Easter F3F Hanstholm, Denmark 2007

This year I decided to enter the Easter F3F in Hanstholm mostly because it was part of the F3F Eurotour for the first time. Over 40 pilots entered and that is close to a record I think. I had to take a quick trip to Hamburg and pick up Tom Copp which decided to go to Denmark instead of La Muela, Spain. The wind direction was west and that meant the Cafeteria slope which is not the best. Building the harbour bigger and bigger has more and more destroyed the slope and makes it very turbulent. But turbulence is one thing, change of wind direction during rounds was another problem that many pilots had problems with.
It would have been very interesting having the weather logger going all day and actually could have seen what was going on. I hope my friend Kaare Aareskjold will have this device ready in not so long time.
Helge Borchert had the new Freestyler 3 and impressed us all with good flying. 3 Czech guys had also taken the long trip and Filip Kalensky (Fastest time of the day) flew his Ascot to 5th place. Kai Henning Nielsen won one round and got 6th place. Tom Copp flew his Caldera and Aris to 7th. place. Good old Klaus Untrieser showed us all that he still is a top contender and ended up in 3rd. I flew my prototype RaceM Ultimate to 2nd place and was quite happy with that. This model is not yet in production and we will test it properly before we decide to produce it. It was quite promising but to early to tell if it is any better or worse than the RaceM F3F.
Top ten list:
Helge Borchert, Freestyler 3
Espen Torp, RaceM Ultimate
Klaus Untrieser, Aris
Knud Hebsgaard, Ellipse 2
Filip Kalensky, Ascot
Kai Henning Nielsen, Elita V
Tom Copp, Aris and Caldera
Jörgen Larsen, Aris
Jan Wichmann,
Frank Wiedemann,

Going outdoors

Last Sunday we had our first F3F competition this year. As can seen on the sea it was not much wind so it was cancelled. Anyway we had a good day out and it was good to meet the guys again. Some of us went to Ole Vidar and had a look at his 1:2,5 Wilga positive. If you ask me this is a crazy project. The size and the amount of details is breathtaking. Ole Vidar has several big projects behind him and one of them can be seen in a big article in the latest Auwind magazine. It is a ca 8meter wingspan Antares.

Arild Moellerhaug giving the Aris of Rolf B. a good launch

Arild with one of his 3 Arises (they all used to be mine)

Wilga positive, Ole Vidar on the left.

The positive is pretty heavy

Karl Petter had a little show with his Schock flyer.

In Slovakia week 9 and 10

A picture of me and the positive for the new RaceM elevator made in aluminium by Jan Hansen.
The progress is a little bit slower than expected due to heavy work load but we hope to start production soon.
I am in Slovakia to help my partner in ET-Air Slovakia with the UAV project. All molds will be ready this week and we can start to make tests.
The weather here has not been so good but that is fine for us as we have to work indoors anyway :-)

Finally we got some better weather and we went to the Airport for some flying.

Very nice Wizard Compact II with Ferrari paint scheme

Miro Polonec with his electric and DLG Logostick

Miro Majercik launching the Logostick

www.et-air.com

New model for Video filming

I have finally made ready the new Videoplane which I intend to use for landscape filming.

Check this link: http://www.et-air.com/index.cfm?id=120883

Apart from this the weather here is not normal with + 6 degrees and rain (well rain is pretty normal). The fields are green and if you did not know better it could be April.

So there has been no chance to test the videoplane with camera yet, but the first flight without equipment went very well.

Logostick, new DLG from ET-Air

I will soon post more pictures of this little beautiful model on www.et-air.com

The quality is very high and it fits ET-Air standard very well.

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays to all people reading this blog!

I am enjoying some days off and I try to do some web work to catch up a little bit. Today I was out doing some photos in the local river. This picture is taken in the middle of the river system near by my flat and is barely moving forward here. This place is well known for its birds and in fact I was using one of the birdspotter towers when I shoot this picture. This and many other pictures will be used in a DVD compilation I am making together with a friend. It will be ready next Christmas. We will use still photos, ground video, aerial stills and aerial video to cover the complete river system.

The next picture is taken where the river starts.

Trip to Slovakia

Check out ET-Air news section to find a little story from the trip and some pictures.

I had with me Alex McMeekin and we had a good trip and met some interesting people.

Jano, Brano and Espen at Aerodesign workshop.

Some news

Check out www.et-air.com for some news about the new fuselage for RaceM.
The picture shows a CAD drawing made by Jan Hansen, Denmark.
The positives will be milled in aluminium and will hopefully be ready early next year.

Trip to Hanstholm, Denmark

I knew already 3 days before leaving for Denmark that it would be a relaxed weekend and no F3F flying. The reason was a high pressure building up over southern Scandinavia and this normally does not give much wind. And unfortunately I was right. Very little wind but a very nice trip. The first picture show Jesper Jensen, Keld Jensen and Jan Hansen doing free flying while we waited for more wind. Next picture show their models. Last picture we can see Joergen, Regnar, Knud and Kai. In the background you can spot Rolf with his new camera. Maybe they were discussing the wind that never came.....

Finally some practice....

I can't remember the last time I got some good F3F practice in. (maybe I have to read my blog)
Well conditions was nice with around 7-8ms almost straight into my home slope Hodne only 8 minutes away from my home. I had two good 10 minutes practice runs with my RaceM F3F http://www.et-air.com/index.cfm?id=85380 and it felt pretty good. I tested several different turning styles and now I have no idea of what to do....
Then came Paal and flew his paraglider and I got some pics of him before I grabbed my video camera. This guy is amazing with his paraglider. I hope to edit the video and post it so you can see for yourself. He does with his body the same things we do with models. I am as ever very impressed with his flying. Paal is besides a paraglider also a model enthusiast of course, he flies helis, power and sailplanes.

