Some Months Ago
Some months ago I got an Email: "We are coming." Ok,
they are coming. Oops?! They are COMING!!! Don't panic.
Where is the concrete? The Brits will come to F5D race
in Uelsen! Time to send an Email to Klaus Büter, the
organizer of the race in Uelsen: "Die Briten kommen!"
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The ultimate warning at
the tent of German team "Red Jackets": Jolly
Roger. This is no fun here! |
And really, the British Team (Banana
UK) arrived at Uelsen Airfield on Friday. Brave!
The first question was: „Where is the airfield?“.
Some German pilots, standing around there, answered shortly: „Overthere.“ Rob
stunned about the black humor of the German pilots. He
thougt: "Cool, we are right here. This is the camping
site of „Uelsen Airfield“. But where is the
airfield?" The launching model answered this question
in a final way. Unfortunately nobody took a picture of
the white faces now! The German do not have have black
humor, they are completely crazy!
Rumors said the first question had been: "What is
that green stuff around here growing that high?" But
as anybody knows in UK there are still some trees only
a little bit lack of forests since mediaeval times. Unfortunately
nobody said them before that some countries on the continent
had no Empire in the past and due to this still some forests.
Not just forests, deep, dark and dangerous virgin forests,
real rainforests. Such as Uelsen forest. And just in the
middle of this, there is the "Uelsen Airfield"
Some Days Ago
Another Email: "Ich will mit einigen Kollegen teilnehmen
in Uelsen". This had been Willy Verschoren. Our friends
from Belgium wanted to start in Uelsen too with 6 pilots:
3x F5D and 3x F5D-Limited. This means we have about 10
pilots more than normal. It's time again to warn Klaus
Büter: "Die Briten UND die Belgier kommen!!!"
The pilots from Belgium are more familiar with the geographical
details in this region. So they were not surprised to fly
in the middle of Uelsen rainforest and felt like home on
Friday evening. The Evening was quite nice, we were sitting
around campfire and telling old famous stories. Unfortunately
nobody ordered "Extra Hot" Kebap or Pizza this
year, maybe someone warned somebody before. We do not know,
maybe next year again.
Our friends from Austria are almost every year in Uelsen
but this time only the Mayr-Clan found the way to Uelsen:
Daniel, Günther and their father Walter Mayr. It is
a very long trip with their caravan. We never know if they
come but in the end they are simply there. Christian Hanke
from Switzerland made also a very long trip and of course
it was his first F5D competition ever! Erftstadt was just
an official training, not a regular competition.
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The F5D pilots from Belgium
and United Kingdom: John Stewart (GBR), Ivan Wautelet
(BEL), Sebastien Maes (BEL), Darren Goldfinch (GBR),
François Lorrain (BEL) and Rob Ashley-Roche
(GBR). |
Saturday Morning: "Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen!"
As the starting
list was closed at 10 o'clock, there had been overall
38 pilots: 23 in F5D and 15 in F5D-Limited. Wow, what
a big race! Bernhard Onken (Contest Director) calculated
and decided to fly 6 rounds this weekend. This means
only one discarded result for anyone. Anybody knows now
that this will be a tricky race. Reliability is more
important than "fast" times to reach a good
result in the end.
But Uelsen is not just known for claustrophobic atmosphere,
it is also famous for strong and changing winds. So the "Uelsen
Experience Factor" (UEF) has an influence to the results.
We will see in the end how the Uelsen newbies, and there
were also several German newbies, managed this.
|
Dirk Belting demonstrates
the German flight style: Try to stay permanently below
the top of the trees! |
The Speed Factor
The German models are to be assumed as fast but
are they really? When Rob startet to his first flight,
we were a little bit surprised that he had not just a good
setup, it was "burning". The batterie were pushing
really hard. The RPM of his motor sounded impressive. What
the hell is this for a setup? Now it was time to visit
their pavilion and take some pictures.
|
Team UK: John "the
Artist" Stewart, Rob Ashley-Roche and Darren Goldfinch.
Rob is reading some catalogue, but they are sitting
directly in front of their pavilion. We have to sneak
up now from behind... |
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Now we know something about
Robs next airplane but his batteries are even more
interesting... |
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Hmm, this box looks very
useful. But what the hell are these tiny cells there? |
Ok, they have something to do now, reading this catalogue.
A very good moment to take some snap-shots of their batteries
and all their stuff. No, not spying, we would never do
something like this! Let's say collection of some interesting
technical news and information...
The boxes they used for their charger and batteries are
more than just useful. Our pilots have their own home-made
solutions to transport all that stuff but this looks a
little bit more professional. The charger cases are available
at schulze-elektronik and
maybe we will see some more here in the future. This shows
that team UK is taking all this very seriously. They are
hot and really want to know the limit in F5D!
