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Author Topic: The Infamous 1980 U.S. FAI F2 World Champs trip: another report  (Read 10432 times)

Offline BillLee

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The Infamous 1980 U.S. FAI F2 World Champs trip: another report
« on: November 17, 2023, 04:48:46 PM »
Poland – 1980

It started shortly after Christmas 1979 when I received a phone call from Don Jehlik. Don had been appointed as the Team Manager for the 1980 U.S. team for the CL World Champ in Poland and was asking me to be the Assistant Team Manager. 1980 was the year when F2D became an official event flown at the World Champs, and the FAI allowed an Assistant TM to help manage the additional responsibilities. I accepted Don’s offer.
                                                                                   
1980 was my first World Champs trip. Little did I know that it would lead to a lifetime of involvement with our F2 Teams and FAI affairs for Control Line. Here, 40+ years later, I am now preparing to run the 2024 F2 World Championships once again, something my wife thinks I am crazy for undertaking. Perhaps she’s right! All I can say is that my involvement with the FAI programs has allowed me to travel all over the world, has made a host of good friends, and on and on…

Chapter 1: Preparation
Travel:
In those days, AMA dictated that the team would assemble in some U.S. location and then travel together to the World Champs. “Building a team spirit” or some-such. Big difference was that previous teams had been transported using the MATS (Military Air Transport Service), and it really required a single point of departure. But in 1980, we were all flying commercial. Assembling anywhere was nonsense and I was able to get AMA to let us all fly to Frankfurt and “assemble” there. Much better!

A part of the new travel arrangements was that we needed travel coordination. I found a local travel agent in Houston, asked every team member what they needed, and made all of the reservations for the entire team. We all flew in Lufthansa.  I had all of the team set up, reservations made when I received a panicked call from the travel agent: Lufthansa needed payment “right away” or they were going to cancel all of the reservations. In those days, AMA covered the cost of transportation, I called Hqs and they said they’d send a check, but I needed money NOW or lose everybody’s reservations! I ended up going to my credit union at work and floated a signature loan (something like $15K or so) to pay the travel agent. With that milestone passed, the travel agent  got all of the tickets printed for me and I sent them to everybody on the team.
               
Assembling in Frankfurt: during the preparation I made contact with an AMA member who was in the military and living in Frankfurt. (Can’t remember his name! Sorry!) His apartment was close by to the airport where we would all be arriving, so we used him and his home for the point of assembly. More on that later.

Fuel:
Another task I took on was the fuel shipment. Understand that I knew nothing about requirements for shipping, we had no internet to look at for help, we had to gather information the “hard way”. It was 1980!

I contacted all of the team. Written letters! No email! No text messages! USPS and stamps! (I was chided later for all of my “computer letters” since all were prepared on my CPM home computer and printed on a dot-matrix printer! This was about the limit of available technology.)

The team sent fuel requirements, sent fuel, whatever, I gathered it all together, packed it in the special boxes (remember the “requirements”?) and then tried to find a shipper to carry it to Frankfurt. Turned out Lufthansa Cargo flew out of Houston and they had no problem carrying the fuel for us. Imagine now loading several large boxes in the back seat/hatch of a 1980 Plymouth TC3 hatchback, having to tie the lid down since it wouldn’t all fit inside, then across Houston to the airport!

The AMA military guy in Frankfurt?  He got all of the fuel for us, was able to get it through customs and it was there when the team assembled in Germany. What a BIG help he was!

Chapter 2: The trip     
To Erfurt:

The travel agent in Houston had made all of the arrangements for the team to get us from Frankfurt to Częstochowa in Poland.  We all had rented VW Vans (except for a couple: more later) and the plan was to drive that first day from Frankfurt, cross into East Germany (Communist country!), then on to Erfurt where we had a hotel.

Getting through the border was the usual “We’re the police and we will treat you as crap.” that you typically find almost everywhere. The problem started when one of our team, looking at a map, convinced us to take the scenic route on surface roads instead of the autobahn to get to Erfurt. Imagine: 30kph speed limits, little towns every 1-2 miles, and then a military truck that you couldn't get past that honored the 30kph speed limit religiously! A trip that should have taken less than an hour was 4-5 long! Needless to say, I was not happy with that team member’s advice! But we finally got to the hotel in Erfurt, late, but they had waited supper for us.

