Wednesday, December 17, 2008

F3B World Champs - Ivančice near Brno (Czech Republic) from 3 – 9 August, 2009

The link to the 2009 F3B world champs is now available;

http://www.f3b2009.com/

Bulitin No. 1 has been posted.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

F3B Team Trials - Groengoudt - Nov 2008

Early morning setup at Groengoud
Below are the round by round results of the F3B Team Trials held at Groengoud on the 22 November 2008.

In order to make this event as "man-on-man" as possible and because there were only 8 pilots competing, all pilots flew together in Duration. The Distance task was divided into 2 slots per round with 4 pilots at a time and matrixed into different groups for each round so as to give all pilots as much chance to fly against different combinations of pilots. The Speed task were, as per normal, one after the other.

Round 1 started bang on the advertised time of 08:30 (a first for us F3B pilots. Well done guys and girls). Duration first, then distance, then speed. Then Round 2 started with speed, then distance and then duration and round 3 duration, distance, speed etc. etc. This format worked very well and was very well received.
Very busy base A during the distance task
Congratulation to all the pilots for a very good event and of course all the helpers.

Wolfgang doing distance with Peter Joffe callingBig team effort: Dion flying speed with Herman and Michelle callingF3B is impossible to run without flagmen and base A timers. I cannot put into words just how grateful I am to those special people that always willingly and selfishly offer their help whenever there is an F3B event. You guys are very special.

THANK YOU ALL.

Lionel preparing to launch Michelle's Ceres



The Team trial scores are added to the best of the two qualifiers.


Well done to Craig Goodrum, Michelle Goodrum, and Dion Liebenberg who qualify for the 2009 SA National F3B Team. Paul Carnal as first reserve, Herman Weber as second reserve, etc…
Ricky Mitchell holding Herman's Ceres
Still smiling - Martie manning the refreshment tent
Michelle and helpers doing emergency repairs to her broken off Ceres nose - had to get it flying to finish the round.Craig took his eyes off his model for a moment and when looked back up started flying someone else's model. The result ...
Dion bringing back the peices with Peter Moore after a high speed stall on the base A turnWolfgang discussing damage with Michelle and Jason after unexplained lock-out


A more detailed report can be found on the MGA Blog. http://mgasa.blogspot.com/ with more on the BERG Blog http://www.berg-gliders.blogspot.com/


Some kids just can't keep clean - lovely grass fields and they still get all dirty. Clockwise left to right Craig, Michelle (nail varnish still intact), Lionel and Dion

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

F3B Qualifier No 2 Results

On Sunday the 17 August the second of the F3B Qualifiers were held at BERG.
The plan was to start early (Around 08h00) so we could try and get in 6 rounds. Craig and Michelle had set up the speed sights the day before into, what was considered to be the normal wind direction. But as Murphy would have it, Sunday dawned cold and overcast and of course the wind at ninety degrees to the way the sight were set up.
So when everyone had arrived, a brief discussion was held and the vote was taken to reset the sights. With everyone chipping in to help, the sights were dismantled and set up in the right direction.
In the meant time Martie, had the breakfast on the go and after about a 45minutes delay to move the sights and have something to eat we were ready to start.

Because of the stiff breeze blowing straight up the winch lines the launched were good if you didn't blow the line. In fact, broken lines and waiting for teams to get them fixed was the main reason for the slow rotation of slots. Something that will have to be addressed for future comps.

Despite the inclement weather the day produced some surprising lift patterns with some slots having an easy time while others were very challenging.

Speed times were good on average with high launches possible and the stiff breeze helping.

Of the 12 pilots that entered, only 2 didn't make the start and Rodney and Derek suffered equipment failure with their models so they could not complete all the rounds.

In all we managed to squeeze in a total of five rounds, with some juggling of slots which helped to reduce round duration. In fact the last two slots of duration were flown after the sun had set and despite this the pilots were still able to get 10 minutes flights. The last landing was in almost total darkness.

Well done to all the pilots and helpers. Especially the helpers. Without you guy, this type of event will be almost impossible. We salute you!! Thanks a million.

Results and round by round break down below.
If anyone wants a copy of the spread sheet, send me an email and I'll post it to you.

Evan





Thursday, February 21, 2008

F3B League - round 1










Hello All




We held the first round of F3B league on Sunday and despite the small entry I think fun was had by all (I know I did) Evan has worked out the scores (with the handicap etc - think he used a Cray Super computer) and some interesting results emerge.

The Results were as follows:

Pilot Ave Raw Score Handicap End result Rank

Michelle 1854.15 1.0321 1989.61 1

Peter 1621.11 1.1898 1928.84 2

Craig 1913.72 1.0000 1913.72 3

Piet 1587.69 1.2034 1910.55 4

Dion 1580.24 1.0676 1687.05 5




B League
Robert 1600 1.0000 1600 1

(Sorry about the clunky format - I don't seem to be able to generate tables properly - If you need the spreadsheet of results drop me a mail and I will forward it to you)





I would like to than all who helped - Evan for CD'ing - Tony, Gordon, Peter, Edmund and Samantha who sat out in the hot sun, Justice for running lines in the same hot sun and Martie for keeping us fed and watered. Also Derek for providing the photos.




To those that flew - thanks for putting in the effort (even although there was some discussion about using egg timers and/ or calendars for timing the increasingly inaptly named "speed" task!) I hope you enjoyed it and that you will be back next time.
To those who missed out - you missed out! Come and join us next time (remember league every second month)