Page 20 - MFWDec 2023

Prior to departure there was a certain amount of concern everyone…! Towline checking proved a bit of a
among some of us about the likely temperatures we would bottleneck, as many of the juniors had not arrived with
experience-justifiable concerns given the summer made up towlines-and were using the 50m towline tester
heatwave that was afflicting Europe in July-but fortunately to make up towlines rather than just testing them for length
these concerns were not realized-whilst the practice days (<50m with a 5kg load applied). During the actual official
during the week preceding the champs were very variable, flying, random spot checking of towlines and rubber
ranging from dead calm, to windy, to violent downpours motors was carried out on the field by the organizers-I was
and thunderstorms, the actual weather over the week of checked in 2013, this time it was Antony K’s turn to be
the twin Champs was very mild. One of the UK F1A team shoulder tapped.
expressed to me privately before departure that he
expected the sunflowers surrounding the site might prove The open air opening ceremony in Moncontour saw the
a problem-and though these were not the 6-7 foot tall usual parade of teams through Moncontour itself followed
giants I recall from 2013, having been replaced by a by a bevy of speeches from various local and FAI
smaller sunflower cultivar, his misgivings proved well dignitaries, entertainment from a steampunk mobile band,
founded-with numerous flyers landing amongst them on stilt walkers and several floats, followed by optional
F1B day-necessitating a thorough search and hard work cocktails at the local watersports clubrooms-and time to
by the retrieval teams. catch up with old friends from various countries.

The NZ team comprised Antony Koerbin and Chris F1A ( 14 Aug) was the first day of official flying, and with
Murphy in F1A, and David Ackery, Roger Morrell and Paul only Antony and I flying we were not under great pressure
Squires in F1B, whilst the retrieval team was made up of timewise-the round length being extended somewhat to
Roger Morrell’s grandson, Wes, and kiwi CL flier Bryce allow for the permitted four fliers now possible in each
Gibson-both of whom did the team proud. Team manager team. Neither of us being spring chickens-we opted for
duties were ably handled by Lindy Murrell, Roger’s wife- tactical flying-making use of Paul Squires and his
reprising her past TM’s role. Most of this year’s NZ team electronic system to monitor the wind and temperature
live in the lower NI, and had generally had enough time patterns and watch the thermal growth in real time on his
and decent weather to sort out their model fleet before tablet, rather than towing aimlessly waiting for lift and tiring
leaving-even if we had to walk into the farm at Carterton to ourselves out. When he confirmed a likely thermal build-
fly, conditions being the wettest in 40 years after a wet one or other of us would then tow up and start circling-
summer, wet autumn and wet winter. Dave Ackery being most of the time we would not have to tow for very long
Auckland based had not had as much luck with decent before finding the lift detected by the weather station-this
weather for trimming and testing, and as a result had to meant you still had enough stamina left to sprint for your
make maximum use of the available practice time in launch-which can be an issue if you’ve spent 25 or 30
France. In my case-I was somewhat undone by arriving in minutes towing beforehand. The first two rounds had 4
France ex Lebanon, where my wife had been visiting her minute (240 sec) maxes rather than just the first-I missed
family,….but without our luggage-leaving us with only the the first unfortunately-but was surprised to make the
clothes we stood up in-a situation that took over a week to second-Antony made no mistakes the whole day, and
rectify-in the meantime when I should have been out of the made it into the flyoff-whereas I changed models from my
field practising, we were driving around various small long calm model to a shorter span thermal trim one when
towns in search of clothing, toiletries and everything else the wind started to rise-which proved a big mistake. Once I
you need for a fortnight’s stay-largely unsuccessfully. reverted to the calm air model-several rounds later-I
Fortunately-the model box arrived with us-had it been the stopped dropping maxes. The performance of the top
other way round, luggage but no box, the situation would models and flyers has to be seen to be believed-the best
have been irretrievable-but the time lost did impact my are getting launch heights of 130 metres-from a 50 metre
performance. towline-whether using low drag LDA airfoils or flapped
wing models. The weather conditions on F1A day were
Processing-which took place on August 13th, was handled quite overcast and mild-little sun and fairly dark skies-this
very efficiently, a large gymnasium in Moncontour being did impose challenges for the timekeepers-especially
set up with multiple tables, allowing half a dozen teams to during the flyoffs-and with many fliers having recording
be processed at the same time, and TMs were given a altimeters fitted-either as an adjunct to the model’s on
timetable for their nation’s teams to report for processing. board electronics or part of it-the termination of the flight
The organizers were initially insistent on all models can be verified by the altimeter readings. This led to a
complying with EU drone registration-but a competitor number of fliers protesting their time keeper scores-and
revolt prior to arrival saw this requirement glossed over demanding the time recorded by the altimeter be accepted
and a single pre printed sticker applied to all models. As far as the official flight score-which was accepted in quite a
as I know it was the same registration number for few cases. Strictly speaking the rules do not allow this-but

View of part of the F1A flightline-over 400m from one end to the other
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