At the hotel, we were met by our …. host … guide … KGB agent … whatever. She knew all of the travel plans and what we needed to stay the night and get out the next morning. Helpful to have someone that could communicate.  Almost….

After staying the night, we assembled the team in the hotel lobby and our ..host.. informed me that we needed to “check out”. I explained to her that we had all done so with the hotel and were ready to go. No, that’s not what was needed. We had to go to the local police station and have our passports checked. I couldn’t see dragging the entire team to the police station, she allowed me to collect all of the team’s passports, and she and I headed out.

Turns out the police station was clear on the other side of town! She took me to the local tram stop, we boarded a trolley car and rode and rode and .. forever it seems .. until the tracks ended where we got off. Walked across a gravel parking area and up the outside stairs into this nondescript building. Second floor. Early in the day. Dark, no lights in the hallway. Couple of vagrant-looking folks lounging in the dark stairway inside. Looked deserted.  Oh, my what have I gotten into now!!!!

My “guide” took us into an office where a police lady was seated at a desk. My guide and her talked back and forth (German, I couldn’t understand anything) and then, gathering all of the passports, the two of them disappeared into a back room. Me, left alone, with all of the passports from the team now gone! CRAP!

After a few minutes, they came back out and my “guide” said that we had a problem! Seems the border guards had stamped our passports with a “transit” visa, good only for 24 hours, and it was not the proper kind that allowed us to stay overnight! (Or so she told me!) We were going to have to go back to the border and get the proper visa stamp on all of our passports. Suddenly the vision of that 4 hour nightmare from the border came to mind! NO! WE CAN’T DO THAT! ARGHHHH!

Questioning her, it turns out the transit visa was good for 24 hours. Pulling out a map of East Germany, I showed her what our travel plans were, to get out of the country at a small border crossing at Gorlitz (more later), and asked her if she thought we could make it there within the 24 hour window of our visa. Yes, she agreed. I gathered all of the passports and we headed back across town .. on the tram .. forever.

Finally back at the hotel, I handed out the passports, told everyone what we needed to do, and headed out. First task: get out of town. Again: team member advice… only to see half the vans heading the other direction as I headed towards the autobahn. Oh, well….. First stop was to buy gas for the vans and then off east on the autobahn heading towards Poland.

To Gorlitz:
Autobahn east past Dresden but had to exit onto surface roads to get to Gorlitz and the border crossing. Made it there, got to the border crossing and it was  CLOSED!!! We couldn’t get through. We tried to speak with the guard that was there, unsuccessfully since nobody spoke German. Here we sit, all of the VW vans parked along the curb, a bunch of crazy Americans in a small town in East Germany! I’m trying to figure out what to do when suddenly a gentleman steps out of a doorway on the building next to the van. Tall, long black coat, nicely dressed, fedora hat, and asks me in perfect English “You seem to be having a problem, perhaps I can help.”. Imagine a spy thriller scenario! Yes, you can help!

Turns out the border crossing was closed, had been for several weeks, but would reopen on Thursday (this was Monday or Tuesday ). Obviously we couldn’t handle that so I asked him what to do. We looked at the map, he pointed out the short route north to the next border crossing but also said that that was a route forbidden to foreigners, and that we must take the “tourist” route. So off we went: half way back to Dresden, then north halfway to Berlin, then back east to the border crossing. Far outside of our 24 hour window. And to top it all off, it started to rain as we left Gorlitz.

We made it through the border crossing with the usual hassle. Late. I had the vans all wait on the other side so we could travel together, our next stop was at a hotel in Wroclaw in Poland.
                                                                                                                             
To Wroclaw:
One of our group, Walt Perkins, JE Albritton and Tom Knoppi, had rented a Ford Fiesta instead of using a van. The first day of the trip (to Erfurt), they had their large model box strapped to a roof rack on the little car. The car wouldn’t drive  with it there: too much wind resistance, so on the second day, they shoe-horned the box into the driver’s side back seat of the little Ford (a hatchback), Tom and Walt in front and JE in the passenger side in the back.

