New F3J-event

Sunday 28th of april, it was another F3J-event at Cirrus airfild, Spydeberg, Norway. 17 pilots attended, my club with 5 pilots. Nice weather, with lots of small thermals most of the day. And lot of sink of course... We flew 5 prelims and 2 finals.
I did quite well, and ended third in the prelims. Only one mistake. Droped of the line in one start, and had to restart. But got 914 in that round, and ended up with an average of 985. And got a personal best with flighttime 9:52,5 in round one. Nice! Of course nothing compared to the 9:57 something that we have seen, but in a norwegian competition, this is a nice time.
The other in the finals where my team-mate Erik Morgan, Arnfinn Lie, Jo Grini and Øivind Ellevog. Erik got the lead after the first final, but missed a bit in the second. Jo Grini was again at the top of the podium, with Erik as second and Arnfinn at third. I got forth and Øivind fifth.
A little drawback for me was a "midair" with Tor Midtlund. He's Perfects senter sections was a lot harder than mine Perfects wing tip... I lost.
But Jo offered to repair the tip for me, and now as I write this, I got a SMS from Jo, telling me that the tip is already repaired, and shipped back to me! In just a few hours... I owe you a big one, Jo. Thanx!
Next F3J competition in Norway is the nationals, first weekend in june. At "Klanten airfild", with Jo as the organizer. It will for shure be a nice event, and I look forward to it! Would probably leave a day or to early to get familiar with the high altitude of the field (around 900 meters I think.)

The seasons first cup-event F3J in Norway

found place sunday 22th of april, at the club field of my club, MFK Vingen. Pour weather... Rain all day. 14 pilots attended in the morning, but 8 of them decided not to fly because of the weather. 6 pilots startet, 3 teams consisting of 2 pilots. This is only possible with winch-starts of course... We have used winches in F3J for some years now, in Norway.
We flew only 3 rounds with 2 finals. That is what it takes to get official results in Norway.
I got quite beaten in round 2, and no finals for me... Ended 4th. Not good flying at all. Inge Balswick was the man of the day. 3000 points after prelims, and 2000 points in finals. Second was Thorbjørn Jespersen and third Arnfinn Lie.
To say that we had a nice day is to push it a little... Rain all day, heavy crossvind and only 3 degress C is not nice at all... But if you really want to fly you just do it!
Next F3J event is next sunday, and we hope for a little better weather.


Arnfinn (to the right) waiting to start in the finals, assisted by Rune and Vidar

Danish Championship 2007

is over, and Michael Munk is on the top of the podium. Jan Hansen no. 2 (to the right) and Søren Krogh nr. 3.
We had a very nice weekend in Denmark, as always. Sunny weather, and little wind to be in Denmark. 16 pilots from Denmark, Norway, Germany and Estland (!), so it was quite an international national championship...
I ended up as 9th. A dreadful last duration with only 578 points was the reason. Dropped to from 7th because of that.
On the upside; new personal best at speed, with 17,7 sec. (The winner of that round get 17,3 something, so I have never been closer to a 1000 point at the speed task.
My team mate Erik ended 6th. Many got quite beaten in one or several tasks.
A big tribute to the danish guys Jesper, Søren and Jan, who splitted them selfs in three different teams. The reason for this was that there was a lot of new pilots to F3B at this event, and they wanted to give them as much help as possible.
A big thank you to Louise and Jan, who made their home available to us, for the nights. Thank You.
I realy enjoy these trips to Denmark, and look forward to the next one.
And thank you to my team-mate Erik for a nice trip and good help in the contest.

Finally!

The seasons first F3B competition. Not in Norway, but in Denmark. My team-mate Erik Morgan and my self are going to Denmark next weekend, to partisipate in the Danish championship F3B 2007. My Crossfire are ready, and I look realy forward to another perfect weekend in Denmark.

While waiting for

my new Race-M's I took my brand new Pike Perfect out for it's first flight today. And what a plane. Easy to get good starts, cirkeling is amazing, and landing also quite easy, with those huge flaps.
Got 8-10 starts, all with good altitude. The modell also handles ballast verry good. First impression is that this is a F3J killer! But if the pilot are up to this? Well... We will se, the season is about to start.

Local Winter F3J

Today we arranged a small F3J Winter contest. Nice weather, calm wind around 0 Celcius, a perfect day! 9 pilots attended, and we had a day with lot of fun. Been a while since last time many of the contestants had flown, that showed for shure... I ended at the 5th place. Missed one landing, and had several starts where the line broke off.
But at the end, I am happy with the day. Congratulations to Vidar Bech. He won with 5000 points. (We flew 5 rounds).
And... I have got my self a brand new plane for the 2007 F3J season. A Pike Perfect has landed in my hangar, and is now waiting for servos. Actually I had no plans of bying a F3J plane, but anyhow, here it is. Hope to get it ready in a week or two.