Airbus training at Sola Airport

I just would like to share this picture of SAS Airbus 340 doing test flights at Sola Airport Stavanger, Norway. Picture was taken in 2002.

Test flying a new field

Today I drove half an hour to test a new flying field made by Jonny Ueland on his farm. The airstrip can be used for microlight aircraft and model airplanes. I had my winch with me but I decided to use the rubber as it was quite windy. As normal I could not get any friends to join me so I did not fly so much, but the air was quite good and I had some good flights.
I then took a couple of flights with the heli to take some pictures.

Test report

Just testing blogging from my cell phone

Viking Race 2006, Scotland

This years Viking Race was the all time biggest with almost 90 competitors. The debate is already on if this is too much or not. I will get back with more on this and other F3F topics later.
We only managed to get 5 rounds in and with typical inland conditions this was not enough to have an even race. So many "good" pilots ended up way down the list and even the winners were very familiar there were lots of surprises in the top 20 list.
The event was organized by a few Scottish enthusiast and a handful of English/international helpers. The step-in CD made a couple of wrong decisions in my point of view but the weather was the main problem with no wind and cross wind. We also flew all the days at East Lomond hill which certainly was quite demanding for the pilots.
If we had managed 7-8 rounds I think the competition would have been pretty good.
More to follow.....
Links: www.knewt.com
Well a few days after the event I am still a little disappointed but we must not forget that this is an outdoor event and many things can go wrong. It does not mean we have to keep F3F to the same format and the same rules in the future. We have to decide if we want a big social event or a real F3F competition. In Scotland most of the pilots seemed to go for a three man team option if they could choose. The Viking Race has always been a limited open event. It means that the organizer can invite as many or as few pilots they wanted. I think the people who invented F3F never thought that there would be as many as 90 pilots in one event. As this class is so dependent on the weather it is not practical to have contest with large numbers if you want to give relatively equal conditions to all pilots.
This is not new of course, we have always had problems with rising and falling wind and thermals, crosswind and other factors. The best way to deal with uneven conditions has always been to run as many rounds as possible. Until last year 10 rounds was the maximum number of rounds, now there is no limit.
In F3B there is a possibility of flying the speed in groups, but most pilots do not like this and most want to fly the speed in one group. This is also my meaning in F3F. We should try to fly the rounds in F3F in one group. But we could make some rules that would allow the organizer to use this option but the rules for this must be very clear and should only be used if absolutely necessary.
Our biggest problem today is the poor measurement of the weather conditions. We must be able to make a weather station which by itself can measure the wind conditions and determine re flights by itself. This would help the CD a lot. I also think we should reconsider the rules concerning the lowest wind speed and the most crosswind (45 degrees). It would be better that the CD could decide which wind speed and direction would be the lowest for a certain hill/slope.
The weather station should have the option for 2,3,4,5,6ms and some different crosswind possibilities that could be preset for the day. Lets face it, not all slopes gives enough lift at 3ms and 45 degrees of crosswind. So if this could be changed we would in my point of view have a much better system and a contest would be easier to handle.
I also think we should make more precise method of measuring the wind and direction. Instead of the current rule we should have an average of the flight and a green or red light if the conditions was OK or not. The pilot should also be given the right to keep the score if he wanted to.
In Scotland they shifted the start order by 10 pilots each day, not each round. Since we did not fly more than 3 days this rotation only made 3 shifts. Well this is also a way of doing it. I think we must look into another way. I can see 2 ways right now and I think both of them could be used. Organizers has to tell in advance which method.
1) Draw all the rounds. It means nobody can tamper with the start list. All rounds are drawn and handed out to each team or all the competitors in advance. This is the easiest way of doing it and probably the most justified method.
2) Draw the first round. Then fly all the following rounds after the ranking principle. Fly the last pilots first (or last in the round). With this system there will always be changes in the start order. This method requires a PC/printer at the slope (or near by) to keep the flow of the contest running. The Germans tried this in the German Open last year and it works!

et 22.9.2006

Norwegian Championship, F3B

Finally home after a long drive from the east to the west of Norway. As I am the only F3B pilot in the west at the moment I had to take the trip alone. Thanks to Egil R. for letting me stay one night in his house on my way to the Championship. And also thanks to Espen G. and Lars N. for taking care of me during the Championship. This is rather important for me as I can concentrate more on the flying.
This year we started to fly Friday evening and got to fly 3 tasks.
Next day the weather was fine and we managed to fly 4 full rounds. In the beginning I did not do so well but after some flights I was back in business and to my surprise I was leading after four rounds. Not by much so the lead was fragile.
The organiser, Cirrus RCK did a good job but they had few helpers. But what a good job they did, even Lars's 12 year old daughter stayed in the B-base chair for all rounds of distance! Thanks to all the helpers, they certainly did a super job.
The forecast for Sunday was not good and indeed it started with heavy rain and low clouds. After a while the rain stopped and we all started rigging our equipment and we were more or less ready when the rain started again. They set the start to 11.30 but the rain kept coming down and then finally at 13.00 they called the Championship off for the day.
So in my 20th. F3B Championship in a row I was declared the winner. Also this meant I was qualified for the next years World Championship which will be my 11th WC in a row.
2nd. place went to Erik Morgan and third to Widar Holmedal which actually could not attend on Sunday as he got ill. I guess he was happy that the weather did not cooperate.