I and some of the Singaporean fliers were invited to Jakarta this last weekend to take part in a F2D contest. The idea was to get some additional experience for the judging corps, since they will be holding a huge national tournament next year. Michael Ching and I went to one of these tournaments three years ago in Palembang, they were part of a quadriennal sports festival that includes EVERYTHING - soccer, athletics, swimming, etc., but also, interestingly enough, parachuting, ultralights and aeromodelling. So you can imagine the importance that the judges know the rules and how to run a contest for the big event.
Three years ago, the Combat event was a bit chaotic - the fliers hadn't had any exposure to the outside world, and few understood the rules. There was no center marshal, you had handles being left in the center of the circle, people getting tangled up in them, etc. There has been a lot of progress since then - a couple years ago I went over with a Powerpoint presentation and some movie clips, and went over most of the safety rules and procedures with the pilots and judges. People still made a lot of mistakes - mainly pitmen removing streamers without dragging planes out of the circle first, but there were no incidents where people got tangled up in lines. Michael and I acted as center marshals for some of the matches. More teams were using real F2D equipment (Fora and Cyclons, mostly). Some were using RTFs, others were building their own. There were still some OS .15LAs in use, but not so many. In 2004, Combat was mainly straight-and-level chasing, now people are maneuvering for cuts and evasion.
They ran a full double elimination contest - since they had never done it before, I showed them how to draw rounds and post results. There are things we often take for granted at US contests that don't really come automatically if you've never actually done them before, such as posting results immediately after a match, there being only two colors of streamer, the judges counting cuts on a certain color, etc. One of the big misunderstandings was counting cuts - apparently they thought if you cut the string, the cut didn't count, even if there was paper left.
I actually got to fly some matches, but I was out by the second round. Mainly due to trouble getting my Foras started. Turned out to be a bad glow plug in one. After the matches were done on Sunday, I mounted ASPs and we flew some matches for fun. Or tried to, we got in one match and then had trouble keeping one of the engines running. Three Singaporeans flew, two were left after the third round, but they ran out of models and decided to concede. They haven't flown since the Ban
(2004) and were using left-over equipment.
Hospitality was great - the organizers ferried us everywhere, to and from the hotel and flying field, to and from the airport, which is about an hour's drive from where we stayed. The hotel was quite good (Rp 300,000, about US$33 a night, with breakfast included). They even gave us a banquet on Saturday night. There are some pretty good fliers among them, perhaps one day, if they organize an international contest we might get people to fly in. Bali sounds like a good spot.
Some pictures:
Group photo
Where we stayed (Blok M, Jakarta)
Michael Ching (with the technicolor Benjamin Frankin do) and Benny Limanhadi from Surabaya (the eventual winner of the contest)
Michael with Arya Siddhartha
Typical home-made foamy. These are bigger than they were in 2004.
An idea worth stealing. Benny's Combat Totes. Take a tote bag, pick apart the side seams, sew on some velcro. Very handy. Around here, tailoring is relatively cheap, I can get a tailor to sew me up a few. Then I can leave the huge model box in the hotel room (the planes don't fit in it with
the engines attached).
The judges.
The Singaporeans and I brought pit boxes with fuel bottles, and these were in great demand all day. The idea of pit boxes is a new one, we'll probably see more people making some. Mine was Coroplast, and folds flat when not in use.
One of Yan Fajar's models. Black Fora from Adriano.
The pavilion at the flying field had a steel wire net across the front. The field is mainly an RC field.
I happened to bring the biggest flag...
Pilots/Judges debriefing session/rules discussion
Whereever there is Combat, there are Texas. Chicken. Blok M Plaza, Jakarta.
Wonder what Toys 'R Us would make of this...
I'd read about Kopi Luwak on the Internet, but I didn't think I'd come across it for real... To be honest, I don't know if they actually sell the stuff here or just use the name for the cafe, I didn't dare go ask. Not at $50 a cup.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_luwakBeing a control line flier, this caught my eye immediately when I visited Blok M Plaza which was the closest eating place to the hotel. Went there to take some pics on Sunday night. I was inside the mall when the management droid came out and told me I wasn't allowed to take photos of his restaurant and would I please delete the photos. I did, but I went around the outside and took some more.
Yan Fajar took me on a trip to the bazaar near the harbor Monday morning. We rode on the "Busway",
which operates almost like a light rail system, but uses buses. Look it up on Wikipedia - quite interesting, but quite controversial - people who own cars claim it causes traffic jams.
Riding in a Bajaj. There's another one ahead.
The "Pasar Pagi". Found some TINY eyelets here, I might use them to make line ends since I'm having trouble with fraying loops now I don't ruin my lines so much with line tangles.
Some of the stuff on sale:
They had chinese cigarettes on sale at the duty free shop at the airport. This brand was quite expensive - US$20 a carton, more expensive than Malaysian cigarettes. No idea how they taste, I don't smoke. I bought a much cheaper brand (Double Happiness), $7.50 a carton, for my flying buddy Kerry, who does.
Topic: F2D in Jakarta 10-11 November 2007 (Read 1858 times)
