Sorry for the delay in getting this into the blog, my blogging abilities appear to be somewhat limited and the time to understand what I was doing wrong was not available. Part 3 will be a bunch of Photos with comments as taken from Michelle's camera.
Round 2
The mud was deeper and it was colder (“I wish I had visited the shops back home like Michelle asked”), it was no longer possible to get by with bare feet or just accepting dirty shoes, Wolfy went to market to get us “gummi boots”. Thank goodness for the two young helpers Wolfgang organized from Salzburg (George and Mouritz), they ran out new lines and carted the batteries back and forward from the flightline, not an easy job in ankle deep mud.
Duration
The air was easier for Dion and I so we maxed without too much incident, my model was not well set up for landing and the elevator compensation was such that when going fast it pitched hard down and when slow it pitched up – a real handful that I really must spend some time fixing now that we are home (this is one of the problems with flying an unknown model). Michelle’s group had really bad air and I think she came second with a 6:46.
Distance
For the most part I would say that the comment for distance was the same as round 1 for Dion but for Michelle I think it was a case of bad air and bad choices, I remember that she flew the laps in big sink, for me it was a line break followed by flying off the line in cross wind launch (not having a good model setup, hmmm).
Speed – ok – we needed to anticipate Base B and improve our launch.
During distance Dion received a penalty which caused some distress and affected his flying.
Round 3
The mud was deeper and it was colder (“I wish I had visited the shops back home like Michelle asked”), it was no longer possible to get by with bare feet or just accepting dirty shoes, Wolfy went to market to get us “gummi boots”. Thank goodness for the two young helpers Wolfgang organized from Salzburg (George and Mouritz), they ran out new lines and carted the batteries back and forward from the flightline, not an easy job in ankle deep mud.
Duration
The air was easier for Dion and I so we maxed without too much incident, my model was not well set up for landing and the elevator compensation was such that when going fast it pitched hard down and when slow it pitched up – a real handful that I really must spend some time fixing now that we are home (this is one of the problems with flying an unknown model). Michelle’s group had really bad air and I think she came second with a 6:46.
Distance
For the most part I would say that the comment for distance was the same as round 1 for Dion but for Michelle I think it was a case of bad air and bad choices, I remember that she flew the laps in big sink, for me it was a line break followed by flying off the line in cross wind launch (not having a good model setup, hmmm).
Speed – ok – we needed to anticipate Base B and improve our launch.
During distance Dion received a penalty which caused some distress and affected his flying.
Round 3
This time I got the lousy duration air but I wasn’t close to the top of my group. The only thing to write home about was that our speeds seemed better than in previous worlds. Distance was not great!
Round 4
And what do you know. The organisers had managed to get some straw onto the field, the rain had abated and the South Africans came out to play F3B. This round was much better for us with all three of us moving up the table.
Duration
Around this time I added a 2 frank coin to get more stable for Distance and duration, this improved the feel and made turns better! My air was easy but then a big storm hit in last 30 seconds and I was lucky to put glider down within 10m circle with my timing flying right out the window. (precious points lost). Michelle had a really difficult flight and too much concentration led to lack of down elevator input on landing, she flew over the spot, I think she wanted to see how high I could jump, little did she know I had turned and run!
Two Thousands in Distance!!
Our Speeds were pretty average.
Round 5
Michelle put in another excellent round with the best SA speed and distance.
Ceres works well in good F3B conditions, Duration is more of a challenge for the model but it is a nice aggressive tool to fly with.
Round 6
Dion asked for a little thermal, so that was what we found him. One guy in the round went across the runway and managed to find a good thermal, a lot of the rest of us came short on time. Dion was not happy about duration at this point. The rest of the results were badly scattered with average speed times and Michelle being killed in distance. There wasn’t really anything we could do to help her with this distance, Jeroen launched late and went to the opposite (hangar) side of the field. As Michelle had already relaunched there was no time to go again and 3 laps in the sink made it impossible to cros over the field to the OK air on the other side. The problem here is that you know you are doing damage control but as it was not possible to land on the hangar side f the field Michelle would not be able to get to that side and do any laps before having to return. This was the worst flight for me to call air for in distance as there was nothing anyone could do but watch as the group took a pounding. Michelle had beaten Jeroen in the round where she scored a 1000, when he takes his revenge he does it seriously.
Round 7
Easy Duration, lots of lift around and Dion was given a Beeg thermal.
I think my speed slot at end of lift cycle, the time compared well with those to follow.
Michelle received a standing ovation from those that witnessed her speed – it was flown with as much style as anything I saw from the Herrigs, good one Shell!
Distance
Dion – took too long to move to good air side and was low on entering, possible correction is launch height improvement, speed of getting out of bad air and direction of the zoom. I did not listen to callers but the reasoning was that I had air and was trying for a win not a good score and flying back to the close air would have cost altitude (no time for a relaunch). The balance between flying what you feel and forcing yourself to do what others say is not easy.
That was the end! Actually it wasn’t quite – now it was time to pack up the models and clean all the mud off the equipment that had been borrowed.
Thanks to all who wished us well and assisted us on the journey, there are really too many to mention by name and not bore PJ,
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