_vacation

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Marko!

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Day8

Day8 – The first flights

Normally when I get up to fly the first round of any contest I am at least a pinch nervous, and that pinch of nervousness exponentially increases with the prestige of the contest at hand. This time, I wasn’t nervous, I just smiled, smiled because I was in South Africa, smiled because there was going to be a new Junior World Champion to take my place, smiled because there was nothing I would rather be doing, smiled because I didn’t want anything more or less, and lastly, smiled because the pressure was off. No more preparing, no more stressing, no more planning or discussing how to approach the contest, just time to perform. Whatever I had then was all I was going to have for this competition.

The round went by (I flew in slot 4 so at about 9:30, and got a 9:54:3 with a 100 point landing to take the 1000 for my first flight of the contest. I was pretty happy. Then the conditions started to worsen, with the wind picking up to about 10m/s sustained and gusting to 18m/s. The lift was as strong as ever though, and for my second flight I flew the Icon 2 fully ballasted at 108oz, I took a thermal to the limit of vision and then some (I walked downwind about a quarter mile just so I could see it while attempting to bring it back) but my attempts were futile and I landed in the corn field at 8 minutes into the flight. So I relit for a 35 second flight and some landing points. Not exactly what I wanted to do on my second round of flying when I only have 1 throw out and 10 more rounds to fly. But on my third round I managed to bounce back and take another 1000, not before I destroyed an airplane on tow though. That’s right, a destroyed airplane, and a 1000 point round, how you might ask? Well, the conditions were stable at a 8.5m/s wind, and little to no lift to be seen (too late in the day, with enough wind to blow apart the majority of thermals that were formed). So my first plane – a fully ballasted Xplorer 4.0 blew up on a direct tow. It was my fault and quite saddening to say the least. We went for the second model and I found that my flaps were not working, so after a bit of delay due to inspection we ended up taping them in reflex position and launching it (still at 108oz) I got in the air at 6 minutes and 27 seconds remaining and was able to find the only piece of lift on the field and stayed with it until about 2 minutes to go. Now – I don’t know if you have ever flown a sail plane, or a fully ballasted sail plane, but I think I can say with some certainty that you probably haven’t ever flown one without flaps and attempted to spot land it to time. It was a bit of an adventure, I slammed it into the ground at mach 1 just before the buzzer sounded, and I did it one handed because I needed to not touch the flap stick at all. The other competitors just thought I was trying to be cool, and I wish I could say that was the case. I ended up breaking the ballast set up that Bob and I had installed the other night, but we were able to repair it and the flaps before dinner time tonight.

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All of the Officials!

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Fly off round 1!

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Day7

Today we had fly offs for the pre contest. I must say it is really amazing to watch people do short tows at 9:15 in the morning for a 15minute round. The confidence of those pilots must have been insane, but in the end they were not able to  pull their full time out… The pilot who won the pre contest was the only one to make all three times (Lionel of France). Joe took second with two minutes dropped, and Kolb took third with somewhere around 3.5minutes dropped.

Pilots were handed out their trophies which were really cool – cast metal animals common to South Africa, the cheetah, a giraffe couple, and a zebra. Then the real fun began, the organizers hired the South African Acrobatic pilot Glen ____ who flew his Redbull extra 300s and gave what had to have been the most amazing performance I have ever seen. The regulations such as minimum height are not as well enforced here, so naturally the pilot decided to do some REALLY REALLY REALLY low passes. Try 6 feet off of the ground at full speed, or 15 feet off of the ground inverted. As if that wasn’t cool enough by itself, we then had a helicopter come and do some low passes and land at the field and what not. After watching Glen though – that was pretty boring. After the private airshow, the opening ceremonies commenced and were followed by a South African xylophone band, which was also quite stunning. All in all the day7 was the best one so far. So many good memories that it is hard to think that my trip to Cape Town will hold a candle to it. 

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From left to right - Paul Sherman, Mike Sherman, and Tristan Sherman. Three generations of wonderful people!