Their itinerary was different from the rest of us, going straight to  Częstochowa  instead of Wroclaw. Once they cleared the border crossing, we sent them on their way alone.

 Now we’re off down the autobahn in Poland. Keep in mind that this is a road probably constructed by the Germans in WWII, but now in a communist country where road maintenance was not high on the list of things to do. Consequently, all of the road shoulders were overgrown, somewhat elevated, and, as a consequence, any rain that fell collected on the  road instead of running off the side. And it was raining. Driving conditions poor.

After a while, perhaps an hour, as I crested a hill I saw lights and blinkers at the bottom of the hill. As I approached I realized it was all of my vans and .. the little Ford all smashed and trashed sitting on the shoulder.

Turns out, there was an overpass at the bottom of the hill and the autobahn had several inches of water all across underneath. The Ford hit it, lost control, spun and went sideways into the shoulder, rolled 3-1/2 times and came to rest upside down in a ditch with a lot of water.

By the time the vans got there, some Polish folks had stopped to help. Rolled the car back on its wheels, found that it would still run, and with a rope and a driver, were able to get the car back onto the shoulder. As the vans gathered, the Polish folks vanished: didn’t want to be there when the cops arrived or something!

The car was in bad shape. All glass gone except the windshield and one side window. Windshield wipers were gone. Roof all caved in. Hatch jammed shut. Right front tire ripped off the rim where it hit the shoulder going sideways. But it would still run! The road shoulder was planted in a rose bush hedge growth which contributed to the roll-over. Could have been worse since the car went between two concrete road barriers barely a car-length apart that would have completely wrecked the car if they had been hit.

We got all of their stuff out of the car, had to pry the hatch open to get the model box out and to get to the spare tire that was under the floor in the back. The tire jack worked but the wrench to take off the lugs wouldn't work and I had to get the one out of my van in order to get the tire changed. That’s when I found the rose bush hedge since squatting down to change the tire put me in direct contact …. Ouch!

We put Tom and JE into the vans. One of the guys “fixed” the caved in roof by reaching inside with his hand and bumping upwards on the roof: pop … pop … up it came. We brushed the broken glass off the driver’s seat, put Walt in (“Stay behind the vans!”) and off we went. Back on the toad (barely) as the Polish police went by on the other side and flashed their spot light on us as we went up the hill! Apparently they didn’t see the trashed car. Whew!

O.k., into Wroclaw and the hotel where the travel agent had scheduled us. Strange! The roadway into the hotel had cars parked all along side. All had circles painted on their side with numbers in them. Strange!

I went into the hotel lobby. Dark, nobody there. After knocking repeatedly on the desk, a fellow came out from a back room. I explained we had reservations for the U.S. team and we’re sorry we are late but … He looked at me like I had horns and three eyes! He didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak German.

Now, here’s where it gets surreal!

Suddenly, a  tall, well dressed man in a long black coat and wearing a fedora steps out of the shadows from a door behind me, and says in perfect English “You seem to be having a problem, perhaps I can help.”! (This is bizarre but absolutely true! The same man? I doubt it, but … ) In great relief, I told him the problem, that we were supposed to have reservations here but they didn’t know of them. I showed him my paperwork and he showed me we were at the wrong hotel. Seems the travel agent had had to make reservation changes at the last minute, sent me papers but didn’t tell me of the change. We were at a hotel in city center in Wroclaw. So off down the road we went.

When we got to the hotel in downtown, the gentleman at the counter spoke good English and was absolutely ecstatic that we had arrived. They had expected us before supper the previous evening and it was now approaching 3a.m. (I'll tell you about the “guide” .. KGB agent … interpreter that also met us at the hotel later. She was  … notable!  :-) ) He told us where to park the vans, told us he’d get an Avis agent in the morning to deal with the trashed Ford, got us all into rooms. I’m standing there alone, all of the stress of the day washing over me when I realized we had one more problem: Doc Jackson and Henry and Kathy Nelson were coming behind us and probably ran into all of the same problems we had. Just as I started to explain that to the hotel host, Henry and Doc walk in! We stated to get them checked in when suddenly Kathy, who was outside with the car, stated screaming and yelling. We rushed outside to see some Polish vagrant running off down the street carrying one of their suitcases. When he saw us arrive, he dropped the suitcase and ran off!  Welcome to Poland!

