CIAM

Issue

10

March 2000

US $3.00

CIAM

Flyer

Newsletter of theFAI Aeromodelling

Commission (CIAM)

#

Issue 10! As ‘they’ say time flys when youare having fun. It really is exciting readingall about International Aeromodelling.So much seems to be happening aroundthe world and as you will read, more isplanned for the new millennium.

Many thanks go to those who contributed to this issue. As usualit’s your input that keeps things moving and advertises yourdiscipline. Many of our readers look forward to hearing aboutChampionship events and I would encourage you to report youractivities as early as possible to insure inclusion in the Flyer.

Discussion is currently going on in the Bureau regarding theuse of a web site. Whether the Internet is the vehicle of thefuture for our organization remains to be debated. Your input ofcourse will be valuable in any discussion about the Flyer. Sowe look forward to hearing from you on this subject.

Jack

0

02 CIAM Flyer

CIAMFlyer

CIAM FLYER is the officialnewsletter of the FAIAEROMODELLINGCOMMISSION (CIAM),Avenue Mon-Repos 24,CH - 1005 Lausanne,Switzerland.Tel: +41-21-345-1070Fax: +41-21-345-1077

CIAM FLYER is published underthe auspices of the Informationand Education Committee of theCIAM originated by Art Schroder(US), Chairman, I.&E Committee,1980-90.

Editor: Jack Sile, 21 Bures Close,Stowmarket, Suffolk, IP14 2PL,England.Telephone: UK 1449-675190.Email: Jack Sile jacksile@aol.com

Contributing Editors:

Pierre Chaussebourg Claudio ChaconMike Colling Joze CudenEmil Ch Giezendanner Peter KeimJohn Lightfoot Tomas PedrosaSrdjan D Pelagic Paul RietbergenBob Underwood

Special thanks to all those whocontributed photos and articles.Also additional thanks to

SuffolkOffset, Ipswich, UK, for theirtechnical support and advice.

Opinions expressed by authorsand correspondents are notnecessarily those of the Editor orof the CIAM/FAI.

Articles from CIAM FLYER maybe reproduced under theconditions that acknowledgementwill be given to the author,original source if any, and CIAM Flyer.

EditorialIssue 10March 2000

#

PRESIDENT MR. SANDY PIMENOFF (FN)1ST VICE PRESIDENT MR. PIERRE CHAUSSEBOURG (F)2ND VICE PRESIDENT MR. WERNER GROTH (D)3RD VICE PRESIDENT MR. ANDRAS REE (HUN)TECHNICAL SECRETARY MR. BOB UNDERWOOD (U.S.A)SECRETARY MR. LUCA GIALANELLA (ITA)ASSISTANT SECRETARY MR. PIERRE CHAUSSEBOURG (F)

SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIRMEN:INFORMATION & EDUCATION MR. MIKE COLLING (GB)F1 MR. IAN KAYNES (GB)F2 DR. LAIRD JACKSON (BG)F3A MR. RON CHIDGEY (US)F3B MR. THOMAS BARTOVSKY (CZ)F3C MR. HORACE HAGEN (US)F3D MR. ROBERT BROWN (US)F4 MR. NARVE JENSON (NOR)F5 MR. EMIL GIEZENDANNER (CH)SPACE MR. SRDJAN D. PELAGIC (YU)

CIAM/FAI OFFICERS 1999/2000

CIAM Flyer 003

President’s Corner

NOTE

To CIAM delegates, modelling editors, columnists, recordholders, modelling instructors and other modellers.

CIAM Flyer is compiled from YOUR contributions.Closing date for the next issue is January 14, 2001

Your help will be greatly appreciated.

International aeromodelling,as governed andsupervised by CIAM, has

enjoyed steady success overmany years now. World andContinental Championshipsare organised globally in agrowing number of categories.We have active members insome 80 countries. WorldCups are staged in fivecategories with more to come,and the FAI InternationalSporting Calendar has loggeda new record of aeromodellingcontests every year. Thisdevelopment has certainlybeen very positive, somethingthe aeromodelling communitycan be justly proud of.

We have also seen many newcategories and classes ofmodels, specifications,contest rules and above all anever ending stream ofamendments to existingregulations.The pace of this flood of rulesand changes hasunfortunately lead to asituation which we no longerhave adequate control of. It isan embarrassing fact that wetoday cannot present aSporting Code entirely up todate, neither do we have an

up to date amendment listthat with certainty, iscomplete and correct.

For newcomers to our sportthis can be very confusing,and can take away a greatdeal of the attractiveness ofour activities. Even worse, inspite of our efforts the ruleshave not always offered thestability that developingaeromodelling individuals,groups, and indeed nationsrequire to make goodprogress.

While catering for the elitewe must also remember theyoung, the learners, the notso expert. We must createan environment that attractsthem, because they are ourfuture.

The 2000 Plenary meetingwill address these questions,with the aim of creatingdecisions that safeguard ourachievements, and give usthe basis for further growth.This calls for both new ideas,the right action and areasonable amount of self-discipline in our productionof rules and regulations. Ibelieve we can achieve this,and together build a stilllarger internationalaeromodelling community, inwhich we will enjoy thenumber 1 hobby-sport of theplanet even more.

I wish you all a Happy NewMillennium!

Sandy Pimenoff ,CIAM President

QUO VADIS, CIAM?

Aeromodelling as a hobby /sport is an importanteducational and

recreational activity that reacheshundreds of thousands ofindividuals from the very young tosenior citizens. In virtually everycase, those individuals who have

shaped the history of aviation were(or still are) modellers. More oftenthan not, pilots, astronauts,designers and dreamers first tastedthe thrill of flight through the world ofaeromodelling. They first werepilots with their feet on the ground!

In the United States, aeromodellershave been given a uniqueopportunity to share in the thrill ofpromoting aviation. The National Airand Space Museum (NASM),working through the SmithsonianInstitution Travelling ExhibitionService (SITES) has placed adisplay of 25 model aircraft on tourthroughout the United States. TheAcademy of Model Aeronautics(AMA) is collaborating with theSmithsonian in this endeavour.

As the display moves about thecountry over a period of two andone-half years, AMA is enlisting theaid of clubs in various areas.

004 CIAM Flyer

Iam highly honoured to beawarded the Alphonse PenaudDiploma of the year 1999 as an

F1D modeller in Japan. I was bornin Tokyo in 1955. It was almost 30years ago that I read an article onIndoor Planes for the first time in amagazine. I think it was about thetime of the dawn of indoor planesin Japan. I was attracted by itsdelicate beauty and its light weightpushed almost to its limit. I wanted

to build it myself. In the meantime Imet Mr. Sigeyoshi Nonaka, pioneerof indoor planes in Japan, and nowand then received instruction fromhim. I started my career as a F1Dmodeller. It was in 1973 at the ageof 18 that I built my first F1Dmodel.We hold F1D NationalChampionships every year sinceDecember 1976. I was nationalchampion in 1978, 1983, 1985,1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991,

1992, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999.I am the only F1D modeller thatcontinuously entered the nationalchampionships since 1976. It wasin 1981 that I established a F1Dcat.1 world record.

I entered the F1D worldchampionships in 1976(Cardington UK), 1982 (Slanic-Prahova ROM), 1984 (NagoyaJPN), 1986 (Cardington UK), 1988(Johnson city USA), 1990(Johnson city USA), 1992(Wrockaw POL), 1994 (SlanicPrahova ROM), 1996 (MoscowUSA), 1998 (Slanic Prahova

Alphonse Penaud DiplomaHideyo Enomoto

OnMiniature

Wings

Bob Underwood

FAIAero-

ModellingGold Medal

1999

Tony Aarts

Peter Keim

Ton Aarts (Tony abroad) mustbe one of the best knownaeromodelling officials in the

CIAM world. After years of beingCIAM Technical Secretary, Tonytravelled all over the world and met

many people during many occasions.What happened before this periodwas that most readers did not knowhim. Why did the NetherlandsAeroclub nominate him for this award?Because now that Tony is so wellknown, in all probability, most of theCIAM delegates would vote for him!

Born in 1924 Tony startedaeromodelling just before the secondworld war, of course with free flightmodels. First were gliders, and laterwith rubber models. In that period,Tony’s interest, already was excitedby scale models. After the war Tonywas one of the promoters of controlline in the Netherlands. He flewspeed, aerobatic and scale models.

His latest flying activities have beenfree flight sport models.

