Well, I was there and saw pretty much the whole thing. The good, the bad and the ugly.
First, the standard of flying was quite good throughout with a number of very good electric ships which got my attention, including, of course, Igor's. As I recall there were four electrics in the finals. The overwhelming number of buy and fly Yatsenko airplanes was a definite factor. Didn't count them but they were everywhere and all flew to a predictably high standard. Orestes was the highest placing of those flying these ships and I would agree that he deserved the honor. I also felt that the Yatsenko brother in the finals flew essentially just as well but had the misfortune of flying first in the final (and deciding) third round.
The finals, by the way, were flown with two rounds on Friday and one round on Saturday. As noted by others, the Friday flying was impacted by widely varying conditions. The difference was exacerbated because of the scheduling that included a one and a half hour lunch break for the judges which pretty much separated the bad morning and early second round air from the nearly stunt heaven air later in the latter flights of the second round. Rub of the green as they say in golf. Unfortunately, mulligans weren't part of the package.
Our guys flew very well although there were some weak spots in some of their patterns that never did get totally ironed out. Orestes was very solid throughout and, as I stated, truly earned his third place finish. David did get hammered in the windy round but flew solidly throughout with the exception of his second qualifying round where I thought he backed off a little too much in hopes of avoiding big errors (needing to get a good flight on the board) and as a result had some wishy washy bottoms and a significant lack of "sparkle" that usually helps set his patterns apart. The result was a "safe" score that got him into contention but still pretty far in trail of the highest scores of the top competitors. His last flight was much solider throughout but wasn't enough to bring him back up to the top three level.
Derek and Bill responded well to our critique sessions and Derek's finish pretty well told the story of a good flyer getting whacked by Mother Nature (He pancaked in during the square eight on his flight in the bad air) and not being able to dig himself out of the hole which resulted. The less then perfect grass surface also bit him and cost him at least two props--forcing him to go in search of a replacement. I was very proud of his last round flight in which he was finally able to put all the "stuff" behind him and earned a very credible 1060+ score. Even more impressive was the last round of qualifying flight in which he had pre-determined he needed to get a 1020+ to overcome the hole he found himself in from the previous rounds. He pulled something like a 1021 which did exactly what he said it would do.
Bill Rich's situation bothered us all. He started out the week with a few rough spots but had them pretty thoroughly smoothed out by the time officials rolled around yet he never seemed to get the judges' attention. The fact that he had no international history combined with the fact that the depth of talent was so great among the vast majority of the fliers probably joined forces to do him in. His official flights were solid and scores well in excess of those he received would not have surprised me a bit. Having said that, I've always felt that I'm never surprised by stunt scores--often informed--but never surprised. There are only certain things the flier has control over and none of them has anything to do with the judges' determinations. That's just the way it goes.
I can't say enough positive things about the performance of young Ryan Young. His week got off to a rotten start when none of his equipment made it to Hungary when he did. Finally his backup airplane (a Brett Buck Infinity with a Trivial Pursuit wing in it) arrived but the engines and tanks were in another case which hadn't shown up. The team worked together to shoe horn David's backup PA .75 and its eight oz capacity tank into the front end of the big yellow bird. Fortunately, the engine performed pretty much as programmed and after some intensive retrimming the new ship was flying well and the pilot performing even better. From the very first flight he was the only member of the US Team who didn't have some shape problems. I don't know if it's because kids have studied geometry more recently than their "elder" team members but all of his rounds were round and all of the cornered maneuvers had equal sides and precise 90 or 120 degree angles. This, plus the fact that he drove so deep into bottom corners that I flinched every time he did so, made his flight truly standout.
The only thing we tried to caution him on was that he was demanding the absolute maximum out of the airplane under ideal conditions and we feared that under stress or bad air he risked performance problems. That did in fact turn out to be the case in the bad air day as he stalled the ship repeatedly in the bottom corners and this didn't do him any good with the judges.
Nonetheless, although he started out well behind his primary competition (the Italian and French Juniors) the judge gradually and almost predictable scored him better with each successive round. After two round of finals he had a substantial lead over the two other Juniors although a good flight by either coupled with a stinker of his own could have done him in.
The most impressive thing I saw all week was his last finals flight when he got off richer than ideal and I feared that he wouldn't finesse the flight the way that would be necessary to eliminate errors that would cost lots of points. Well, the kid is nothing if not a fast learner, not only did he display such finesse but he also took the airplane to pretty much the limits of what could be asked and never went beyond that edge of the envelope. Although the French flier put up a big number on his last flight, Ryan finessed his flight to a virtual wash with that of the Frenchman and his bigger numbers from the first day took the blue ribbon.
I've got to run now. I'll try to get back later on and talk a bit about the other fliers, the site, the weather, the contest administration and some thoughts on the judging.
The bottom line on the American team is that they all worked hard and performed well. In the judges' eyes they appear not to quite have come up with the big numbers necessary to prevail at the level we all would have liked. As an assistant manager tasked with "shepherding" their efforts, I can assure you that they left nothing in their tanks by the end of the week. You couldn't ask for more than they gave.
Ted Fancher
Edited to remove repeated paragraphs.
Topic: Can we start analysis now or is it too early (Read 18691 times)