26th of desember

we have a tradition in our local club, "Vingen". We get together and fly airplanes! And often a lot of new airplanes... This year was no exeption. A lot of people showed up, and many started the day with brekfast in the club hose. I am kind of a "late night person", so I started the day a little later...
My good friend Vidar Bech had his "virgin trip" on a new made tug. He has taken the good old Sig Kadet, and enlarged it by 1,5 times... A huge Kadet in other words. It flew quite well, and after the first trip into air, we towed my old Bird of Time several times.
And even in the winter, the thermals are there! So I got some nice, long flights with my Bird...
Not to much flying for me now, so the day was great!
Photo by Rune Svendsen

Reports

from Espen Torp are telling me that the brand new RaceM X-tail is on track... And I look forward to get my hands on the new planes!
Not much activity these days, my job takes most of the time.
But... I have startet building a tug! A Super Cub from Adrian Page. Electro version of course. Nice to build with balsa wood again. Some years since last time.
With a Axi 4120/18 and a 5s LiPo pack, it would hopefully be capable of towing sailplanes at least up to 3 meters.
A Merry Christmas to all of you, and a Happy New Year also.

Yesterday

Cirrus RCFK invited to "Winter F3J" at their field in eastern part of Norway. Bad weather forecast resulted in just 5 people showed up... And one of them decided to not fly. Because of the wind... Which was rather heavy. I think we had up to about 20 m/s in periods... and not below 10 m/s. But 3 of us sat up the winches with 1,45 lines on. And they snapped right of... Several times. I had no logger in my Crossfire today, but wow! Those starts... As we was down to 3 pilots after a short moment, (Alf Erik was not happy, crashing two planes in just a couple of minutes) there was no contest. But a lot of nice training of both thermal flights in very extreme conditions, and also a lot of fun speed flying in the heavy wind. Lost some parachutes during the day, when a line broke the parachute was drifting up to several kilometers in to the dark forest of eastern Norway...
But what a day! Even if it was no contest.

While waiting for

a long winter to end, some news maybe? ET-air has just released some news for next year, a cross-tail version of the well known Race-M.
And... I have ordered two of them! For the next season. Several years ago, I told Espen that if he got a crosstail for he's Race-M, I would order models from him... And as a man of my words, of course I had to make an order... Hopefully my new planes arrives in good time before next season. I plan to use them in both F3B and F3J. And I would also keep my Crossfire.

Not to much

activity these days. Getting dark realy early, and also getting cold... First snow has fallen down. But, yesterday we gathered 5 pilots and made a little LSF competition... 3 rounds and a total of 21 minutes flying time.
This is a very "laid back" form of competition, but it was really nice to get hands on the radio againg... I flew my old Pike Plus, and got 5th place... Gambled a lot in round 3 on poor conditions, and landed out. Shit happens...
Geir Strømstad was the winner, a few points before Erik, with Rune at third and Jostein at forth.
A nice late autumn sunday it was, and we plan to do a few more of this competitions during the winter. At least if it's not to much snow...

This thursday

was the last one this season, with training. I think... Getting dark very early in Norway this days. And it keeps on going worse during the winter... Just a couple of hours with daylight. But what a nice day it was today! Huge thermals all over the place. Climb to 600 meters, a lot of fun, and then climb to 600 meters again. And it was just going on and on and on... Unbelivable! Not to many guys today, but a lot of fun for those who found the way down to the field.
BUT: We plan to do a couple of winter contests this winter. And I think we would be able to to some F3B, perhaps without distance, but hopefully nice training for next season.

Nationals F3J...

is over, and: I got a place in the final! After flying Crossfire all weekend... The plan was to fly my Pike Plus, but a little "misshap..." ended that plan early saturday morning. We flew 8 rounds prelim. A lot of wind all saturday, the thermals was hard to find and fly. We finished 5 rounds saturday, and I had 3 OK rounds and 2 not so good.
Sunday was the oposite to saturday. Verry little wind, and a lot of small thermals. Not always easy to fly. But I got 3x1000 with my Crossfire, and was top 5 in the preliminary rounds. (5 in the finals).
When we started the finals on the afternoon, all wind and thermals where gone. No activity at all in the air, and I realised that my chances was gone... The Crossfire is a good model, but against Perfects and others like, I got no chance at all. And finished 5th. But I am really happy with that... Flying my F3B machine all weekend.
The winner was Jo Grini (his 6th title...), second was Tor Midtlund and third Arnfinn Lie. No. 4 was Alf Erik Ross.
A realy nice weekend it was, lot of good flying and quite some "sosializing..." in the evenings...
A BIG thanx to Jo Grini, he was organising both flying and the sosial happenings, including all meals all weekend.

