SEN 3447

 

1. Hatscheck – International Challenge 2026
2. Altimeter Flyoffs (AFO) in Shifts
3. CIAM

Hatscheck – International Challenge 2026
From: Aram Schlosberg

The weather forecast for Saturday, May 30, was a blow out. So, we held the club dinner at a noisy and popular restaurant close to the field. After dinner, Andrew and Jamma managed to make a few trimming flights before sunset.
Sunday, May 31, began calmly. The F1A guys got an early start and managed to fly a 4-minute first flight. Ittai Shichman was a welcome new F1A flyer from Israel, who studies in New York City.

Other flyers had to retrieve two more golf carts and got a later start. By then the wind was blowing across the narrow portion of the field towards the Wallkill River in the east reaching gusts of 18 MPH by noon.
My second B flight managed to clear the trees lining the bank and landed on the slow flowing river. A miniNeuron and a red stab helped spotting the submerged model. Yuda helped me climb back up the steep slippery bank.
Alex Andriukov was travelling north on Saturday to fly B. Unfortunately, his car developed a major oil leak in Milford NJ.  ///

Hatschek-International Challenge May 30,31 2026

Event     1     2     3    4    5Total
F1A     240   180   180  180  180 960  Danier, Jamma
F1A     240   180   180  180  173 953  Shichman, Ittai
F1A     196   180   180  112  180 848  Barron, Andrew
F1A     196    31    39  143  165 574  Barron, Peter

F1B     141    92   180  122   87 622  Schlosberg, Aram
F1B      77    52    73   82   32 316  Gross, Jerry

F1G      52    66    89  120    6 333  Rousseau, Don
F1G      67    40    42   43   44 236  Gross, Jerry

F1Q     131   108   123   62   81 505  Avla, Yuda

Dawn Unlimited                    185  Rousseau, Don

Altimeter Flyoffs (AFO) in Shifts 
From: Aram Schlosberg

Flyoffs are supposed to measure performance and air picking if they are flown too early in the evening or too late in the morning. Location on the flight line matters if the flight line is long and when it s not set perpendicular to the drift.
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The ABCQ bottleneck is the 6-minute Flyoff. In a World Championship if say 2 out of the 3 team members are clean, the 6-minute Flyoff will double the flight line. And having a female team member also increase the portion of clean flyers.
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But the gut reaction to  reduce performance  will curtail the portion of clean flyers. However, towing A with 40-meter lines, flying B with 20-gram motors, C with 2.25-second engine runs and Q with 1.5 joule/gram is no fun.  And banning weather detection equipment and streamers, proposed by Mike Woodhouse, had a marginal effect, as demonstrated last year at the Maxmen contests. [1]
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Instead, one can presume that ALL flyers have altimeters, opening more possibilities in the domain of altimeter Flyoffs (AFO). [2]
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In huge free flight contests or at the World Championship I m suggesting holding the 6-minute AFO in 2 or 3 SHIFTS. The shifts will have half or a third of the clean flyers respectively, and that the SAME portion of flyers (half in 2 AFO shifts, a third in 3 AFO shifts) will qualify for a joint 8-minute AFO.
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Flyers who don t qualify for the joint 8-minute AFO are ranked by their absolute time plus any altitude and those who do are presumed to have maxed out, ignoring their altitudes.
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The joint 8-minute AFO must be flown within half an hour before sunset or within 45 minutes after sunrise. Flyers are ranked is their time plus any altitude. And in case of windy weather, combined with field size limitations, the maxes of the 6-minute AFO shifts and/or the 8-minute joint AFO can be clawed back. ///
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[1] Disclosure   I happed to win it in B.
[2] The cost of an altimeter is relatively small compared to the price of any factory model.

CIAM

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