As a young man, Tony studiedaeronautical engineering. He joinedFokker in 1946 and became aproduct support engineer in theTechnical Publications Department.He retired in 1989 and lives with hiswife Mieke in the town of Breda.

At Fokker Tony had the opportunity tostudy German technical reports;techniques which he applied to hismodel building. Sometimes with theopposite desired results!Because of his interest in technicalmatters he became a member of theTechnical Committee of the

CIAM Flyer 005

Hideyo Enomoto holding a F1D model

aeromodelling section of theNetherlands Aeroclub. He waschairman from 1960-1994. Asmember of the board Tony becamethe delegate to the CIAM. In 1973 hebecame Technical Secretary assuccessor to Ron Moulton. He filledthis position for 25 years. Whenpossible his modelling interest hasbeen focussed on scale models.

Some of his activities:15 times judge on a WC or a CC35 times FAI-jury member -on a WC or a CC.In Holland Tony still acts as judge foraerobatic and scale contests. CIAM flyer

Tony Aarts receives the Gold medal certificate from Sandy Pimenoff

Programs of various types areoccurring, ranging fromdemonstrations involving the flyingof models to providing documents tolead visitors to a betterunderstanding of the world ofaeromodelling. Of particularsignificance are the model buildingsessions which are occurring.School groups, communityagencies, and teachers arebecoming involved through theexpertise provided by AMAmodelling groups. In many cases,the touring displays aresupplemented with additionalmodels from the local area.

Included in the display are modelscreated for various reasons, such asthose used in wind tunnel testing,commercial promotion, historicaland recreational purposes. There is,for instance, a reproduction of theGood Brothers “Guff,” the firstsuccessful radio control model,originally flown in 1937. Thesewonderful models are supportedwith a well developed resource kit toteach visitors about aeromodellingand the principles of flight. A fullyillustrated book, written by ThomasDietz, of the National Air and SpaceMuseum, accompanies theexhibition.

The AMA, through its memberclubs, is pleased to be working withthousands of individuals in anumber of cities throughout theUnited States. The sharing ofmeaningful education programsregarding flight and recreationalexperiences does much to promotethe hobby/sport. Currently beingconsidered is a secondcollaboration between theSmithsonian and AMA as weapproach 2003 and the celebrationof the 100th anniversary of theWright brothers’ powered flight.Aeromodelling truly is aviation’sinspirational parent! CIAM flyer

ROM). 7th place in 1990 WCH,USA, was my best. There I usedmy original design variable-pitchpropeller. I majored in mechanicalengineering at university and Ihave been working in aircraftequipment manufacture in Tokyo. Iam now sub chairman of theindoor committee of the Japanmodel aeronautic association.

The number of F1D modellers inJapan is becoming smaller andsmaller. I would like to do my bestto activate indoor modelling inJapan in the year 2000. CIAM flyer

006 CIAM Flyer

T hat is a question that I havebeen asked more than onceand the answer is for a number

of reasons. Building and flying modelaircraft is a most enjoyable thing to do, Iwould not do it if I did not enjoy it and Iwould like more young people to takeup the sport. However with fewer ModelShops in towns and the emergence ofmore mail order stores, a youngster hasless of an opportunity to come acrossmodels. Model aircraft flying is probablyunique in the airsports in having no agelimit. It can cost less than any otherairsports and can be carried out in justabout any reasonable free space bothindoors and out. It can be carried out atwhatever level you wish from club flyingon a Sunday to competing in WorldChampionships.

Model building and flying can be much,much more. For a youngster it can openmany new doors to the large world ofaviation and technology. In Britain, theBMFA in collaboration with BritishAerospace uses a model building andflying contest in schools as a way topromote interest in Engineering andTechnology through flight. The BMFAalso promotes model design buildingand flying with its University Challenge.A large number of Universities arerealising the value of using a modeldesign and building project as a goodlow cost method to train students in howto problem solve and manage a project.Colleges of Further education are usingmodels to tempt some young students,about to leave school, to look at acareer in aircraft management as anoption. Model building and flying canstimulate a youngster’s mind and helpto keep their desire to enter theirchosen airsport when finances allowand the correct age is attained.

Model aircraft education programmesare being run in many countries in theworld, such as the United States ofAmerica, France, Germany, NewZealand, Australia and Britain. The type

of model used is varied from project toproject and there is not a single designof model that is best for the task. InBritain it was decided to aim ourprogramme mainly at the upper end ofprimary school and the lower end ofsecondary school, that is between 9and 13 year olds. By encouragingteachers to use simple models as ateaching aid for such subjects asScience and Craft Design Technology itis hoped that teachers will carry out thework of initially introducing aviationthrough models to a large number ofyoungsters. We do not expect all thestudents introduced to model aircraftwill take it up as a sport but if only onepercent does, all our efforts will beworthwhile. It may be the case thatsomeone only takes up an airsport longafter they have left school but theinfluence at school made them considerparticipating in that type of sport. It canbe hard to quantify the success of aneducation programme but mostcertainly without it model flying inparticular and airsports in general willdecline.

How CIAM can help you.OK so the reason for an EducationProgramme is good but how do youstart. Education systems verythroughout the world, and so I am notable to state what is the best method ofrunning a model aircraft educationprogramme in your area. But the CIAMInformation and Educationsubcommittee can help, in that we canprovide you with designs and teachingmaterial that we know works. We haveavailable an Education Resources Filethat contains a large number ofsuccessful designs, teaching plans andinformation in a handy binder. Once youhave the file you will be able to choosethe material that fits in best with yourrequirements. The resources file isupdated when new informationbecomes available, usually about twicea year and we are constantly looking fornew material. To obtain your copy of the

CIAM Education Resources File send£15 along with your name and addressto :- Mike Colling, 403 Mossy Lea Road,Wrightington, Wigan, Lancs., WN6 9SB,England.

How can you help CIAM?At the present time the CIAMInformation and Educationsubcommittee has two projects running.The Education Resources File I havementioned above and the CIAM ModelAircraft Publication Register. ThisRegister provides a database of modelaircraft magazines and newsletters sothat if CIAM requires information to besent out to the general sports flyer it willbe able to do so with greater ease andefficiency. We require your help withboth the Education Resources File andthe Model Aircraft Publication Register.

If you have any good educationaldesigns or material to pass on to othersplease send them for inclusion in to theEducation Resources File. To makecopying simple please ensure that allitems to be included in the file areprinted on A4 or A3 paper and sent tothe address above. The main languageused in the file is English.

The Model Aircraft Publication Registerhas only just started with only a smallnumber of titles shown outside the UK.The type of information I require is thepublications title, postal address, topicscovered and in what language. Thecost, number of editions published peryear, telephone and fax numbers alongwith their e-mail address is all usefulinformation.

To give recognition to those modellers,who have given their time and energy tothe promotion of model aviation toyoungsters, CIAM has now created theFrank Ehling Diploma, which can beawarded annually. Nominations for thisaward can be sent on the relevant formto the FAI office.

For our airsport to grow we must attractthe young. To attract the young theymust be subjected to the FUN andSATISFACTION of building and flyingtheir own models. To do this we mustput effort into an education programme.If we do not try, we will die. So, HAVEYOU HELPED A YOUNGSTER TODAY?

Why Have an

EducationProgramme?

Mike Colling

CIAM flyer

CIAM Flyer 007

Deva, Romania, July 1999.The 2nd European F3JChampionships were a

great success for everyone whoattended. It would be very difficultto choose a better venue withacres of unrestricted flying areathan Deva. The flying site waslocated on a private airfield and farfrom any uninterested persons,thus leaving the entire area to theorganizers and participants.Campers used the facilities of theairports administration officeswhich were complete with severalshowers and wash rooms. Mealswere provided on the field andappreciated by all the competitorsand helpers.

The championships were flown inperfect weather conditions andwere only interrupted once by athunderstorm. The competitionwas keen and coming to theforefront of European F3Jhopefuls were the Hungarians,who finished second in teamplacings. But it was a German,Dieter Koehler, who finished firstin the Individual Senior categoryand also a German Junior,Markus Zucker, that won theJunior contest. Alex Hoekstra, thecurrent European champion, gave

EuropeanF3J

ThermalSoaring

Championships

Jack Sile

it his all but could only finish 2ndto Dieter. At this championshipthe organizers had the option touse 4 rounds in the flyoff and itproved to be very interesting.Each round in the seniors had adifferent type of weather conditionand it was to be a real test forEurope’s best thermal soarers.This was one of the best thermalsoaring contests I had seen andno doubt it is indicative how goodthe competition will be in Corfu inJuly 2000.

