Page 21 - MFWDec 2023

it happened and was allowed to stand…so the rules will
have to be rewritten somehow to correct the anomaly. 47
fliers out of the entry of 116 fliers made the first flyoff round-
with a max set at 6 minutes-including Antony Koerbin-who
hadn’t put a foot wrong all day-but 6 minutes at 8pm at
night is a bit of a challenge-and only 15 of the 47 made it
through to the second flyoff round-and Antony had to be
content with a very creditable 30th place

F1B day (16 Aug) saw warmer sunnier weather than F1A
day-though thermal activity was busy, they were by and
large fairly small-with models travelling 2km or so if high,
and lesser distances if not. Being unable to test the air with F1B day-view from the flightline back towards HQ. drift was generally
the model on tow the way F1A glider flyers much more towards the top left of the picture.
effort is expended on lift picking, and streamers, wind
meters and full electronic weather stations are heavily
used-making the flightline and adjacent upwind area a
clutter of masts and streamer poles-plus various flyers and
helpers keeping a close eye on adjacent teams’ launches-
and any sign of a good climb into lift generally precipitating
a rush of other people to get into the same thermal. I split
my time between assisting Dave Ackery on the flightline
and acting as a retrieval shuttle ‘go-between’ with Bryce
Gibson who was stationed well downwind. Another large
entry of 109 fliers-and the same increased 4 min max for
the first two rounds saw a similar number of fliers-50- max
out-and make it into the first flyoff with a full house of 1380
seconds-as it turned out, only a single flyoff was needed-
the winner, Bozo Grubic of Serbia being the only one to
make the 8 min flyoff max time with a score of 480secs Dave Ackery waiting for indications of lift, Antony Koerbin checking for
launches on other poles.
Our three NZ fliers-Dave Ackery, Roger Morrell and Paul
Squires all got off to good starts, Dave dropped the second
round, but continued to max for the remaining 5 rounds,
Paul likewise dropped the second, recovered for the
remainder and was unlucky to miss the last round max by a
paltry 2 seconds short of the needed 180. In contrast
Roger started well with three maxes in a row-but was then
beset by a number of problems-some of which made no
sense at all, but with post mortems seem to have arisen
from interference between the onboard GPS beacon and
the electronic timer-leading to a possible servo glitch and
an early DT which messed up several flights. Subsequent
discussions with various people established that Shot of the Kiwi team area partway through F1B day.
it is a known-but not very common occurrence-
but it could not have chosen a worse time to
appear. So F1B was not one of our great
performances this time round. There was not a
lot apparently new to see in terms of F1B
development-the Hungarians next to us
were using an electric rubber winder rather
than a mechanical one-but did not seem to
gain any advantage-nor seem disadvantage
by it-they certainly did not seem to break
any more motors during winding than
anyone else-so it seems more novelty
than anything-and of course you need
some form of power supply to
operate. Our weather station
seemed to work as well for picking lift
as any of the other methods in use-
though I noticed the US team
adjacent were using electronics,
Paul Squires and Antony Koerbin on F1A day. F1B day-Paul Squires looking happy.
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