The next morning, we sent the rest of the vans off to  Częstochowa while I took Walt and JE to the local Avis agent where he checked in the trashed Ford and the agent gave them a Polish Fiat to use while we were there, only caveat was we had to return it to him in Wroclaw when we left later.

Then off to  Częstochowa.
   
Chapter 3: The Competition
Częstochowa:

The accommodation for the World Champs team in those days was arranged by the organizers. We were staying in dorms at the local university. We had to drive across town each morning to the flying site.

All the time we were there, the oppressive presence of a Communist regime was apparent. There were always armed patrols walking the streets, everywhere you went was evidence that “Big Brother” was watching! Always military vehicles to be seen on the streets. Including one box truck parked continuously over the curb out front of the dormitories where we were staying.

One evening as we were having a team meeting, on of our guys came in late, having just come from the Italian stunt team rooms. Seems that one of their team members was out for a walk after dark, walked by that big van parked out front and heard the voices of his Italian team mates coming from it! Rooms bugged! When this came out, several on the team were ready to tear the rooms apart to find the bug, but Jehlik and I counseled them to not do that since that would probably get them thrown in jail or something. But saying what we wanted as free people was not out of line and I am sure it antagonized the spies to no end!


Practice sites were essentially non-existent. The organizers tried to use a parking area near the local hi-rise tenements where many, many people lived. They had to cut into the hill side to make the pavement big enough, but no extra space at all. Terrible. And worse, they made no provision for crowd control: as soon as an engine fired up, the kids living in the tenements would pour out to see and would simply overrun the area where the models were trying to fly. Very poor.

We ended up trying to rent a local soccer field for the Stunt fliers. That worked for one practice session until other countries found us and wanted to join in and the guy who was in charge of the field realized he was in deep trouble and ran us all off. Later we found an abandoned soccer area where the combat guys were able to practice. Imagine practice using only ½  a circle since the next space over was a right behind you. The Combat guys worked it out beautifully. Several of the U.S. guys brought 1/2A models for practice. Streamers were unavailable but we found that the Polish toilet paper was as good as our crepe paper! A pair of scissors, a roll of toilet paper, and we were back in business! :-) (Using the toilet paper for its intended purpose was not always fun!)

     (Edit to add: Bob Hunt's description of this episode is obviously the accurate account. Here is my  "story as I heard it". WRL)
The stunt fliers always are looking for practice. The story as I heard it was that the Canadians had worked an arrangement with the local full-scale soaring club to use a grass area adjacent to the local airport. The Americans asked to tag along and were told how to get there: through a back gate in the fence. Arriving, across the field was an ‘antique biplane’. Bob Hunt, being the aviation-minded sort that we all are, grabbed his camera and snapped a picture. Of the biplane and the radar installation behind! It wasn’t long before a 6x6 loaded with armed soldiers came through the gate behind them and promptly arrested the entire team. We were told they were in the local police station and that they needed team management or somebody to come try and get them bailed out. Wisely, I left that to Jehlik.

It wasn’t until 3a.m. on the day we were scheduled to leave for home that Bob Hunt got permission to leave the country!

Each day as we had to go to the field for competition, we had to drive through town. Each day as we did,we saw lines outside of the little stores: this one to get a loaf of bread, that one to buy some cheese, the next one for a little meat  .. or  eggs … or milk … or … I think you get the idea. And the real sad thing is that most of those people in line would come away empty handed since there simply wasn’t enough stuff to meet the needs! This was the first time I had ever traveled outside of the U.S., the first time I ever experienced a country where basic freedoms were gone, where the oppressive nature of the government was apparent in every aspect of life. I came home and for the first time in my life I started to appreciate what it means to live in a free country and have the freedoms we all expect. This trip changed my life!

Competition was the reason we were there of course. I am sure you have seen other accounts of what happened. You have seen how Walt and JE got badly screwed in F2C. How Phil Granderson got third in F2D. The sterling results of the F2B team.

I spent most of the week with Phil since ostensibly the Assistant Team Manager’s role was to manage the F2D team. We protested one loss that Phil suffered.