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The internet here is pittiful. Uploading these photos takes forever - that is why I am late a couple of days. Sorry guys! 

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Bob Cody and Jim preparing for Bob's last flight in the pre-contest!

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Dominick putting the planes that he finally got together! 

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Team managers meeting

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Day6

Day6

The Pre-Contest preliminaries ended today with two USA pilots making it into the fly offs – Tom K and Rich B! Bob was doing extremely well, sitting comfortably in second place and in the final round, as the air was starting to go sideways he was up to fly. After a long run downwind with a light thermal he just wasn’t able to make it back to the spot, and he dropped out of fly off contention. The good news is that he was able to get a pretty good handle on the field and proved that he will be a lethal pilot in the World Competition. One of our Junior’s Dillon was very close to making the fly offs (pretty far ahead of any other junior in the competition until the last round as well. Things didn’t pan out for him either, but the same can be said for him in the World Competition. Dominic finally got his boxes of planes and was able to start flying them. With his own planes he is doing really well. Tristan has gotten a pretty good handle on his airplanes and is launching REALLY well. If at any point in the Worlds, the air dies and it is a floating contest, my money is on him.

We have been eating breakfast and dinner both at the hotel, and lunch has been served at the field. The trick for me has been to eat as much as I can at breakfast (normally I am limited by time because the bus leaves so early). Lunch they portion out the food so you don’t get much, and dinner I eat desert first, just because I can. But by that time I am so exhausted I just want to go to bed.

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The end of Day5, South African flags are the main ground sign as the field is very flat with no trees. There are about 20 of these flags on the field.

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Giovanni Gallizia, with his brother both from Italy. Keeping an eye on the competition!

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The Turkish tent and Mustafa's 50th birthday airplane.

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These are the bibs we have to wear.

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Simon Borst took this with his fathers Radian and GoPro camera. Thanks for the photo Simon!

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Day5

Day 5 – First day of competition. Today was the start of the pre competition. Breakfast was a bit earlier today, as the first bus was at 6:45am. The first round began promptly at 9 o clock am, after we were passed out our “bibs” – these are very reminiscent of any sort of running competition. No name, just a bunch of sponsors and a big number slapped on your chest. Honestly I wasn’t impressed, they don’t really go with my outfits too well and in such a small community it sucks to be just a number.

That set aside, the contest started out smoothly and continued to run in that fashion throughout the day. Michelle and her crew of helpers/event organizers really had their stuff together from the get go. At some point during the second round, we swapped the launch direction by 90 degrees without a hitch. The wind came up a bit during mid-day, but died back down to almost no wind by 5pm and the conditions got really challenging – very very light lift. We got 3 rounds done with 8 groups per round, and even snuck in three re-flight groups.

The USA team did fairly well today, but there were some technical difficulties (Daryl had a line break on tow, and I had an early kick/throw from outside the launching corridor). Bob, Tom, and Cody are all looking pretty strong though, and should be in fly off contention. The juniors are doing pretty well also – this is a first time for all three of them, and they are all pretty young, so today was great for them as they were able to learn the ropes for the most part. Dominic Lewis flew Bob McGowans light Icon 2 during practice yesterday and today in the contest.  I have been extremely impressed by the way he has learned a new airframe so quickly, especially with the caliber and pressure this contest presents. Tristan has also been making great progress and has been able to handle adverse conditions equally well (his dad flew into a sprinkler today). Dillon flew well today he also got his first taste of plane failure during a major contest when one of his flap servos died on final approach.

After being here for a few days it looks like the plane to have is the Xplorer two. Some of them are coming in really really light. With the new airfoil they move really well also. Though the majority of people appear to be flying the 3.8. The Icon 2 is still only being flown by USA pilots, and it seems to be holding its own. There are a few Maxa’s, Supra’s, and Perfections, but the Xplorer 2 is definitely the most popular.

Tomorrow will mark the end of the pre contest and the start of a very short break period before the World Competition. I am excited to see how this contest pans out!