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63rd Nationals

The 63rd Nationals are on yet again in Albury over the Christmas / New Year break. The dates set down are Sunday 3rd & Monday 4th January 2010 at the Lake Hume site again. Considering the last couple of events have been cancelled, it would be great to have an event again. So if you are interested in F3C, Advance or novice class, please enter as soon as possible. The entries close 27th November 2009 so get in quick. More details can be found here http://www.vmaa.com.au/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=84

2009 National Championships, NSW

The official page is at http://www.maaa.asn.au/maaa/nationals/62nats/62nats.html (http://www.maaa.asn.au/maaa/nationals/62nats/62nats.html)

20 and 21 April, somewhere in Cootamundra. We don't know why they chose those two days (a Monday and a Tuesday).

World Champs 2009

August 2nd- 11th, Muncie, Indiana, USA

The official page is at http://www.modelaircraft.org/events/f3cwc.aspx (http://www.modelaircraft.org/events/f3cwc.aspx)

Bulletins 0 and 1 are on the site.

CAOCC 2008

May 25 - 31 Philippines

Good luck to Peter Rieksts from Queensland who is the only Australian entrant.

The official page is at http://www.faiphilippines.org/ (http://www.faiphilippines.org/)

Victorian State Champs 2008

November 29 - 30 at the MRCHC field.

This event is expected to be the qualifier for the 2009 World Championships to be held in the USA.

Victorian State Champs 2007

November 17-18 at the MRCHC field.

This event will also be the qualifier for the 2008 AOCC event in the Philipines.

World Champs 2007

<a href="/wiki/index.php?title=WorldChamps2005" title ="WorldChamps2005">WorldChamps2005</a>

Official Page (http://www.f3c-hwc2007.w3wl.pl/indexen.php?id=1)

12th FAI F3C Helicopter World Championships

27th July - 5th August 2007

Wloclawek city, Poland

The Australian team consists of Andrew Donaldson, Brendan Tucker and George Atkinson as pilots and Dave Crump as team manager.

USA F3C Team page (http://usa-f3c.com/)

UK F3C Team (http://www.aha-online.org.uk/)

Japan F3C (http://www.f3c.jp/)

19/08/2007 07:30AM Hong Kong time The good news: I've had a most excellent time in Hong Kong. Thanks a lot to Stephen for looking after me.

The bad news: Excess baggage fees are high. Most high. It's just not right. I flew Finair (http://www.finnair.com/) for the first and last time. Dave's tricky frequent flyer account let us book via Qantas on Finair, but Finair don't care for normal Qantas customers or even authorisations very much. Despite what their check-in person said, they do have 'allowances for excess baggage' (http://www.finnair.com/finnaircom/wps/portal/finnair/kcxml/04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz0vM0Y_QjzKL9443DvUBSYGYzp76kShCLvHO3mhC3vEuoRAhVyO4SDBExMsYLuKD0ObrkZ-bqh-k760foF-QGwoEEeWOjoqKAOpWVIg!/delta/base64xml/L3dJdyEvd0ZNQUFzQUMvNElVRS82X0tfM1VW), I'll see if I can plea something here, but I doubt it will work from the other side of the world and while they already have my money. Wikipedia has a few interesting comments 'about them' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnair).

03/8/2007 07:07PM Poland time

Old news - I got 36, Brendan got 57 and George got 72. The standard is high, the wind has been selective at times and we don't entirely understand everything :)

Flyoff day 1. They had planned to run a single round of flyoff today, starting first thing and then to run two rounds tomorrow. They used up the spare day on purpose before the event began with two days of model checking.

So we arrvied at the field before 8:00 in time to see Cliff and others do the "calibration" flights. There has been quite some discussion about why the organisers want all teams, including those without someone in the flyoffs to check in their transmitters. I can see the point, they don't want 80 odd transmitters sitting in cars during the flyoffs for the world champs simply becuase it will remove doubt if there are radio issues. It's still annoying to have to get transmitters in on time though.

It turns out it was raining when we got there. Stragely, the organisers said they would postpone flying until 4:00PM! We all thought that an indefinate delay would make more sense so we could utilise good weather if it turned up. The good weather did turn up, but it wasn't to be utilised. We went off to a town up the road called Torun to check out lots of really nice buildings and things. It was nice to have a drive.

We then get back at 4:00, do the "calibration" flights, and Curtis, Itou, Scott and others do their flights. Then it rains. This time the organisers have learnt something and only try and delay until 7:00, then they decide that 7:00 is the latest they will wait until, then the rain gets worse and it's called off for the day. Now we will try and get three rounds of flyoff in tomorrow, starting at 7:00 AM! We're also supposed to have transmitters in between 6:15 and 7:45 (!).