It must be said that the Romanianhospitality was second to noneand Marius Conu workedextremely hard to deal with theneeds of the competitors.Although there were the inevitablehiccups, the organization headedby Mikhail Zanciu was superb andit was capped by a fine evening ofcelebrations and prizegiving. Atruly great place to have a thermalsoaring contest. CIAM flyer

The top F3J Juniors

Individual Results

Seniors

1. Dieter Koehler, Germany2. Alex Hoekstra, Netherlands3. Jan Kohout, Czech Republic4. Michal Wagner,

Czech Republic5. Jos Kleucsens, Netherlands

Juniors

1. Markus Zucker, Germany2. Adam Koteles, Hungary3. Jan Vacha, Czech Republic4. Martin Gregor,

Czech Republic5. Vit Cernak, Slovak Republic

Team Results:

Seniors

1. Czech Republic2. Hungary3. Netherlands

Juniors

1. Germany2. Czech Republic3. Slovak Republic

Dieter Koehler, F3J European Champion, receives his

award from Thomas Bartovsky

The best senior team were from the Czech Republic

008 CIAM Flyer

Ihave to say that I approached therecent F3B World Champs withvery mixed feelings - on the one

hand, I looked forward keenly toseeing the top radio control gliderflyers in action, but on the other hand,there was my scoring spreadsheetwhich was going to be put to theseverest test at the highest level - andI would be less than truthful if Iclaimed that I wasn’t a little nervous.

The field was a positively huge ex-sunflower field belonging to a localfarmer, Rainer Lypke, who hadobligingly ploughed, levelled andsmoothed it, to give a surface which,while it definitely wasn’t grass, wasfirm and fairly smooth. Eight grasspatches, each about eight metressquare, had been laid for landingspots and to make landings a littleeasier. They seemed to work quitewell, although the lip at the edge ofthe grass caught many slidingmodels which would normally havereached the spot.

Many people and organisations hadsupported the event in various waysand I make no pretence at acomplete list - that was covered at theclosing banquet - but the two mostobvious ones were farmer Rainer andFrans Spamer of Willards, the latterproviding no fewer than forty batteriesfor the event - two for each team anda couple for the scoreboard, and ifthat wasn’t enough, the wholegathering was treated to an eveningat Willards.

Sunday was “Round Zero” and thankgoodness for it! It is an unofficialround which allows the pilots to get

into contest gear and the officials toget their acts together. The latter wasa vital part of the show, as thedistance / speed computerscoreboard had only been completeda few days earlier, and its operationhad to be understood first.Considering that the board had beenpartly built by one man, thenabandoned and finished by another,who was very competentelectronically but had no ideawhatever of the operation of an F3Bcontest and had to design theelectronic programme purely fromwhat he was told, it was very effectiveand did exactly what it was supposedto, once the operators learned how totalk to it. One of the operations waseven changed - minorreprogramming on the field - to makethings a little easier.

There were five different electronictones, each associated with aflashing coloured light, to tell pilotswhen they crossed the line - thebedlam of hoots, yells, squeals,sirens and shouts during a distancetask had to be heard to be believed -it took a bit of getting used to, to seea pilot and two helpers gazing in onedirection (at the plane) while a fourthfaced in exactly the oppositedirection, shouting a single word -“Turn!” - at more or less regularintervals, in response to the flashinglight.

Each team had four (or more)winches, and two were laid out in

each direction, so that there wasusually some 28 km of line spreadout across the field. From time to timea line would be declared no longerreliable, stripped off the winch anddiscarded. When there was about 5or 6 km of the stuff in the dustbin,Andrew (my son) hit on the idea ofasking the teams to wind it onto anempty reel, of which there wereplenty lying about, so he broughthome about 4 km of usable line!

The Duration task had to bedescribed as a bit unexciting - if youdidn’t reach at least six and a halfminutes you were dead meat! Therewere probably fewer than ten flightsof less than six minutes in the wholecontest, which is why the task goesup to ten minutes from this event.Imagine scoring 990 out of a possible1000 and placing 23rd out of 53!Landings were the most interestingpart and there were two clear schoolsof thought - one was to come in asslow and low as possible and dumpon the spot after clearing the edge ofthe grass, while the other was tocome in nicely above the stall atabout one metre and spear the spotat 45deg! The grass made thesurface just acceptably soft enoughfor the purpose and modern F3Bmodels are definitely tough enoughto take the impact.

The fun started with Distance. Fivemodels, sometimes going at speed-run speed, back and forth betweenbase-A and base-B - always

F3BWorld

Championships

John Lightfoot

Photos: by Thomas Bartovsky

Ready Box

CIAM Flyer 009

accompanied by several franticshouts of “No Signal!” (oddly, often ina Dutch accent!).We discovered that,because of the design of thecomputer software, if a pilot missedhis first turn into the course he wouldappear to miss two turn signals, gettwo apparently right in between andthen have everything work correctly -resulting in total confusion, throughwhich the base-A crew sat stoney-faced and said, “You missed theentry!” This didn’t go down at all well,since the teams were surprisinglyimpractical in terms of understandingtechnicalities. One, who I knew hadbeen in the game for at least fifteenyears, even started a debate aboutwhat part of the model was used fordeciding whether a base had beencrossed or not! Everyone knows it’sthe nose!

Distances of 22 to 26 laps have beenconsidered pretty good, the WorldRecord being 31. Denis Duchesneraised this to 32 but only reigned forabout half-an-hour before Espen Torpof Sweden set a new World Record of35 in the four-minute working time. Toput this in perspective means doingeach lap in a shade under sevenseconds - or imagine it as doing nineconsecutive 27-second speed-runs!True, he was blessed with trulyawesome conditions, but onecomment overheard was, “Spare athought for the guy who flew 33 laps,bettering the old World Record, andonly scored 940 points!”

The majority of pilots returned timesof between 17 and 22 seconds in theSpeed task. Even a missed turn onlypushed the time up to about 26seconds. A couple of the Swedishmodels were incredibly quiet - at fullspeed they made less noise thansome of our models cruising! DarylPerkins set a new World Record witha time of 14,07 seconds. There wasa theory doing the rounds that Darylhad done a deal with the devil,although it was unclear just what wasoffered in exchange for thermalsduring his speed tasks. Just for therecord, his speed times were - 19,9118,80 15,01 14,07 15,02 16,91giving an average over all six of 16,62while Dieter Perlick, his closest rivalrecorded - 16,73 18,30 15,3015,54 15,64 16,63 giving anaverage of 16,36 seconds. How’sthat for consistency? . . . at top level!It was interesting to see that severalpilots were a little wobbly on thespeed course - their models lookedas if they were on a roller-coaster, aselevator was applied rather unevenly.With modern radios I would havethought that this was a classic casefor exponential elevator . . . gentle

close to centre but strong at theextremes. I doubt if the body-language used by the US teamactually helped that much, butGordon Jennings was the primeexponent of this technique. He neverimproved on the wonderful pose hestruck in round two, before I had acamera ready. At the opposite end ofthe scale was Dave Charles of theUK, who could hardly be said to befeeling much stress as he exits thespeed course.

The highlight of the contest, for me atany rate, would have to be theAustralian team performance forGregg Voak in Speed. He didn’t likethe height he got the first time and sohe landed for a relaunch . . . the zoomfrom the second launch resulted inthe ‘chute getting caught in his planesV-tail and it would have yanked himout of the sky if he’d tried flying it, sohe let it fall . . . straight down withcrow-brakes out . . . if he’d pulled outnormally to touch down he’d havelanded in the safety area andincurred a penalty, so he pushed indown at the last minute and landedgently on wingtips and V-tail - without

FINAL RESULT

WORLD CHAMPS - 1999TOTAL —— Duration —— —— Distance —— ——- Speed —— penalty

best 5 pos worst best 5 pos worst best 5 pos worst

PERKINS Daryl 97 14552 1 4990 2 971 4867 12 690 4695 1 779

PERLICK Dieter GER 14529 2 4940 26 981 4898 8 929 4691 2 814

HOFMANN Roland SWI 14442 3 4942 25 969 5000 1 400 4500 3 844

BOEHLEN Stefan SWI 14320 4 4882 36 873 4957 3 667 4481 5 570

KNECHTLE Stefan SWI 14260 5 4955 19 665 5000 1 941 4305 13 775

WURTS Joe USA 14251 6 4988 3 987 4885 10 792 4478 6 717

100

HALEY Steve GBR 14120 7 4931 28 969 4929 5 500 4261 14 708

DONKER DUYVIS Frits NED 14105 8 4979 7 859 4642 25 619 4484 4 802

LEGOU Franck FRA 14094 9 4843 41 815 4803 14 737 4448 9 799

HOFFMANN Peter AUT 14054 10 4859 40 689 4797 15 889 4398 10 670

TEAM RESULT WORLD CHAMPS - 1999

TOTAL pos Gross discard penalty

1 SWI Switzerland 43022 1 49726 6704 0

2 GER Germany 42084 2 49423 7339 0

3 FRA France 41825 3 48112 6288 0

4 USA United States 41649 4 47888 6139 100

5 AUT Austria 41498 5 47251 5753 0

010 CIAM Flyer

T he last Free FlightChampionship of the secondMillennium was held in Israel.