Yesterday

was again "thursday practice day" at our field. 5-6pilots, and the focus no is F3J, almost all the pilots yesterday is going to attend the nationals. Therefor also just 150 meters to the turnaround pulley, to get a little feeling with the more brutal tension in the starts.
I flew the Plus all evening, and actually starts to like it... Even if the starts are a little lower that I am used to. Because of the wing, of course. But the model handles well in every thing. Also tried "JoJo" setup on the brakes (both flaps and aileron down), and it seamed more effective on this model. Have to get used to "tail up" approaches, but the model was quite easy to handle this way.
Hopefully more flying in the weekend...

I hate...

to crash planes. I hate, hate, hate it... And still does it! Unbelivable...
Last weekend we had our local club championship, not F3B, but LSF-ruels. And I picked up my Brio for this event. After flying Crossfire all summer. And the Brio is a lot quicker on the elevator. And what happens? Crosswind start, a lot of tension on the line, and smack.... There is the line, nicely twisted around the elevatorand rudder. Beautifuly tied together... Straight into mother earth, with locked elevator and rudder. Shit...
I was really angry at my self. And offered the Brio at spot price to the other guys at the field, and whopps: Exit Brio.
OK, the contest of course went shi.... for me, but I promoted my self to contest manager, and we had a nice day anyhow at the field. Erik Morgan became the club champion this year, after nice flying.
Next up for me i the nationals F3J. Yes, I also enjoy flying F3J a lot! And I actually has bought a plane for the nationals... An old Pike Plus SL! Tried it saturday... A lot of flexing in the wing during start, but what a thermal sniffer! Nice and very pleasent to fly. So the Pike Plus and my Crossfire would be my planes for the nationals.
Btw.: The nationals is the weekend of 23rd and 24th of September.
And my club "MFK Vingen" would be represented with 8 pilots for the nationals.

Congratulations to Espen Torp...

Espen won the nationals in Norway this weekend, before Erik C. Morgan (second) and Widar Holmedahl (third). 4 rounds was flown, no flying on sunday because of rain. My self? I ended at 7th place, after terrible flying alomst all saturday... At least it felt so. Actualy not so horrible, but I know I can do better. On the upside: New personal best in task C at friday: 18.32 Happy with that one... Saturdays speed was not good at all. But an average of 19 something is my best so far.
My other teammates Jørgen ended 12th and Øivind 13th.
Results can be found at Cirrus RC club's website.
Speedmaster was Erik C. Morgan with an average of 16,86. Fastes speed was Espen Torp with 16,0 seconds.

Speed practice...

Erik, Jørgen and my self had a wonderful day at the airfild today, with speed flying all day. We had 3 winches, and made 3 starts each, and then rotated. Think we got 15-18 starts each, in varying conditions. I am quite happy... Starting to get stable with my flying. 10-12 good speeds, and the other was also quite nice. We did not take any times today, just fintuning flights in the speed course. And tomorrow the nationals starts... I am ready! (I hope...)

Update on the nordic championship F3B...

Finally I got the results from the nordic championship F3B. Impressive speed flights by Lasse Nyberg (Finland), average speed 16,13 sec! (6 rounds, one discarded).
The results was:

1 Jesper Jensen, Denmark, 14787
2 Søren Krogh, Denmark, 14650
3 Jan Hansen, Denmark, 14404
4 Lasse Nyberg, Finland, 14249
5 Søren Helsted, Denmark, 14205
6 Michael Munk, Denmark, 14122
7 Widar Holmedahl, Norway, 13804
8 Bernhard Henschel, Norway, 13236
9 Erkki Arima, Finland, 12953
10 Knut Vidar Moløkken, Norway, 12815
11 Gjermund Westad, Norway, 12778
12 Heikki Astikainen, Finland, 12150

Another day at the airfield...

Got home from work at 4 PM yesterday, and headed right to the field... Nice weather. To days task was to practice task B with different CG settings, and different ballast.
Got a lot of good flights in both windy and calm conditions, and I feel that i found out of some more things during the flights... Will see in the weekend, I guess...
Later today I am gona meet my team buddy Erik at our field, and we are gonna fly speed all day... Lot of flying before the nationals!

Made a spin...

to our local airfield this afternoon, and got some relaxing task A practise. Tried out different CG-settings on my Crossfire, as I have not been to happy with cirkeling in calm air. But out with 10 gram from the nose, and I got my self a brand new plane... (Have not measured where the CG actually is now, but my guess is around 98-99 mm.) Will put in 5-10 grams in gusty conditions, and also probably in task B and C.
Nice day with good friends at the field!
My team is also ready for the nationals... I will fly Erik Morgan (as I always do), Jørgen Busk and Øyvind Ellevog. Erik is a verry experienced F3B pilot, and has also got the campionship a couple of years back. Jørgen and Øivind is relatively new to F3B, but we did fly together at last years nationals with good results. I am really looking forward to this event!