Report for Thursday

The day had light winds most of the day, so models did not drift fast. That is not to say that some did not  drift  FAR.

The Senior Tewam flew S3A Parachute Duration in the morning. In round 1, John Hochheimer's chute tangled and did not deploy. Steve Kristal had a good flight but did not get lift, flying for 221 seconds.  Chris Kidwell's model maxed, making the 5 minute time and then some, and landed on the field.  For round 2, John Hochheimer's modle flew for 221 seconds. Steve Kristal's model hit a thermal and maxed.

Chris Kidwell's model from round 1 flew again in round 2, and maxed. But it hit a huge thermal, flying high and on and on, for over 90 minutes. With Chris in the runing to make the flyoffs if his 3rd flight maxed, it was important to get that flight back so he could have that one plus the one extra modle allowed for the potenitally three flyoff rounds.

So the recovery crew put on quite a chase, for miles and miles. At one point, perhaps an hour into the flight,  it was ALMOST down, Tony Reynolds was almsotg able to grab it... but not quite, the it went back up again. It kept on going.  

Unfortunately, it became moot when Chris' third flight (second model) failed to fully eject the chute out from the body tube. But up to then it was quite an exciting situation.

John Hoccheimer's model maxed in round three, also. Steve Kristal's third flight did not deploy the chute, so it fell down, and down, and down. And then at about 25-30 feet off the ground, the chute opened. And.... it hit a thermal and started going up. And up. It maxed and flew way off. By then of course the chasing was over, and unfortunately the team was out of the running.

Meanwhile, the Juniors were flying S7 Scale in the morning. The US Team did not have any Junior scale entries. I took photos of various Junior S7 models and flights, as did Senior US Team Manager John Langford.

John and I had an unofficial contest to see who could get the best scale photos throughout the day, and I am not sure I won, so it will be interesting to see John's photos later.

For the afternoon, the Seniors flew S7. The US entries were Chris Flanigan's large N-1 rocket and James Duffy's Bumper-Wac.

James' model was the same size as his S5 models, but was powered by a D12. James first flight took off well, but DQ'ed the upper stage.

He later flew it single staged, but the D12 motor had a late blow-thru that knocked the tail section off from the internal structure housing the chute and electronics.

The tail section tumbled to the ground, for a DQ, while the now much lighter internal assembly floated into a thermal and flew away. Since it was a cato, he could have reflown, but some of the key parts for reflying went away in the thermal.

Chris Flanigan's was short and sweet. He quickly got it ready, and launched it. It was impressive boosting on the six C6 engines, canted outwards. It was draggy, so it did not fly fast, or very high. But it flew high enough, and got the chutes out, for a good flight. The crowd liked it a lot.

For all of the day's results, please see the photos of the printed results. I also got photos of some result sheets I had missed before.

I will say that the winner in S7 for seniors, was Alexandr Levikh, of Russia. His scale models are always impressive. He flew a Soyuz model. I got a very good launch photo of it.

For Junior S3A Parachute, there were some parallels to the US Seniors in the morning. Emma Kristal had a max, but her model climbed incredibly high into a thermal and could not be recovered.

Same for John Moses, a max but also a lost model, despite the best efforts of the recovery crew (they cannot bring back models that do not come down!). Magda Moses had a short flight of 40 seconds.

For Round two, Madga got a max. John also got a max, but it went up into a thermal and was gone, so he had no models to fly round 3 with.

It turned out that there were eight other Junior fliers in the same situation, two maxes but no models to fly round 3 with  (you are allowed 2 models for the first 3 rounds). For Emma's second flight, the team tried a "finesse" shot, to try to get a "weak thermal" that could hopefully max but not fly away, so she could have that model for round three.

Unfortunately the gamble did not pan out, and it landed 40 seconds short of a max. She did fly round three, and got a max, for a good final score. But there were 7 who had three maxes in a row to make the flyoffs, so Emma ended up in 8th place. Magda's 3rd flight flew for 85 seconds.

 The Junior Team came in 6th, out of 15 countries.

Those concluded the contest events. Tomorrow (Friday), is the awards banquet. Then Saturday we will take a bus to Belgrade, where most of us will stay overnight, then  fly home Sunday.

So, stay tuned....