The teams were accommodated inAshkelon in a hotel situated on the seaside, near the beach.

The flying site was on the northern endof the Negev desert about a one hourdrive from the Mediterranean sea side.This distance from the flying field aswell as the weather conditions dictatedthat the start of the flying was as soonas the visibility was sufficient to timethe models. So, it was necessary to getup at least two hours before sunrise.

The weather was the same everyday;light wind at sunrise with a littlethermal activity, then dead calm withno wind and no thermals. This usuallyoccurred during the end of the secondround and the third round, thenthermals got stronger, with veryturbulent air and strong winds in thetwo last rounds.

After 13.30 It was quite impossible tofly a model. With such weather, therewas no possibility of having a fly-off inthe late afternoon because theturbulence and the wind continued fora long time after sunset.

The organisers who knew what it is likein this place (it has been the same forthousands of years) had scheduled allfly-offs for the following morning ofeach class day, with a ten minuteround for ten minutes max.

Everything started with a world cupcontest, which provided theopportunity for testing the field and forthe organisers to warm up timekeepersand to try field organisation.

FreeFlightWorld

Championshipin ISRAEL

PierreChaussebourg

damage . . . Peter Abell ran out the150m to the landing point . . . ran the150m back with the model . . .collapsed in an asthmatic heap as itwas taken from him and hooked upwith just 35 seconds of working timeleft! Gregg flew up the line andstraight into the course with only 24seconds on the clock. The wholefield could be felt and heardencouraging his model over the lastleg, which he completed with one-and-a-half seconds to spare!

The contest was directed overall byDion Liebenberg in his usual quiet,laid-back manner, although woebetide anyone who transgressed - hesoon discovered the other side ofDion. I should know . . . I didn’t quitefollow procedure on the first day andwas (quite rightly) severely chewedfor my pains! The Flight Line wascontrolled in rather more kragdadigefashion by Gert Immelmann. I’m notsure just what a 747 captain shouldlook like, but Gert somehow justdoesn’t . . . John Godwin impoundedTransmitters and with variousassistants saw to the ready box area,when it found its logical placebetween Tx Control and the FlightLine itself. Probably the mostthankless tasks of all were those ofthe base-A and base-B controllers,Mike Summers and Dave Greer, andtheir operators, one of whom wasclubmate Andre . . . sitting out in the

sun . . . often gazing straight into thesun . . . trying to separate/followidentical silhouettes as they crossed .. . abused by callers, pilots and TeamManagers . . . always in the wrongand unable to defend themselves . . .who’d be a base-caller?

Andrew (my son) was described as“the voice which will be rememberedfor years”. . . calling pilots to the readybox . . . calling them to the flight line .. . telling them that they shouldn’t beat the flight line yet . . . demanding thereturn of transmitters to the pound. Itwas said that if anyone from thisevent met him at a later one, theresponse would surely be “Hey,weren’t you the announcer in ‘99?”“Working time for Slot three Durationstarts on the tone!”, is a sentence hehopes never to hear again!

The show finished with a top-classBanquet, at which the awards weremade, and although the OfficialGuests appeared to have got lost, thefood was A-1! Perhaps they shouldhave doubled the Starters andomitted the Main Course! TrevorAustin and his Committee put in anincredible amount of time in planningand arranging the event and itsundoubted success earns themsincere congratulations. CIAM flyer

Daryl Perkins after his last flight

CIAM Flyer 011

which was followed by a crash.Evgueny was forced to use a back upmodel in the fly-off and finished adisappointing ninth.

The winner was Kennan Jusufbasicfrom Bosnia, followed by Ed Keck fromthe USA and Edin Sahinovic also fromBosnia.

Bosnia took the first team place, for thesecond time, as they had already wonthe team trophy in the F1B class.Kennan Jusufbasic who had alreadywon the silver medal in France in 1987behind the great Bob White, was thehero of the day, winning three goldmedals: F1B team, F1C team and F1Cindividual!

In conclusion, these championships inISRAEL were very successful. Themain problem was the dust and theheat... At this moment, at the end ofJanuary 2000 all participants musthave a smile, thinking about Jerusalemwith 30cm of snow, and snow in theNegev desert... which had nothappened for about 50 years!

The organisers did beautifully, runningtwo competitions together, whichmade a 500 meter long starting line...They were very efficient. Erik Sinai andEran Engel must be congratulatedalong with all their staff: secretaries,timekeepers, interpreters, officialsetc... All of them knew exactly what todo in any circumstance, and so,contributed to the success of thismagnificent event. CIAM flyer

On the day following the officialopening ceremony which took place inan antique Greek theatre, we startedwith the F1A (glider) class. The aeroclub of Israel, who have a veryimportant junior activity, organised aEuropean Championship for Juniors,which ran together with the WorldChampionship. In order to make theorganisation of the two competitionseasier, the juniors flew F1J (juniorpower class) on the 1st day.

Considering the weather conditions, wearrived at the end of the day with 39competitors remaining in the Fly-Off forthe next morning. So, we started thesecond day with a large F1A Fly-Off:Dariusz Stezalski from Poland won 1stplace, and two flyers tied for secondplace. It was decided that they wouldhave another fly-off on the next morning.

We had already had several dramas:one model was found to have too largea flying area. Then, during the fly-offanother one used a towline which waslonger than the allowed 50 meters:both competitors had to be disqualified.

During the F1B day, another dramaticsituation happened during the sixthround when defending champion AlexAndriukov got in trouble. Alex waited for

a long time to make the decision tolaunch his model, when he decided toremove the rubber motor, about 20minutes before the end of the round. Hebroke his 1st motor when winding, anddamaged his model. Then he tookanother model and the same thinghappened. Time was running out andless than ten minutes was remaining inthe round: it is always in this kind ofsituation that the watches seem toaccelerate... Well, it appeared that Alexbroke six motors before winding somerubber at about 70% of his rubberpower and rushed to his starting pole tofinally launch his model some 20seconds before the end of the round.Unfortunately, the model which seemedin a good position, was not in good airand missed the max for 14 seconds: itwas the end of his title defence...

The next morning we started the F1Bfly-off at 6.35 with 43 competitors for a10 minute flight. Kulakovsky of theUkraine won, followed at 11 secondsby Bror Eimar from Sweden who tooksecond place for the second time in arow...Anselmo Zeri from theNetherlands took 3rd place.

Then we had the Fly-off for the secondF1A place between Peter de Boer fromthe Netherlands and Namo Takahashifrom Japan. Peter de Boer had amodel with an electronic timer, givinghim extra height at launch. So hisstrategy was to watch his opponentand release his model in the samepatch of air. He did so, but the modeldied at launch... landing within a fatal20 seconds. He started for a secondattempt, but the same thing happenedagain, giving Peter the bronze medal.

That was on the third day, and westarted F1C a little later than scheduled.As a consequence, we had terribleweather in the 6th and 7th round, with alot of turbulence, and several dust devilscrossed the starting line... Despitethese difficulties, 12 competitors madea full score and had to come back onthe next morning for the fly-off

The defending champion, EvguenyVerbitsky was in the fly-off andeverybody was watching him .Unfortunately, the timer of his gearedmodel got too much dust and stopped, F1A Flyer: Mikhail Kochkarev (RUS)Defending F1B World Champion:

Alexander Andriukov

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What is F1E? Free FlightSlope Soaring gliderswith magnet steering!