In those days, the F2D rules did not require a shut-off in case of fly-aways. The rules also said (and say) that if the streamer is not retrievable, a backup streamer is available and can be requested. Phil’s model was cut loose and flew away, landing up in the grandstand somewhere. (We were flying in a soccer stadium.) I asked the F2D Judge for the back-up streamer and got this blank stare! Seems their idea of “available” means over at processing at the other end of the field! (Today, that isn’t the case: the F2D guys KNOW what it takes to run a contest!) We wrote the protest, I presented it to the FAI Jury but they didn’t want to over-rule the results and we lost.

Another match was funny: Polish competitor, two models on the ground during warm-up, streamer on the front model with engine running, pitman fires the engine on the second model and promptly collects a couple of feet of the streamer off the first. They realize the problem, they get a new streamer. And promptly hooked it onto the first model and launch the second one! One model on the ground with 1-1/2 streamers, another in the air with none! Humorous!

One day as Phil and I were walking out of the stadium where F2D was held, we were approached by a couple of people. They stopped us and asked if we would carry some letters out with us and drop them in the mail when we left Poland. Phil and I had been cautioned about doing anything like that, like taking pictures of military installations, like taking pictures of train stations, etc., so we, of course, refused. Later we talked about the incident and wondered if we were being ‘set up’. Here we are a couple of American, one white, Phil the only black man on the field, and these yahoos single us out to try and carry documents out! Seems a bit strange to me!

Many years later, Phil and I spoke of this while we were both at VSC one year. Phil told me that after we got home, he was sick with a bad cold and stayed home for a couple of weeks. One day, the doorbell rings and he is met by two obvious ‘agents’, car they were driving the typical stereotype four door sedan, identified themselves as FBI. Phil told me they questioned him at length about that episode in Poland some 20+ years earlier. Phil was wondering if I had had the same or similar experience: I did not.

Chapter 4: Heading Home
Leaving Poland:

The travel arrangements the first day were to drive to Dresden back in East Germany and spend the night, then on to Frankfurt the next  day, spend the night in a hotel near the airport and then fly home.

I had a van and I went with Walt Perkins as he drove the Polish Fiat back to Wroclaw to return to the Avis rental location.  I had Al Kelly with me, (someone else, don’t remember), and Walt. Al, as we left Częstochowa, had purchased a case of Polish beer and had it in the van with us. Being conscientious folks that we are, it stayed hidden until we got to Dresden. Al broke out the bottles and handed them out. That beer was SO BAD, nobody could take more than one taste before discarding it. Apparently even the folks who bottled it knew how bad it was since they had put the labels on the bottles inside-out: you had to look through the bottle to see the face of the label. We all thought that was appropriate!

As you know from the history books, Dresden was fire-bombed at the end of WWII and essentially destroyed. A lot of reconstruction had occurred and the hotel where we stayed was at the end of a large square of open space and was a relatively new building. Obviously something rebuilt after the war. Our evening dinner was scheduled at another, old, hotel a pretty good walk away, overlooking the Elbe river. On the way there we visited the old church destroyed by Allied bombing. We were told that the Germans had decided to not restore it, to leave as a memorial to what happened there in WWII. I think that changed later since in 2002 when I was in Dresden, the church was being rebuilt. (I am not a true historian, perhaps others can give a better history than what I have said here.)

Leaving East Germany:
The next day we headed back west on the autobahn. This day, each of the vans was sent on its own rather than staying together as we had before. John McCollum had one van, I had another and we stayed together.

As we are approaching the East German border, both of our vans are getting low on gas. We pulled off the autobahn on a long access road leading to surface roads ahead. There was a small town nearby and I want to know if John wanted to try and get gas there or just continue on. John said just continue on.

Pulled out, went to the bottom of the hill and stopped at the end of the access road at a stop sign. Looked way off down the road and saw a car, far away, hardly visible. Pulled out onto the road and started on up the hill headed back towards the west. John waited and let the car, a police car, go by.

