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Speed,Combat,Scale,Racing => Combat => Topic started by: Paul Smith on September 07, 2009, 05:52:00 AM
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All 37 flyers showed up and flew. We ran combat from 8 AM to 7 PM both days and barely finished. But we finished.
1st Place on The Team - Mike Willcox 9-1
2nd Place on The Team - Norman Lester Haury 8-1
3rd Place on The Team - William Greg Hill 8-2
4th Place, first alternate - Mark Rudner 7-3
5th Place, second alternate - Richard Stubblefield 7-3 (conceded flyoff to Mark)
6-3 Tom Siegler
5-3, Richard Lopez, Geroge Cleveland, Joe McKinney.
4-3, Lou Scavone, Mike Evans.
For future reference, 37 flyers is somewhat beyond what you can and should fly in two days. Especially ten weeks after the summer solstice, when daylight is limited. Counting about an hour for setup and another hour for cleanup, that's a 13-hour day, two in a row.
We had enough workers so the issue wasn't worker burnout. But in the last few rounds the flyers and mechanics were getting fatigued and making errors they wouldn't make after a good night's sleep. At 5:20 PM we started round 8 with nine survivors. The team was settled at about 7:30.
As far as weather, manpower, and efficiency, this was a BEST CASE scenario. If interest remains this high or higher, we had better plan on a two-and-a-half or three-day TT.
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Paul,
Thanks for posting the results.
John
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Based on what I heard, there should have been a second circle, not to mention no practice circle.
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Actually there were three grass circles available. The official circle with a new paved centre, plus two grass practice circles, one of which was used as the walkoff area for planes that were still running after the match.
Even with two official circles, it has never been possible to save much time. With one circle, if you count the active match plus the incoming match you have FOUR TEAMS involved, that's 12 contestants. If you have two official circles, the number of contestants involved comes to 24.
Pilots act as each-others mechanics in many (too many) cases, or else share mechanics. Even with only one circle, the same man ends up pitting, flying, then pitting again in consecutive matches.
By MY count there were about 108 actual matches. On Saturday, they were run off as fast as humanly possible, one circle or two. When it got to the final nine on Sunday afternoon, there were a lot of the interlocking teams that I described above. If we had tried to expedite the contest any more, it would not have been combat, but merely a scramble to get something into the air.
I would say that if were get more than 32 entries again, we should begin official flights at NOON on Friday. If we get over 40, we need to begin on Friday morning.
Each match of combat is life-and-death event to the contestants, so we need to run a pace that does justice to the importance of the competition.
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Based on what I heard, there should have been a second circle, not to mention no practice circle.
At the world champs there is usually one circle and once the contest starts no practice circle. Somehow it all works out.
What works well is a ready box for about 6-8 teams and no pits at all, but the man power requirements are pretty high.
The trials this time were well run with very little of the "lawyer" stuff. Also very few kill/kill reflys, which I put down to good streamers.
Also I think there were only 2 "fly aways". One hit the trees and resulted in a DQ since the motor did not seem to be shutting down.
The other was shutting down as it hit the ground in the pits. The fact that motors tend to shut down during nasty tangles might explain why there were so few of them.
Congrats to Mike,Lester and Greg. Hope to see you ( and beat you ;D) in Hungary
Pat Mackenzie
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Thanks a lot to Pat & Ivan for coming over to piut for the local teams plus anybody who needed top notch help. I have a hunch that some of the "final 9" would have been better off using their services than staying with expert, but exhausted mechanics.
It looked to me like the Greg Hill plane with an enhanced Rudner swingweight shut down with 30 feet out and skidded another 20 feet with the engine stopped. The plane that went into the trees had a bent wire line pull system, which in the opinion of the judges, hadn't begun to work when it hit the trees.
We did 100% tech inspection including line length and pull test for every flight. 195 airplanes were inspected for 432 trips through the pits. That's four planes each for 108 matches. We broke about six sets of lines. I want to give that at least partial credit for reducing flyawys.
From where I sat, I believe I saw about six "false" shutdowns which I blame on over-anxious shutoffs. In one case, an otherwise perfect streamer transfer was disrupted by an accidental triggering of the shutoff.
I also want to put in a big attaboy for Brad Lapointe who came over from Dresden and worked both days. Having been on serveral F2D teams and most recently Team Manager of Team Canada (bronze medal), he pull tested, judged, and acted as an expert consulant to the CD and Jury Chairman.
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Interesting that the plane that hit the trees only took about half a second to get there. Hardly time for a shutoff to work.
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I somewhat agree with your point.
Howver, the model went slack on the far side of the circle and chorded all the way across with the lines slack, so the shutoff had almost 100 feet to work. It was a bent wire line pull system, so if it was ever going to shut down, the officials would have heard a power reduction before it hit the end of the lines and snapped loose on the "tree side".
The incident occured in the final minute of the match, so perhaps the contestant was willing to accept the DQ since he was losing on points anyway.
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The CD needs to be commended for pulling this off. Also many thanks to all the helpers. Without a CD, timers, tabaulators and pit bosses. None of this would come about. I would like to see a booklet or equivelant of how to run an F2D contest. I don't fly the event, but, would like to run one some time. DOC Holliday
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nice comments and write ups.
My number of contestants for a triple elm contest for a two day good wx....33. Then it reverts to a double elem or a 3 day trip elem.
Pat