So, it is a Free Flight class: after theflyer has launched his model, thereis no more connection between himand his glider. The models are onlygliders and they are hand launchedinto the wind from slopes.

The magnet steering gives thepossibility for the flyer to decide,before each flight, which heading theglider takes during its flight. Themagnet keeps the south-northdirection, whatever happens to themodel during its flight. A rudder isconnected to this magnet in the frontof the fuselage, and maintains themodel on a constant heading duringits flight. The big difference betweenRadio Controlled gliders andMagnet Steering gliders is that theRC gliders are flying along theslope, most of the time with a sidewind, and the magnet steeringgliders are flying down to the bottom

of the slope, against the wind. Itmeans that their ground speed isslow, and so, they can take the bestadvantage of the smallest lift.

The result is that it is not necessaryto go to high mountains for flying,and a small hill with no trees, nopower lines and no roads is a perfectsite . As for other free flight classes,the aim is to make duration flights.This year, the World Championshipswere held in Slovakia, near the city ofLiptovsky-Mikulas. It is a beautifulplace, between High and Low Tatramountains. The starting area was onthe top of a hill, giving thecompetitors the opportunity tolaunch their models against the wind,over meadows, without any obstacle,and flying down to harvested fields inthe valley, with some trees and a lakeat quite a distance.

The weather was superb;temperature well over 20°C with lowwind. The competition is flown overfive rounds, and before each flight,the jury has to decide both theduration of the maximum flight, andthe duration of the round, accordingto the wind speed, the difficulty forretrieving models etc...

The maximum duration of the flightcan be from 2 to 5 minutes, and inorder not to give any advantage tocompetitors, with short flights (2minutes) and long flights (5minutes), the scores are calculatedin percentages.

Nine teams and the defending WorldChampion were competing. At theend of the fifth round, only threecompetitors had a maximum score.For F1A,B,C free flight classes, inorder to obtain the finalclassification, competitors take partin a Fly-Off, where the maximumduration of the flight is increased. InF1E, we just move the starting areadown to the valley, and give a newstart for the tied competitors for afive minute flight.

The three competitors involved wereGringu Popa from Romania,Franticek Douprovec from the CzeckRepublic and the local Juraj Uhrin,already winner of the 1998 F1EWorld Cup.

Gringu Popa was flying a large gliderusing a bunt system: the same asused in F1A. This makes it possibleto launch the model vertically. Thetimer starts at the moment themodel is launched, and all thefunctions work the same as for anF1A glider when the tow line isreleased. When the model starts tofly normally, it is at least five metershigher than a normal one. As Gringuwas the only one using this system,his strategy was to launch his modelat the same time as the others in away to fly in the same patch of air.So he did and it clearly appearedthat he was the highest.Nevertheless, after a while, thedirections followed by the modelsdiffered by about 30°, Uhrin’s andDouprovec’s models went to the leftwhere the slope was going down tothe lake and Popa’s went to the rightwhere there were some trees andthe end of the slope.

Juraj Uhrin landed after five minutes4 seconds taking first place,Douprovec won second with 4’42”and Popa took the bronze medalwith 3’42”. The Slovak team won 1st

F1EWorld

Championships

LIPTOVSKY-MIKULASSLOVAKIA

PierreChaussebourg

Juraj Uhrin (SVK) 1999 World Champion

Alexandru Popa (ROM)1999 Junior World Champion

a banquet, with the traditional prizegiving; all that in a warmatmosphere.

The organiser, M. Farkas, his wifeand all his team must becongratulated for their efforts and avery well run World Championship.

CIAM flyer

CIAM Flyer 013

place, and it must be noted forhistory that the Slovak F1A teamhad also won the 1st place in Israel.Milan Valastiak was a member ofboth teams, and the Junior MiroslavPolonec was a member of the F1Ateam in Israel, but in the Junior teamfor F1E, winning second team place.

In the Junior classification,Alexandru Popa (Gringu Popa’s son)won 1st place with a very goodscore, missing the last max by only25 seconds, followed by the youngRomanian Adrian Draghici and theSlovak Pavol Nosko. Romania tookfirst team place.

These championships had startedwith a rather unusual openingceremony as it took place in a cave,in a huge room with beautifulconcretions. The Slovak anthem wassang by a chorus. In such a place, itwas just magnificent.

Another interesting moment was the“night swimming session” in a hot

natural water swimming pool. Therewas also a nice tour in the Tatramountains, with a visit to atraditional Slovak village, and alunch in a skiing resort (no snow. . .unfortunately!) In the evening, wehad a party with folk songs anddances. On the last day we had aworld cup contest and in the evening

Plan of Juraj Uhrin’s Winning F1E Model

Herbert Shmidt (GER) launching his model

014 CIAM Flyer

A ugust 1, 1998. The location:Neuhardenberg airfield, some40 miles East of Berlin and just

a walk away from the Elbe river markingthe border between Poland and whatwas, just a few years ago, EastGermany.The now disused airfield usedto be the base of several fightersquadrons in addition to the officialgovernment fleet.An enormous piece ofland with aircraft hangars built under themain runway and forty feet of concrete,for fear of Western bomb attack.

The time: One day before the officialopening of the Electric Flight Worldchampionships. It was the day of thefamous traditional “Sunrise-Sunset”competition, in which teams of four trycompleting a full day of flying with theminimum number of flights while alwayskeeping one electric-powered modelaloft. At 8:50 p.m. a horn signaled theend of the longest day, as the teams hadlaunched their first models at 8:29 a.m

The winning team was team Markdorffrom Germany (Markdorf is a smalltown near Constance which bordersSwitzerland), headed by WolfgangSchäper, a renowned electric flightexpert. The team filled the day withonly two flights. Their second flight hadbeen so short that the battery had noteven been discharged by one third!

Not surprising, once you know theirfirst flight lasted over twelve hours,landing at 5:34 p.m. from a launch at5:29 a.m! Twelve hours of motor run,thanks to a carefully optimized powersystem and energy management. Allfour models of the team (of which onlytwo actually flew) were slightlyenlarged versions of the Excel, a verypopular Simprop electric gliderdesigned by Wolfgang Schäper.

This was but the latest of the manyremarkable feats making WolfgangSchäper a very special modeller. Just afew weeks earlier, he had establishedthree World records for a special kindof electric power: solar power.

On June 17, 1998, it was the closedcircuit records: distance (190.00 km)and speed (62.15 km/h). If you thinksuch speed cannot compare with otherspeed records, just think of the verylimited power available (around 40 Wor roughly equivalent to what we getfrom a Mabuchi 380 motor), the dragpenalty resulting from the exposed flatcells on the upper side of the wing alsoinhibiting any real airfoil optimisationand, finally, the necessary large wingarea (for a speed model) resulting fromthe necessity to find place for the solarcells. Of course the major goal on thatday was the distance record, speedcoming as a by-product.

Then, less than one week later, on 21June he established a new speed (in astraight line; this time, that is with twopasses in opposite directions througha 200 metre trap), achieving 80.63km/h. Quite remarkable indeed.

This was just his latest feat. One yearearlier, on July 13, 1997, he hadalready captured two other World

records for solar power, namelyduration (11h 34min 18s) and distancein a straight line (48.21 km). Of the sixexisting World record classes for solarpower only one was missing : altitude.On 18 August, 1998, it becameAmerican property when Dave Beckreached 1,283 metres.

Special models,special methods

May 30, 1999, on Wolfgang Schäper’sclub flying field in Markdorf. Afterseveral weeks of bad weather,everything was set for an attempt atthe last missing World record inWolfgang’s golden book. He was touse his Mini-Solar-Excel, a merevariation from the standard modeldesigned already several years earlierand produced in kit form by Simprop.

The plan was to start from the modelairfield and have the flight above thecity of Markdorf controlled andfollowed from a hot air balloon,sponsored by the regional newspaper.One special requirement resultingfrom this arrangement was that theteam absolutely needed calm air, so asnot to drift too far away with the balloonfrom the take-off point.

Let Wolfgang Schäper himself tell ofhis experience: “Since the recordheight in solar flight had been pushedto 1,283 m in last August, it was nolonger possible to reach a higheraltitude without following the model byany technical means. I thought that ahot air balloon was well suitedbecause of its smooth and silent climbat zero horizontal speed relative to theambient air. Climb and sink rates of theballoon exceed those of my solarmodels, so that no problems to followthe model were anticipated. The onlysevere drawback is the impossibility todetermine the landing point of theballoon (one of the requirements of theRecords Section of the FAI SportingCode is that the take-off and landingpoints be identical within a smallmargin). This means that I had toreturn by ground transport, such as acar or bicycle, from any possibleballoon landing point within anexpected range of 12 to 15 km.”

