The F3B calendar 2019 looks somewhat different than the one from the years before. Very striking, a ROOKIE, a new one, a ROOKIE organizer if you like. Denmark is very well known in the F3F scene and should be suddenly attractive for the F3B pilots? The longer you thought about it and didn't have to deal with any conflicts with your personal schedule, it was clear, this year Denmark F3B is on the program! One thing is for sure; this decision was without a doubt the right one!
On Friday noon the pilots were welcomed by Jan Hansen, Søren Krogh and John Rasmussen and the whole Danish team, consisting of extremely friendly, multilingual boys and elders, men and women, pilots and non pilots. The welcome was very warm and Jan knew almost all the names of the pilots, respect! Since the journey is very far for many participants, there were also already Thursday night the first journeys at the airfield, in order to use the whole Friday for a few training flights.
Apropos airfield -> pure camping luxury with warm club rooms, several showers and toilets, as well as delicious cakes and hearty sausages throughout the weekend. Simply great! A large hangar or a heated workshop is available to recharge the batteries. So there are no excuses for all the frostbite pilots in cool and windy Denmark.
After a short briefing on Saturday morning and the hint that this was the first bigger competition for the Danish team, the time flight started around 09:00 o'clock. With low wind speeds around 6 - 10 kt and local thermals some pilots had to struggle with the conditions. It was more difficult than expected, so for example the pilots Frank Thomas and Lucas Günther had to give points already in the first discipline. The wind freshened up and the cross-country flight promised hot fights. After initial difficulties with the recognition of the aviators by the helpers, many interesting flights (on both sides) could be observed. A constant indicator for potentially good air were the seagulls. Of course, we are also close to the coast.
The speed flight started the end of the first lap. Also here the times were to be found first in the 16 ern, rarely in the 15 ern. Besides Frank Thomas (14,81 s) only Johannes Krischke (13,51 s) cracked the 15 mark. It should also be mentioned that Christian Fiedler was the only one to fly a 15 time mark. You can also put it more simply: only 3 pilots were faster than 16 seconds. ?
It should continue on this Saturday with the cross country flight of the second round. Also here it remained similarly exciting as with the cross country flight before. Almost every participant had to leave more or less springs. A particular pity was the end for Johannes Krischke, who came too close to the B direction finder and damaged his model irreparably (for the competition). The cards were shuffled all the time, so it wasn't bad not to be able to always fall back on current result lists. The number of tracks varied between 20 and 28 for the 1000 in this round.
After the second speed, the last discipline of the day was time flying! Many pilots struggled with the updraft fields and the narrow thermal beards with ever stronger winds. Some lost the fight. Ballastieren was announced, otherwise a return from the LEE would have been very arduous. The later winner Lucas Günther was lucky, who was able to crank out a saving beard at a height of 15 m after four minutes flying time. F3B time flight adrenaline pure!! The overnight leader was Christian Fiedler, who unfortunately had an unfortunate last speed flight on Sunday.
Together with the rookies and juniors we finished the evening with a barbecue and campfire. There was a lot of discussion about how great it starts again in the F3B sport. The admitted pilots feel the enthusiasm of the young rookies, like a time shifted look in the mirror. The first successes in competition, the feeling of tension and tactical refinements are the things that make up our unique gliding model sport, completely without electric motor and altitude logger, simply always exciting.
It's also a pity that we couldn't use the long-awaited 3.0 kg winch batteries (LiIon 14S3P) in competition, for example via a localrule. The organizer was forbidden to do this in advance, due to unexplained thermal influences on the performance of the new winch battery. Certainly justified, but a start must be made! The active F3B pilots are very much in agreement.
Sunday we woke up in bright sunshine and 5°C wind. As predicted it should stay very windy the whole day, so the thick ropes were the first choice right from the start. Not only thick, but also caution during the wind-driving was necessary. Here and there it flattened properly and the gliders had to be searched far in the LEE. These conditions put every F3B pilot to the test, no matter what age or performance level.
The time flight was mixed, similar to the day before. I have calculated something and came out the following: The 10 minutes flight time (+- 15s tolerance included) for all three time flights were achieved by only 62% of the pilots. (without landing points) In the last time flight passage it was even only 57% of the pilots with almost full flight time. Nobody remains flawless in the Danish lowlands and points are given quickly. After the cross-country flight, which by the way was passed almost without interruption by the Danish helpers, the last two speed flights followed, whereby the fourth was carried out in reverse order. For all four speed flights on the weekend, each pilot had four minutes! Great thing, more time for tactics than with the usual three minutes frame time. The one with the least mistakes this weekend was Martin Weberschock and therefore he deserved to make the last flight. Before that, however, Lucas Günther, who had finished third until then, came in with a good flight (14.1 s) followed by Christian Fiedler. But what happened there? Christian flies diagonally into the first route and gets a penalty for the Saftyline. Irritated by the signal he turns too early and does not fly a full four routes. A bitter end and that in the last flight! Martin Weberschock didn't get good air and needed 17,1 s for the 600m. Thus Lucas Günther could bring himself with 8 points ahead of Martin Weberschock on the pole position. The Swede Joachim Stahl could also push himself to the podium with a good time (15.3 s). Fastest on the weekend was Johannes Krischke 13,95 s followed by Frank Thomas 14,36 s and Lucas Günther 15,13 s.
In the junior classification Pascal Mestermann, who had his first competition here, won ahead of Johannes Krischke, who probably fits more into the senior ranking ?
Looking back, I can only recommend every pilot to come here. The Danish team has already announced that the competition will take place next year. Maybe next year we will have the opportunity to test the new batteries, the Danes are very open for it! The Sønderjysk Flying Club also seems more than suitable as a venue for the World Championships.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
