European F3C Championships 2010

[Steve]

Good luck chaps.

I guess from your comment Steve, and the photo of your heli that you've gone all electric like Mark?

How are you finding it?

What about Dave? Has he electrified an Avro, or still on IC?

[Kwickkwack]

Best of luck guys
Look forward to the reports

[Jamin_00]

OOO yea good luck guys.

Vids and pics a plenty please


btw, would be good to see Mark back but I doubt that will happen.

[Bluegarry1]

Very best of luck to all of Team UK. Do us proud guy's

Garry

[Mutley]

Any updates ?

[pchristy]

Any updates ?

Link: European F3C Championships 2010 - AllMYRC

[Steve Roberts]

Hi Guys

SOrry for the lack of updates so far, the internet connection is pretty poor in the hotel that we are staying in.

I guess that most of you have seen Marks updates on allmyrc so I wont go into too much detail as to what has happened so far but will just reflect on some of the highlights and lowlights so far!

Well we all arrived at the hotel in the city of Sibiu. Mark arrive early evening after his eppic drive across Europe and the rest of us arrived around midnight after a little hassel at the Airport. It took nearly 2 hours for the model boxes to be brought up to the luggage lounge but after a little brib of £10 the chap arrived remarkably quickly.

The hire cars also took nearly 2 hours to sort so we were all pretty tired once we had left for the 4 hour drive across Romania. Some of the roads are pretty interesting! Pitch dark up mountain passes with pot holed roads and everyone overtaking everyone else on blind bends! Great!!!!

Mark had to come and find up in town with the owner of the hotel as Julies sat nat didn't recognise the GPS co-ords that we had.

Practice is going well with plenty of space on the airfield that the contest is on, if needbe we can use a peice of land out side the hotel which is fantastic.

Model processing went without a hitch so we are now offically entered into the contest and ready for battle.

Today was offical practice so we all had a chance to fly on the actual flight line that will be used to get used to it. Some of the judges were in attendance and it was inteesting to here there thoughts on manouvers that were being flown.

Dave is flying first out of the brits tomorrow and is also perfoming the calibration flight along with the Israli pilot.

I'm 1st up after lunch so hopefully the juges will be fat and happy!

Mark is a few pilots after me so should have the same conditions. If it anything like it has been it will be very hot with thermals blowing through.

[pchristy]

Bruce Naylor is posting a highly entertaining blog of the event from a Judge's perspective over on the AHA website:

Judging Perspective - AHA: Association for Helicopter Aerosports



Enjoy!

[Steve Roberts]

Hi guys

Well today was the first day of actual competition. It all kicked off at 8:30 when two pilots who had been randomly picked out of a hat were asked to fly calibration flights. These are so that the judges can all make notes and score the flight and then all talk about it so that they are all looking for the same things.

Dave flew one of the calibration flights which was very good indeed.

The weather today is sunny again but a little cooler and nearly flat calm.

Dave flew his offical flight at 11:25 and did a good job. A few mistakes but everyone is, just nerves I guess.

His score came back as a 195 which was a little dissapointing but I guess that the judges just didn't like the style that he was using.

I flew first after lunch and was hopeing that the judges were feeling fat and relaxed! Bruce (UK judge) came over to the start circle while Mark and myself were preparing to wish us good luck and inform us that he has sorted out the lack of ice cream issue!

I had a good flight with just a few minor mistakes and scored at 220.5. Sure enought when I had landed a local chap arrived with an ice cream as had been promised by Bruce, a little bit of releaf from the intnese heat. Mark followed up a few pilots later with a 214.5

At the time when we left the field I was sitting in 3rd with a Fin and the defending champion infront of me and Mark was 6th.

So far so good for the Brits, its just started to rain at the hotel so hopefully they would have got through all of the flights.

More soon

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

We have now completed 3 rounds of competition and the Brits are curenlty lying in 5th, 10th and 18th.

Mark and myself are pretty much gaurenteed a place in the finals so we have started to practice the flyoff schedual. Dave is on the cusp so is still practicing hard on the P schudual.

