CIAM will make on World Cup events to decide on the best choices.

But this we do know
That the MaxMen International will be run on the Presidents Day Weekend in February  as usual.

We will not take pre-entries for the Fab Feb as we have in previous years because we do not believe there will be sufficient international entrants to warrant the additional work in setting this up. It is also not clear what FAI events other than the MaxMen will be run.

The Ike will be run in some form yet to be determined.


What we don’t know is
If the Canadians who run the mid-week contest will be able to travel to and from the USA to run that contest

If the contest (s) will be World Cup Events.


In any case
Anyone and everyone is welcome to attend whatever and whichever contest they can.  Covid protocols will be used at the events.

Finally
Of course there are many other Free Flight events in California.  The purpose here was to just talk about those that are World Cups as we got a number of questions from outside the USA.

50 plus at 50th USFFC

A quick note to say that the USFFC was run last weekend at Lost Hills.  This was the 50th Anniversary.  In spite of the pandemic attendance was up on the last 2 or 3 years with over 50 participants.  I think I can say flyers aged from 9 to 90 plus. Very nice weather, not too hot or windy but of course some tricky Lost Hills thermals.  Contest CD was Ed Carroll who put in place Covid protocols that reassured some to take part that may not have otherwise.

Your editor has a schedule conflict that stopped him from taking part but he was there for a while to meet with some people.

I noticed good turn out in many AMA classes, the biggest big FAI class was F1B (should have taken mine …) .  F1C World Champ, Taron flew in the HLG showing that the time spent in the gym was not wasted with his high launches and disproving the common F1B sportsman belief that F1C sportsman can’t pick air by getting 13 maxes.  No matter how hard or well you can throw a HLG you can’t get that many maxes without picking  good air.

Good photos of the event on the FB Free Flight group and other places