The organisers have been doing a truely superb job, there are things on the edges that are odd, including the above, but in general it has been great!

The top guys are flying superbly! It looks like you get a downgrade if you see the nose rise before the model moves backwards in the hovering! No idea if that's the case, but the level seems this high.

Curtis seems to have gone back to small aeros. Scott and Itou are doing big stuff. We're expecting Sensui and Dobashi to continue to do big aeros.

--Andrew.

02/08/2007 06:55PM Poland time All done. My flight today scored 0.5 more than yesterday. No idea why, we're confused about how things work. Brendan put in a good one, and scored less than yesteday, George had a day he would rather forget, but full marks for the effort! I think we need to get some experience flying with Scott.

Wloclakwek is amazing. In case you didn't get that, Wloclakwek is amazing. I'd really like to visit here again! We named a street corner after Dave due to him not really bending our car there.

Dave is off at a team manager's meeting, they are probably sorting the flight order for the finals. Yesterday Horace asked for a unamimous vote to change the normalising system back to the '05 system. As not all team managers were present, he went with plan B and declared that we are using the old system. Curtis lost a few places, Brendan and I both lost a place with this change. At least we understand the old system.

The normalising has been interesting. They normalised round 1 on day 1 and seperately normalised the other half of round 1 on day 2. I figure this is fair, but aparently there are some problems. Dave Youngblood probably understands them.

The standard of flying has been VERY high. It's surprising that so many people can turn up and bang out such impressive A schedules. I think there is a very small difference between people who may be 10 places apart. The top guys continue to out-perform though.

Our practice site got invaded by the US today. Since we're nobodys we took off down the field to the unused Japanese location. After planting the flags the Japanese started trucking towards us, so we marched on again to a far off corner of the enormous practice area. George put in a most brave couple of flights with the sun in a painful location. Brendan did a couple and then I did one also, with probably somewhat better sun.

01/08/2007 07:30PM Poland time AD 32, BT 57, GA 71. Full results are on the official web site. It was mostly calm today, I copped a little wind and didn't fly perfectly. Brendan put in a good round after getting in a practice flight at the practice field. George also put in a good flight. Off to find dinner.

--Andrew.

01/08/2007 04:50AM Melbourne time Two rounds have been completed, the standings for the Australian team are as follows: Andrew Donaldson 26th, Brendan Tucker 64th and George Atkinson 73rd. Andrew says they all flew better than the previous day and that the weather is playing a big part. Also that organisation is good. The top 5 after 2 rounds are:

Scott Gray
Hiroki Itou
Wayne Mann
Kazuyuki Sensui
Curtis Youngblood

30/07/2007 2:15PM Melbourne time Received an update from Andrew: Curtis has a fuse and even more amazingly, his models are electric!

29/07/2007 7:30PM Wloclakwek time Had official practice today. All went well. Was cold and blowy, but we got away with it. Hung around to watch Scott (who now has metal blade grips!) practice and then Cliff do the calibration flight. Made it back in time to see the US team do their practice. Curtis has metal blade grips also! We are debating if a most prominent pilot had a complete absence of exhaust smoke or not. More to come on that.

Our practice site is just across the (huge) field from the Japanese team. We occasionally hear the noise of some roaring models down there, but we never near them while flying.

After all our effort to obtain, setup for and practice with Low Smoke fuel, it appears the organisers were unable to get it. We're now happily set up on LV fuel.

We've all quite impressed with Poland.

First round is tomorrow.

-Andrew.

25/07/2007 1.15pm Warsaw Time We have all finally arrived in Wloclakwek, George and I minus our models, then Dave and Andrew with George and my models. Andrew's models were still in London when he landed, but the have now arrived at our hotel. The hotel is nice and cosy with plenty of room to asssemble models. We have checked out the facilities at the flying site and it seemes well organized. (Currently overcast and some intermittent showers.) There is a slight problem with our fuel but Dave has quickly sprung into action. Hopefully we have the right fuel here tomorrow.

24/07/2007 9:00PM Melbourne Time Around 3 hours out of London, they called for people with medical experience to make themselves known to the crew. I woke Dave and he wandered off to help. About 20 minutes later the 747 was making an emergency landing at Copenhagen. Unfortunately the lady who became ill did not make it. Very sad. We are now in London and will easily make our connecting flight to Warsaw.

24/07/2007 03:00AM Melbourne Time At Bangkok airport, didn't even know we were going via here. I'd like to say we are half way through the initial journey, but I don't think it's that far yet! -Andrew.