The team event has changed this year, we now take final positions and add them together, whoever ends up with the lowest number is the winner. After 3 rounds and dropping the lowest the UK is in 2nd place. Lets hope that we can keep this up as from memory this would be the highest finishing place that the UK has ever acheived.

I'll keep you updated on the final 15 pilots.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Sorry that I din't manage to update you last night but the internet connection was down again!

Anyway the preleminary rounds are now over, these are asically like qualifying to get into the finals which will therefore decide who will actually win.

I am currently 5th overall, Mark is 10th and Dave just missed out and has finished 16th.

We all had god flights yesterday appart from Mark who had something in his eyes during his aerobatics, still managed to land in the centre circle on his auto, I think that he should fly with his eyes closed more often!

The team is still in 2nd overal but there is now a question of the Austrian teams entry.

One of the Austrian team is defending champion which normally means that they would bring 4 pilots, 3 for the team and the defending champ. They are claiming that there are entred as Austria which would mean that they are well out in the lead but the offical bulletin says otherwise. Scott our team manager has asked to see the paperwork!

Today is the rain day which is put into place just incase of bad weather earlier in the week. Me and Mark are going to do some more practice and if we are happy enough then we will all go off sight seeing this afternoon.

We fly 2 rounds of the finals tomorrow.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Today was spent learning the flyoff schedual which we only really fly once a year in the UK at the British nationals.

This is a much harder set of manouvers but I think that we have got to grips with it now!

Dave also had several practice flights as he has been asked to fly one of the calibration flights tomorrow as he is the first pilot not to make it through the cut.

We spent some of the afternoon having a break from flying and went into the local city of Sibiu for a look around.

Mark and myself headed back to the field late this afternoon for another couple of flights to work on little issues we were having but all is now well, or so we hope!

I thought that I would give you a break down of what the UK pilots were flying.

Dave Fisher
Blitz Avro, OS91HZ, Hatori pipe, JR PCM10x radio with Spektum modual, JR servos and gyro, Optifuel 30% SLV.

Mark Christy
Trex 700E, Futaba radio, mini G, Radix blades, Lightmax Li-Po's, Robbe ESC.

Steve Roberts
JR Sylphide 90 converted to electric, JR SuperGracy V3 fus, Scorpion 4035-400, CC 85HV esc, Kokam Li-po's, JR DSX12, JR servos and 7000T gyro.

Steve

[Kwickkwack]

Good luck guys, Hope you all good flights from here on in

[Steve Roberts]

Well the European Champs are now over and we are all back in the UK, and I'm stuck at work

Sorry for the lack of updates over the last few days but its been a hectic schedule and the internet kept on dropping out!

Unfortunately both Mark and myself dropped a few places in the flyoffs mainly because this is a schedule that we do not fly very much in the UK.

Its been agreed by the current team that we will try to fly it more and get it flown at contests from now on.

It was clear that many other teams had been flying it as they all picked up in the finals.

The final results were;

1st Ennio Grabber (SUI)
2nd Ari Holstrom (FIN)
3rd Bernard Eggar (AUT)

10th Steve Roberts
12th Mark Christy

The weather for the final few days was incredibly hot and humid, probably in the mid to late 30's so us Brits who are used to wind and rain were suffering!

The team ended up in 5th overall. The team placings now also include the flyoff rounds so its even more inportant to firstly make it into the finals and also to have a good understanding of the flyoff schedual.

As I said in an earlier post there was a question over the Austrian team. This was mainly because they had the reining Champ in there team. Normally he would be his own team and 3 other team members would make up the national team. It turns out that they had entered him as a national team member so his scores did actually count but it was worth a try!

All in all I think that the Brits did pretty well and we had a great time. We have leant a lot and hope to put this into good use next year at the World Champs in Italy.

Mark set off at 5am yesterday morning and I think that he is now safley back in the UK after his eppic drive across Europe. The rest of the team headed for the airport at 8am for out afternoon flight which was delayed! It took about 4 hours to drive the mainly mountain roads before getting to the only motorway in Romania! We arrived back at Heathrow at just after 7pm and remarably out luggarge came out almost immediately!

I hope that you have enjoyed the posts. I'll get some more pictures up over the next couple of days now that I have a decent internet connection.

Reports will also be appearing in the model mags.

Steve