On up the hill, on come the lights and he pulls both of us over. Of course, it was “screw the gringos’ opportunity! He gave me a ticket for “failure to yield right of way”, and gave John a ticket for “stopping on the autobahn”. And, as usual, wanted payment right then and there. We asked him how much and he quoted American $s. Asked about East German Ostmark. Turns out Al Kelly had converted  a bunch of $s into East German money on the trip in and had enough to pay both tickets. When the cop realized he was going to get that worthless money, his body language went straight into the toilet! No American $s to stick in his pockets today! It was great!

We got to the border crossing, made it through easily. And ‘right over there’ was a gas station where John and I took the vans. While we were filling up, the guys went across the street to a market and came back with sack of junk food! Potato chips! Cookies! Crackers! And so forth! Looking back I realized that we had not had anything like that in the almost two weeks that we had been in Poland, and also realized that this was the free world again! All of the food we had in Poland was food that could be produced locally. There was no imported stuff like bananas or oranges or lemons or … but plenty of potatoes and tomatoes and cucumbers and … and certainly  no packaged stuff like they bought. Needless to say, it was good to be back in the west again.


Chapter 5: Reflections
As I said above, that trip changed my life. For the first time I finally started to realize what it means to be a free person, how precious our freedoms are. I realized that if all you do is sit back and complain, (or worse: do nothing) you get whatever happens. If you want things to change the way you think they should, you have to get involved, you have to give a bit of yourself.

I had been writing the CL Racing Column for Model Aviation. But I decided that I needed to get involved with government at my local level. I gave up the column, I ran for and was elected to my city council where I served for the following 10 years. I continued (and still am) to be involved in AMA’s FAI programs, as team manager, as a competitor on the team, as supporter, as the U.S. member of the CIAM F2 Technical Subcommittee. I organized and ran the 2004 F2 World Championships in Muncie, I was the IT person and webmaster for the Australians in 2016, and I am organizing and running the 2024 F2 World Championships here next year.

I’m not trying to pat myself on the back but to emphasize the mantra: if you want to see it happen, get involved! Make it happen! Don’t just sit back and expect somebody else to do it!

Regards,

Bill Lee
AMA 20018
Bill@WRLee.com
« Last Edit: November 17, 2023, 10:06:43 PM by BillLee »
Bill Lee
AMA 20018

Offline Bob Hunt

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Re: The Infamous 1980 U.S. FAI F2 World Champs trip: another report
« Reply #1 on: November 17, 2023, 05:38:42 PM »
Thanks for posting that story, Bill. It certainly was an adventure, and each of those on the team have their own perspective of what happened. Being one of the lucky (?) few who were actually detained at gunpoint, I have perhaps a more, shall we say, acute viewpoint.

No one ever told us about the site at which we were detained; we found that on our own, and in retrospect it was a terrible decision on our part. But, hey, like you wrote, the Stunt guys like to practice! In the end it paid off because as a whole team we won five medals (Silver for Team Race and Bronze for Combat), with the Stunt guys taking Gold, Silver, and Bronze in F2B, just as the team in 1976 did in Holland. Those were glory years for the American F2B team as we won Gold every cycle from 1970 to 1982! We also won the team Gold during those same years. That record may stand forever...

Thanks, too, Bill for all your years of service to the FAI programs. Hope we didn't make it too hard on you...

Later - Bob

Offline Les McDonald

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Re: The Infamous 1980 U.S. FAI F2 World Champs trip: another report
« Reply #2 on: November 27, 2023, 08:01:52 PM »
Like Bob said, thanks Bill for telling about that whole affair. Your efforts have not gone unappreciated but I will admit they were undervalued and for that I want to personally  apologize. My participation in that adventure only involved the bugging of the rooms, our detainment at the airfield and my meeting with spy vs spy at the banquet. It was only after a period of time years later that I learned of more details and to this day it still expands.
If the Polish Secret Service had done a remedial back ground check on us prior to arriving I can understand why they were a bit paranoid. I know Don Jehlik, myself and Steve Hill  have a history of government service that could be twisted into some fantasy so maybe that was the root of the entire situation. We will never know and it really doesn't matter.
All we have now are our memories.
At this point I just want to thank Bill Lee for all his sacrifices, hard work and dedication to allow guys like me to compete at this level with total concentration for the task at hand.
I see people my age out there climbing mountains and zip lining and here I am feeling good about myself because I got my leg through my underwear without losing my balance

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