2019 F5J World Champs Managers Report

First FAI World Championship for RC Electric powered Model Aircraft - F5J Gliders
Authored by Jan Sime

The Slovak Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest.

Most of Slovakia is mountainous and would be better suited to slope soaring than thermal soaring. Fortunately the Western part consists of rolling hills and farmland close to the city of Trnava.

Many people consider the Trnava model flying club as the birthplace of competitive F5J flying.

On the 7th August Mike Vos, the first South African to compete in a F5J world championship, and I arrived in Vienna, Austria, checked the transport tubes and with a sigh of relief loaded everything in our trusty Ford Estate and drove to the Boleras and Trvana airfield.

The field was already a hub of activity with pilots testing and tweaking their planes for the Trnava Cup, a pre-world championship event, designed to enable all pilots to get used to the field and atmospheric conditions.

This also allowed the organisers to train the officials for the event. This was a massive task as the Trnava Cup had a flight line of 18 pilots and they needed two timekeepers per lane.

There was a large number of planes used in the competition. Mike had two Maxas, a heavy model to be used in windy conditions and a lighter one for calmer conditions. A lightweight, big flap Xplorer would be utilised for very still conditions with minimal lift, like very early in the morning or for the last rounds which took place about seven o’clock in the evenings.

The SA planes. As every competitor is only allowed three models, the Xplorer in front with the cruciform tail was taken along in case one of the others was damaged before the main competition.

Thankfully the only scare we had was when the lighter Maxa inexplicably lost signal and crash landed in the top of a tree.

Damage to the leading edge was quickly repaired using a kit kindly supplied by Vladimir and Flashtape.

Unfortunately we could not pinpoint the cause of the loss of signal and did not have enough confidence that the fault would not re-occur, so Mike was down to two planes.

The very nice area that was set out by the organisers suffered a severe storm with many tents badly damaged.

Fortunately we could fix ours quickly but took down the covering every night as a precaution.

F5J for electric gliders is a technical sport with specialised equipment. As the buzzer sounds for the task you start your 30 second motor run and launch the plane. At the same time the timekeeper starts the stopwatch. Up to 200m height you incur a penalty of 0,5 points per meter gained and after 200m 3 points per meter. The motor run time and altitude are measured by a Altimeter/Motor Run Timer and is checked by the official directly after landing.

The time for the task is 10 minutes and the competitor who launches just after the buzzer and lands just before the end signal would have a flight time of maximum nine minutes fifty nine seconds.

Starting with 50 points for a landing within 1m of the designated spot pilots earn bonus points. Every meter further from the spot reduces the landing points by 5 up to 10m were the score is 5 points.

The weather was variable throughout the competition with some hot calm days with huge booming thermals (atypical according to the locals) to hot windy days with difficult flying conditions. During one of the rounds Thomas Wackerlin flew a Dynamic Soaring pattern downwind of some trees for nearly ten minutes, winning that round in his group. His flying can be seen at:

https://www.facebook.com/denis.skrabl/videos/pcb.2337268663031373/2337255643032675/?type=3&theater&ifg=1

The Brazilians had a very clever stand that held 9 planes fully assembled. There was no space for people inside so they erected an extra Gazebo for the pilots.