Hot is the right next question: How hot are their batteries?
They are charging and the flight-packs are lying on and
in their boxes made of thermoplastics... Please don't try
this with German flight packs! ;-)
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This controller is used
by some more pilots but "16 NC" provides... |
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...some more cells! Oh boy,
this is seriously. |
The inspection tour is finished now. These small cells
went really well but it is right before EWC now, so we
will not talk about all the details. The setup of all team
members of Banana UK was the most innovative one we have
seen this weekend, really impressive. But now the ultimate
check: Lap times?
Now we have to check for UEF first. Nobody of them ever
flew in Uelsen and airfields in Great Britain are more
similar to York Race-Course: Wide flat extensive greens
and next tree - we had that at the beginning. But their
ships were really great! So these were quite difficult
conditions. But if we check the best score, we find there
a 69,0s result of Rob. And at that time he flew still above
the top of the surrounding trees! Having higher UEF this
would had been a time very close to the very top.
|
Uelsen visitor: Ruud Zandvliet
(NED) (composite-models.nl)
and the "Demon", the new design for F5D World
Championships in Romania. |
The best round of the competition was Jens Bartels 63,4
seconds in round 2. He uses a classic 12x GP2000 setup.
In round 4 he was little to low after pylon #3 - shit happens.
Markus Wanner has checked how small a spar can be made.
He knows know the very limit. His wing collapsed in the
beginning of turn #1 and the fuselage made an impressive
solo flight. Maybe next plane will be build directly without
wing. On Robs website there is a video of this incident.
We had to start a rainforest expedition on saturday evening:
Only very small pieces and a surprisingly flat spinner
cone were found. The fuselage hit a tree! What else could
be hit in a damn rainforest?
Some other pilots tried to hide their model in Uelsen
rainforest too, but no Belgium and no British pilot! They
were respectful and only German pilots like Jens Goebel
testet if the trees are really that high as they look.
Yes, they are! But to apologize his mistake we have to
assume that his UEF was zero, he is an Uelsen newbie too.
The best F5D newbie was Daniel Kurz from Stuttgart, flying
his "Batleth" on place 8 in his first F5D race
ever! This was really the best pilot's performance of the
weekend.
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The Mayr-Clan (AUT) during
inspection of the "Demon": Günther,
Daniel and Walter Mayr. Seems to be quite interesting! |
Daniel and Günther Mayr improved their performance
again and reached place 5 and 9 with their "Nemesis" in
F5D. But there is some indication that the "Demon" could
be used later this season. They were really interested
in! This is only one single picture of a very long series.
In the next competition in Liezen (AUT) we will see how
they decided in the meantime.
|
Christian Hanke (SUI), Markus
Wanner (GER) and again "Demon". |
Christian Hanke flew his "Batleth" like an experienced
pilot in a very smooth but wide style. He was fast, but
not tight enough. Just a question of training. Having two
200 scores in the end, he had no chance for a top ten place
but the low 80s and high 70s were very constantly and this
is much more important than one or two best times. We will
survey his results very closely in the next races! As F5D
newbie place 15 and Rob right behind him on place 16 as
old racer from the island - we guess this may have something
to do with his fear of forests! We know some helpful therapy:
visit Uelsen again next year!
The best artistic performance - you cannot believe this
if you hadn't seen - was John Stewart. This very agil sportsman
turned the backside somersault having transmitter in his
hands during race! Rob (his helper) fisht the transmitter
then and recovered the model safely from the unconventional
flight path. This was really the best team performance
of the weekend!
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François Lorrain
(BEL) and the "Jibe". |
And the Belgian pilots? They flew not spectactular but
they had been fast. Due to UEF all of them had one 200
score too much, but François and Sebastien were
constantly and smooth on track. Without the discarding
problem they would have been in top 10 ranking. Sebastiens
67,9 seconds in round 3 (personal best time) is close to
the level of the German top pilots. The experience of the "F5D
World Championships York 2004" can be seen in his
flight style now. He has more experience and just needs
some more training to avoid 200 scores in any conditions.
The British and Belgian teams were all using the "Jibe",
the design of François Lorrain (flybiwo.com).
What is the conclusion after this F5D race in Uelsen?
The international level in F5D is closer, the F5D pylon
scene stronger than ever before. It was a great race in
a very kind, familiar atmosphere with many pilots of different
countries, really an international F5D meeting. Thank you
all for coming and we hope to welcome you again next year
in Uelsen rainforest!
Hartmut Siegmann
Links
Pictures: Patricia Brettner (pb),
Stefan Keller (sk), Ralf Metzger (rm) und Hartmut Siegmann
(-). |