To the Sun,With the Sun

Guy Revel

“The Start”

“Ready for flight”

CIAM Flyer 015

“I started the preparation in March byinvestigating return routes to twoalternative starting places. A balloonteam was contacted and a sponsor forthe balloon expenses was found.

“I needed about ten weeks to have idealweather conditions, i.e. calm air tominimize the balloon offset and sufficientsunshine for a fast climb. Relying onGerman and Swiss Internet weatherforecasts I finally organised my team (3judges, 1 auxiliary pilot, the balloonteam, car drivers, and last but not leastmy family) for Sunday 30th of May.

“We met a 7 a.m. at the Markdorf gliderairfield an decided to start from thenearby model airfield. The balloon wasprepared and filled. At nine o’clock Ilaunched my model and made it climbto 200m. Illumination was rather poor;47% of nominal light only. Climb ratewas less than 1 m/s. Additionally, hightemperature (23˚C) lowered the poweroutput of the solar generator.

“I stepped aboard the balloon togetherwith the balloon pilot plus AndreasSommer and Richard Gessler asjudges. The third judge, Hans-PeterGollin, observed the flight from theground as the balloon could only liftfour people.

“After take-off of the balloon, we joinedthe model and followed it as it climbedhigher. No problems occurred. Thehorizontal drift was extremely low. Firstwe drifted to the East, then North-West, always flying above the city ofMarkdorf or in close proximity. At 1800m over ground the climb rate of themodel became almost nil because of

cloud coverage in front of the sun. Thisperiod lasted 5 to 6 minutes and wasthe only critical one because the modelflew lower than the balloon.

“We recovered from this situationunder good sunshine and continuedthe climb until southern wind made usdrift North. As the return routes fromthis region were all but ideal (hills,forests) we decided to descend. At thismoment the model was flying 20 to 30meters higher than the balloon. Thiswas important because the flightaltitude was recorded in the balloonand not in the model itself.

“For the descent, the balloon and themodels were set to sink rates of 2.5 m/s.We drifted back toward the South andlanded the balloon on a field, North-West of Mardorf, after a flight time of 67min.The offset was only 2.9 km.

“To be able to leave the ballooncomfortably, I made use of my auxiliarypilot Bernhard Barlage who piloted mymodel for not more than 5 minutesafter 73 min of model flight time.

“To return to the model airfield, I useda cabriolet together with the threejudges. I had no problems to control mymodel over the city. The landing of themodel was routine and not more than20 m away from the starting point.”

All six records !

Pending confirmation of the officialaltitude gain (2,156 m according to thebarograph presently officially checked)this would be the sixth World record byWolfgang Schäper, everyone relatedwith solar flight.

This is the result of careful optimizationof all parameters, as you could guess,but it is also interesting to note that themodel itself is nothing but a well-designed and well-built “normal” sportsmodel mainly built out of balsawood.

Of special interest, probably, is the themeans used to record theperformance. Here, again, nothingreally special based on sophisticatedmilitary equipment, but a plain, normalhot-air balloon as we could find atmany places. You will certainly note

that this is next to the ideal equipmentas a balloon moves and climbs slowly.It does not disturb the surroundingatmosphere (the model always flies in“clean” air) and can usually fly longenough without needing any specialequipment.

True, hot-air balloon flights arerelatively expensive, but certainly lessthan similar helicopter flights. Airplanesare out of the question as they fly muchfaster than a solar-powered model andthe task of the pilot would have beenmuch more difficult.

Just the beginning

Is this the ultimate? Certainly not, and,in fact, this altitude record shouldprove the easiest of the six to betterunder good lighting conditions, aswould be possible in desert areasnearer to the Equator. Oneimmediately thinks of well-knownplaces in California, Arizona or Mexicowhere the higher available light energywould enable a better rate of climb,which you can translate into highertheoretical height ceiling.

Technical data:

Model: Mini-Solar-Excel(designer & builder Wolfgang Schäper)Wing span: 2.10 mLength: 1.02 mWing area: 34.5 dm2 Mass: 724 gSolar Generator: 4 strings of 24

monocristalline cellsTelefunken ASE ML-BSFR-66 x 36 mm

Motor: Maxon coreless NdFeB,model RE 025-055

Reduction Gear: Marx “Pile” 6:1Propeller: Schöberl MosquitoController: Schäper Maximum

Power Point ControllerRC Set: Simprop SAM,Receiver: Simprop Piko 2000Receiver Power: Lithium (LiMnO2),

6 V, 1300 mAhCIAM flyer

ChampagneThe Balloon

016 CIAM Flyer

Nearly all types of modelaircraft can now bepowered electrically

Progress in RC electric flight is nolonger as spectacular as it was a fewyears ago. Batteries are improvingconstantly, meaning that they areable to store more and more energyat almost the same weight. CurrentlyNiCd cells are still mainly used,however metal hybrid cells arecatching up rapidly. These cells havethe advantage of not using heavymetals, unfortunately they also havea disadvantage in that the gasesproduced when they are heavilyoverloaded can cause a risk ofexplosion in sealed enclosures. Dueto miniaturisation in electronics,significant progress regardingmotors has been achieved in recentyears. Collectors subject to wear areincreasingly replaced bycommutation electronics. Undernormal operating conditions thesebrush-less motors last almost forever- even without maintenance.

Popular Electric Glider Models

The first electric powered flightmodels were gliders. Today there isno denying that they are one of thefavourites on the electric flightscene. Gliding was also the firstworld championship category inelectric flight. Glider models are builtin all sizes, with wing-spans ofbetween 120 and 500 cm andlarger. They are also available askits or finished models. Regardingbattery packs, everything from 6 to30 cells is possible as well.Competition models now climb at 45metres per second and more. Largeglider models with wing-spansbetween four and seven metres arevery graceful and impressive.Because of their large weight andbulky fuselage, they are usuallylaunched using a rubber cordcatapult.

Racing and Aerobatic Models

Competitions with Pylon Racingmodels are very spectacular. Officialworld championships have beenheld for a few years. In these races,ten laps have to be flown on atriangular course with acircumference of 400 metres.Leading competitors manage this intimes of around 80 seconds. Modelshave wing-spans of less than 120

cm and are neither easy to steer atthese speeds nor easy for thetimekeepers to track. This may beone of the reasons why the numberof participants in these races hasbeen stagnating in the last fewyears.

For a long time, similarrequirements as for aerobatics withcombustion engines were applied inelectric aerobatics. It is possible tofly the most spectacular aerobaticsfigures with electric poweredmodels, but motor running times areless than five minutes. Unfortunatelythis fact has not been taken intoaccount sufficiently so far. Due tolow noise development of themotors, electric aerobatics caneasily be performed on playingfields or school courts.

The VariedWorld ofElectric

Flight

Emil Giezendanner

European Champion, Urs Leodolter fromSwitzerland with his TWISTER 2.

Gliders with solar cells A scale model JU 87 Stuka with two motors

CIAM Flyer 017

Scale and Semi-Scale Models

The use of clean electric propulsionin scale models of various sizes isimmensely popular. It is particularlysuited to slow flying models ofveteran planes. Even models withmultiple motors can be easilyrealised. Due to a variety ofcommercially availabletransmissions it has also becomepossible to equip large modelsweighing 10 kg or more with electricpropulsion where two motors caneven act on one propeller shaft.

Helicopters

In approximately 10 years, electricpowered helicopters have foundmany fans. In the early stages,helicopters designed for combustionengines were converted to electricpropulsion. Due to their smoke andvibration free operation, electricmotors are progressively taking overthe helicopter scene. Numeroushelicopter freaks own an electrichelicopter along with theircombustion engine helicopter andfly it in their garden or outside theirgarage. Smaller versions are alsosuitable for flying indoors. A fewyears ago, industry discovered theelectric helicopter as an interestingmarket segment and has thus giventhis fascinating electric flightcategory a new boost. With the

exception of a few very small types,electric powered helicopters aregenerally available in three sizes,the largest being powered by 30cells and corresponding in size tothe familiar competition helicopterswith combustion engines.

