Post WSMC

These are Pictures sent in after getting back home from Serbia

George put up a Youtube Channel for all the WSMC Videos.

WSMC Youtube Channel

	George Gassaway		For the YouTube Videos GO HERE
Leaving the hotel at 3:30 AM	Departure listing	Inside the Belgrade airport	George Gassaway
	Everyone is home by now, except those who stayed to tour elsewhere in Europe. Sunday  morning, a group of us took a van with trailer at 3:30 AM, to the Belgrade airport. Some flew to Munich, then others a flight to Frankfurt.  I myself flew Munich, to Charlotte, and finally to Birmingham. I finally walked thru the door at 7 PM. I want to mention a few things about a trip like this. The days are really long, and lack of sleep and fatigue become a real factor. I did  not write nearly as much as I would have liked for what was ironically out best day, Monday the 23rd, as I was physically wiped out and could not put much time into it.  Tuesday was not a lot better, so I forced myself to get over 8 hours of sleep Tuesday night and "got over the hump" of the fatigue. The technical issues were not fun either, at the hotel's wireless only worked in the lobby, and it was a hassle to get down there to not only send photos and reports to Chris, but to write photo captions as I sent them via browser-based e-mail because my regular e-mail software would not send messages for some reason (it was OK in Belgrade, but not at the hotel in Irig).  Also sometimes the wireless service at the hotel was SLOW, and other times it did not work at all. One night I was unable to send anything to Chris, so I went to sleep early then woke up early to go downstairs to the lobby to send what would not go thru hours earlier. A few comments back to the Junior S8D success. They really did work together very well as a team. If there was a "Team Captain", it would be Matthew Berk. Sunday, Practice day, the JR Team members made it out to the field around 8 AM or so, and flew all day. They ran into some problems, but worked them out, so that both models and pilots were ready to go on Monday morning. When the event did start Monday, the wind was about 8 mph and was not easy to try to find any lift in as the model glide speed was not much more than the wind speed at altitude. Alyssa was fortunate to fly into a part of the sky with some continuous lift, while Matthew was not, so he did not get a max. He knew not getting a max would almost surely kill his chance to get an individual medal, but he flew well for his other two flights. Same for Craig Vinyard, he had a DQ'ed boost (one that would have passed on the SR Range), but pressed on and flew well, which is how all three combined to get a score good enough to take a team Gold medal.  I said in my Thursday report that John Langford and I had an unofficial contest to see who got the best S7 Scale flight photos. Saturday at the hotel in Belgrade, I saw some of John's best shots. I lost!  Among his best is a stunning mid-flight shot of Levikh's Soyuz separating the four strap-on boosters. I really have to thank several people. James Duffy came thru big-time with a loaner laptop for use during the trip. Most critically, it had good battery life, so some days I was able to transfer photos to it, choose ones to send to Chris, and reduce their screen size (and file size) to something reasonable to e-mail. Also, Chris Taylor, who took on the task of doing the WSMClive website. Without Chris,  this would never have happened. Once I sent reports and photos to Chris, I did not have to worry about what would happen, I knew Chris would do a great job with it. Same for the material that other people sent to him.  Thanks too, to those others who contributed to the effort with their own photos and reports.
Transmitter Impound			Matthew Berk works on his Raven-10 S8D model
The Junior S8D Team gets ready to fly			Matthew Berk flying his S8D model
Garmin Rino FRS radio shows the GPS location, and travel tracks, of everyone else on the recovery crew who had a Rino			George's Stingray-Flap S8E-P model on pad
Ryan's S8E-P model on pad	Ryan's model after a good landing, but the rough ground broke the rudder off	Katie Woebkenberg's S1A altitude models.	IMG_9798.JPGKatie and Dad Ryan after she returned her 5th-place S1A flight
	My thanks to Ryan Woebkenberg and Kevin Kuczek. For S8E-P, we had a strategy and a goal. We may not have met the ultimate goal (A team medal), but we put in solid flights which were key to the strategy. Each of us would have loved to have had a shot at re-doing one of those landings..... Anyone else who helped me, and at some point just about everyone did in one way or another, thank you too.  This is how the team works. We all help each other one way or another. Whether those who fly the events or those who are supporters and/or family members not flying an event. And I would also like to personally thank Team Manager  John Langford,  without whose efforts I would not have been able to make the trip. Accompanying this final report are some photos from others days of the WSMC, and some links to movies I have uploaded to YouTube. - George Gassaway
Keith Vinyard and Chris Flanigan. Keith did most of the picking of thermals for the week			James Duffy preparing his Bumper-Wac for S5B
	<-- . Since their team won the event, there may be some things to learn here. Interestingly the chute is stored in the front half of the 40m main body. THat has a drawback of requiring the chute to be packed tighter to fit a shorter space,  but has the benefit of making sure it gets ejected out of the tube completely if the ejection charge does not pressurize the full length of the body tube (this is what seemed to cause Chris Kidwell's 3rd flight to not fully eject the chute out of the tube).  Also note the metal screw fitting on the top of the piston.
Serbian S3A Parachute model -->			Model ID sticker
			^ After some model launched, I noticed a little rectangular item flutter to the ground. Sure enough, it was a model ID sticker. If the flier got that model back, they would not have been able to fly it again due to lack of the ID Sticker. I went over to the results board and stuck the sticker onto the Senior S3A results board, in case it might be found there,  as I had no idea whose model it was lost from.
Junior Team practicing on sunday	Craig Vinyard with his Raven 10 S8D model	Some US team members watching the dancers during the opening ceremonies