Jet Models with Electric Turbines

Due to their small size,maintenance-free and low vibrationoperation and their almostunrestricted speeds, electric motorsare ideal for powering turbines.Electric turbine propulsions areused mainly for replicas andindividually designed jet models.The appearance of models withelectric turbines is of course muchmore attractive than that of jetmodels equipped with visiblecommon propellers. This type ofarrangement is also easy to handleand virtually maintenance-free.

The Latest Trend:Indoor Flying

Progressing miniaturisation inelectronics produces more andmore extremely lightweight radiocontrol components such asreceivers, actuators and speedcontrollers. Thus it has becomepossible to build and fly RC modelsof less than 100 g in weight. Theindoor scene, which so far had tomake do with rubber and CO2motors and without RC systems,has received a tremendous boostwith the electric powered slow flyer.Electric flight meetings in halls andlarge rooms while outdoorconditions are wintry have nowbecome a reality. CIAM flyer

F9F-5 Panther with electric turbine

Electric TurbineSkillful flying

Indoor Flying

018 CIAM Flyer

For the second consecutivetime, the EuropeanChampionship for Control Line

Models has been held in Valladolid.The FAI asked Aerosafa to organizethis European Championship when itbecame vacant. And once again,Aerosafa, helped by the Junta deCastilla-León and the mainhall ofValladolid, organized a high-levelcontest. They searched for the mostqualified organizers and offered theperfect place for the contest.Terradillos Flying Field is said to beone of the best in the world.

The best 200 European pilots, from21 different countries, met atValladolid with the aim to get a titlewhich only a privileged few get. Thefavourites were the famous GordonIsles and Luis Parramón in Speed;Luciano Compostella and YuriYatsenko in Aerobatics; Pemissi-Rossi and Titov-Yougov in Team Raceand Beliaev and Faizov in Combat.But the contest surprised us all insuch a way that this championship isgoing to become famous in SpanishAeromodelling history.

On July 12, 1999, all competitors metat the Flying Field and thechampionship was officially opened.Terradillos Field was filled by thecoloured uniforms of the 21participating countries that paraded infront of the visiting public. After theparade, Mr. Antonio Rojas, president ofthe Organizing Committee, welcomedall the competitors. Afterwards, Mr.Andreas Rée, president of the FAI Juryin this European Championship, askedfor fair play and a good contest. Then,the Territorial Delegate of the Junta deCastilla-León, Mr. Roberto Fernándezde la Reguera, congratulated Aerosafafor hosting the second consecutiveEuropean Championship. Finally, Mr.Javier León de la Riva, mayor of thecity, officially opened the championship

and wished both organizers andcompetitors good luck. The opening ofthe Championship was marked by theexploding of a Valencian string.Afterwards the Science Faculty Tunasang some traditional student songsand the Dancing group “Zagalejo”delighted the public with their threetraditional castilian dances. Theceremony finished with the exhibitionby an Aviocar plane of the Air Forcesof Villanubla.

But, what about the contest? LuisParramón’s first position in Speed isreally important. In this modality, theaim is to get the highest speed. To getthis, the pilots use a model with thefollowing characteristics: a cylindricalfuselage, an asymmetrical wing, aone blade propeller and a 2.5 C.C.engine. Parramón won even while

British pilot Gordon Isles dominatedthe contest up to the end, when theSpanish pilot achieved a speed of293.5 km/h, though he didn’t reachthe 298 km/h speed he got in 1997 hemanaged to win. The British pilot’sspeed was 288.2 km/h. Third placewent to the Russian, Sergei Kostinwith a speed of 287.36 km/h.

In Aerobatics, the pilots have amaximum of 7 minutes to make anaerobatic circuit composed of 16manoeuvres.The biggest surprise waswhen 7 times European Champion,Italian Luciano Compostela, went outof the finals in the first round. RemyBeringer and his father GilbertBeringer won both the junior andsenior category. This shows a revivalof French aerobatic airmodelling neverseen since July Delor left the sport.

The first senior position was for GilbertBeringer with 5801 points followed bythe Russian Yuri Yatsenko (5775 points)and Dutchman Henk de Jong (5768.5points). The junior classification was asfollows: the French Remy Beringer inthe first position followed by theRussian A. Gafutdinov and the FrenchYoann Charon.

In Team Race, the Russian pilotsestablished the standards to befollowed. In this modality three pilotsplaced in the Flying Circle have to run100 laps in the least possible time.They have to pit a few times, and thepilot catches the model while flying,refuels and restarts the model.

Successful Organizationin the European

Championships forControl Line Models

Valladolid’99 - Spain

Tomas Barriga Pedrosa

F2B: Youth and Experience

F2C: A complete team of experts

CIAM Flyer 019

The Russian pilots didn’t begin welland from the British team, Ross-Turner, got the first position. Thesecond day of the contest the firstposition was still with the British teambut the Russian team Andreev-Sobkogot the third position and Titov-Yougov pitted in less than threeseconds. The 3’15’’ achieved by theItalian team Pemissi-Rossi made usthink of their 1996 world championtitle. But only Ross-Turner, Andreev-Sobko and the Gilbert brothers got tothe final 200 laps. The French teamwas disqualified and bad British pittingdropped Ross-Turner to secondposition while the Russian Andreev-Sobko moved into first position.

In Combat the favourites were theRussian pilots as they had won thefirst four positions at the lastEuropean Championships. In thismodality two combat wings try to cutthe opposites streamer as manytimes as possible. The streamer is 2.5metres long and it hangs at the backof the model which flies at 160 km/h.The contest was really exciting. Wecould see a pilots’ ability and fastreflexes even if they crashed a fewtimes. The mechanics were also veryimportant for the final results as it wastheir job to have the models andengines ready for the air fight. AndreiBeliaev and Alesandre Gussev (bothof them from Russia) reached thefinal, as they did 2 years ago, andonce again the son of the alreadyinfamous Viacheslav Beliaev won.Third was the Spanish pilot Juan

José García. He got the best Spanishposition ever in this event and heeven beat the famous LoetWakerman or Faizov.

Aerosafa organized a PromotionalChampionship which was important,because it gave the younger pilots anopportunity to participate in aninternational contest. The aim of thisPromotional Championship was topromote airmodelling amongEuropean youth. The finalclassification was as follows:

Cadets Aerobatics: 1st. ClaireBeringer from France; 2nd JoaoNogueira from Portugal, 3rd BrunoSilva from Portugal.Youth Aerobatics 1st Miguel Marzán,2nd Javier Holguera both of them fromAerosafa, 3rd Fco. José Rojas from“Club Fontanés de Aeromodelismo”.Cadet Combat: 1st Pablo AntonioVicente, 2nd José Rojas both from“Club Fontanés de Aeromodelismo”,3rd Carlos Prieto from Valladolid.Youth Combat: 1st Cesar Picado, 2ndJonatán Capellán, both from Valladolid,3rd Fco. José Rojas from Extremadura.

In general, the organization of thisEuropean Championship was brilliant.The infrastructure and facilitiesoffered by Aerosafa to both jury andcompetitors were very good for thisairmodelling week. Moreover, for thesecond consecutive time we had toursto Rueda, Peñafiel and Segovia.During these tours those thatparticipated experienced Castilian

culture and they tasted our really nicewines. The national and internationalmedia provided news coverage aboutthe championships. They focused onAerosafa’s aim: ‘get young pilots andspread airmodelling worldwide’. TheEuropean Championship finished witha very colourful closing ceremony.Theprize giving was really joyful, as wellas the farewell dinner, where morethan 500 attendees (pilots, jury andorganizers) enjoyed the end of the1999 European Championship forControl Line Models.

AEROSAFA would like to thank allTeam Managers and contestants fortheir positive and helpful attitude.Quoting the words of the President ofthe Organizing Committee, weunderstand that “Aerosafa membersare sportsmen, who also organize”.

CIAM flyer

F2D: They are fighting, but they are friends too

F2A Podium F2D Podium

020 CIAM Flyer

The first Control Line WorldCup event in the Americaswas held in Rafaela City,

Santa Fe province, Argentina on12,13 and 14 February 1999.

CONTEST DEVELOPMENT

F2A - SPEED

Unfortunately, this category wasdeclared deserted due to the totalabsence of participants. Threespecialists from Brazil had promisedtheir presence in the event, but due tothe delicate economic situation in thatcountry, they declined to participate,having sent their apologies.

F2B - AEROBATICS

Six participants, five Argentineansand one Russian, came to participatein this category. Remarkable and noless unfortunate was the absence ofat least eight Argentinean pilots(Buenos Aires y Mar del Plata) whofor different reasons couldn’t come tothe championships. The Russianrepresentative, Evgeny Yakovlev,during the official training on day 12and while executing the secondsquare loop, destroyed his model inthe air due to a structural failure ormaterial fatigue in the inserts of theouter wing. He used, take apart wingsin halves, using a special device. Thefuselage splits in two halves thanks toa device similar to that used in thewings. The model, of 1700 grams oftotal weight, used a “Discovery Retro”engine in a prototype state (notavailable for sale yet), and made byYuri Yatsenko. The running of theengine, and especially the 4-2-4transition was simply perfect. The

crash let us look in detail at itsexcellent construction, curiously, itdoesn’t use any composite material,except some ultralight fibreglass inthe front of the fuselage. All thehardware of the model (horns,bellcrank, etc) was hand made byexquisite workmanship. The finish ofthe plane, quite simple, was perfect.The wing (C-Tube construction) wascovered in mylar and painted. In fifthplace, was Roberto Rodriguez fromCórdoba with his “Bananna 11” andST.51. Mauro Fernández, showed upafter a long lay off flying the“Mandinga Il” ,nicknamed by friends“the light blue”. A model that’s beenflying since 1986. This time with aST.46. In third place was Sergio Vitalefrom Rosario, with a “Cardinal” andST.51. Also with a “Cardinal” andST.51 in second place was Claudio C.Chacon from Rafaela. And thanks toa smooth performance, GabrielCismondi from Rosario took firstplace with his “Giulia ll” using a Jet-GMA piped, 50.Congratulations Gabriel andcongratulations to all participants.

F2C - TEAM RACING

The Brazilians showed a really goodlevel of proficiency, and that says a lotabout the 8th place won by the Maryteam in the Ukrainian Worldchampionships. It wasn’t just luck!Things like that don’t exist in thiscategory where the place is won withsacrifice, rigorous training and

model/engine set up. This team wasflying in training at 17’80, l8’20 everyten laps. Similar results came fromWieck/Brietzke also from Brazil, bothusing Ukrainian Sosnowsky props onMazniak engines of the samenationality. The local representativesGoddio/Giay had a similar velocityand at times some better, but theteam and equipment didn’t show thesame reliability that the Brazilianshad. They used Chajka engines withSosnowsky props but of an oldermodel than the Brazilians,Minetti/Perren, from Argentina andSenson/Rodrigues also with Chajkaengines and Sosnowsky props butwith less speed: 19’40 - 20’00

Saturday the 13th during modelverification and arrangements for thefirst heat, line pull test, with 5 minutesto start, (which gave time for sometraining flights) the lines of theGoddio/Giay model broke passingnear two timekeepers at a speed of200KM/H. This made judges andtimekeepers move further away andstart their functions outside theperimeter protection fence.

After changing the model that wascompletely destroyed, the heatstarted and was won by Mary/Marywho also made the best time of thechampionships 3’24”37, against theuntested model of Goddio/Giay thatonly scored 4’33”20. Second heat:Wieck/Brietzke showed quality andput a time of 3’26”14 followed bySenson/Rodrigues with 3’51”51 andMinetti/Perren who couldn’t completeall laps. Third heat: The BraziliansMary/Mary flew relaxed with theknowledge of their excellent times.Completing the heat Minetti/Perrenand Goddio Giay used a third modelfrom Russia that was very unstable. Itstarted with Goddio/Giay leading andslowly gaining some advantage,followed by the Brazilians and with adeficient model. Minetti/Perren,during their laps, and using theirleading model lost power and wasn’tcaught by the pitman.The heat endedwithout any change in times. Fifthheat: Between Mary/Mary,Wieck/Brietzke and Minetti/Perren,the last ones were surprising marks,

FirstControl Line

World CupEvent in the

Americas

Claudio Chacon

Claudio Chacon, 2nd Place F2B

CIAM Flyer 021

an incredible 3’27”19. Sixth heat:Goddio/Giay still had a theoreticalpossibility of improving their time. Themodel running 18” - 18”20, howeverin the first pit the model showed it’sinstability, slipped away from thepitman’s hands and that was the end.In the case of Senson/Rodrigues thecronos never showed less than 19”50so they had little chance.Unfortunately, the equipment didn’tgive this team a chance who in theSouth American championships of1997 marked 3’24”32.

The final 200 laps. An instant start forthe 3 teams showed the Brazilianteam running away from the localteam, but in a few laps theWieck/Brietzke plane started to heatup so much so they had to land, sosecond place was in doubt. By themiddle of the race Wieck/Brietzke hadrecovered second place, but theengine still had heat troubles so thelocal team still had a chance but inthe pit the model slipped away, losingthe last Argentinean hope. The firstWorld Cup in America, left us withMary/Mary from Brazil in the firstposition, Wieck/Brietzke also fromBrazil in second, third Minetti/Perrenfrom Argentina, fourthSenson/Rodrigues from Brazil andfifth Goddio/Giay from Argentina.

F2D - COMBAT

l’ll say this was the strongest event ofthe championships, Because of thespectacular characteristics of thecategory (especially for the greatspectators who came to the club) andbecause it is the first time FAI combathas been flown in Argentina at thebest world level. The Russiandelegation was made up of sevenpeople, counting pilots, mechanicsand team representatives . The pilotswere Sergei Kolossov (ex worldchampion), Evgeny Yakovlev (whoalso participates in aerobatics) and16 year old Volodymir Mescherekov,the only Junior in the contest. Themechanics were Yuri Moiseev andSergei Borodavko. As teamrepresentative, Anton Kalinin whoworked also as a translator. Doingfield duties was, Elena Moiseeva,

Yuri’s wife. All of them came fromNaforominsk, a city of 350,000inhabitants, located 150 Km. fromMoscow and whose city hall took careof all the costs of travel and lodging.The Argentinean delegation wascomposed of Gabriel Cismondi andSergio Vitale, both from Rosario aspilot and mechanic respectively, whohad a monumental debut,considering that their opponentsweren’t exactly rookies. As a matter offact, Gabriel had to fight againstSergei Kolossov in one of the rounds.Also, Argentina were represented bytwo Ukrainians, residents of Rafaela,Volodymir Grechko and ValeriBashtanar, both of them experiencedpilots and champions in their country.All models looked the same. Theywere simple flying wings with eight3mm balsa ribs, trailing edges in pine,leading edges preformed in foam andcovered in mylar. They are very solidand resists direct impact against theground. Most of the wrecks were dueto direct hits between models in flight.The props were made of fibreglassand resin with reinforcements inkevlar and carbon. Engines were fromdifferent brands, but all of them wereRussian made of the highest qualityin workmanship and parts. They wereconstructed in very limited series and

only the best were usedcompetitively. They had adisplacement of 2.5 cm3, with anaverage of 29,000 r.p.m., burning fuelmade of 10% nitro, 20% castor oiland 70% methanol . To relate each ofthe 18 ‘dog fights’ would beimpossible. Just, say that all of themmade an incredible show with afeverish rhythm that kept theadrenaline high in pilots andmechanics at 20 degrees on theRichter scale; without forgetting the35°C that warmed up the event. Inone word: OUTSTANDING.

Awards Ceremony

The award ceremony was held in theconvention saloon of the RafaelaApart Hotel (of recent construction),where the Russian delegation stayed.The ceremony had the presence ofgraphic, radio, and TV journalists.Also present was the Director ofinstitutional relations of City Hall, whodeclared the Brazilians and Russianparticipants honoured guests. Flagsand other souvenirs were given toforeign competitors. The banquet washeld in the hotel’s restaurant witheverybody relaxed, we enjoyed thebest Argentinean wines and meats.This was an unforgettable meetingwithout any doubt. A special thankyou goes to all who in some waycollaborated in the organization ofthis event.

A Special Visit

As a great surprise to everyonepresent, we had the unexpected visitof a personality within theaeronautical world: no less thanEngineer. Juan Asmus, one of thefathers of the ‘Walter Extra’ the worldfamous aerobatic plane “Extra 300”.Mr. Asmus is in charge of thestructure and composite materials ofthe plane, about which he was askedmany questions without mercy. All theanswers were in perfect spanish. Mr.Asmus is a close friend of ClausMaikis and Uwe Degner, two greatGerman F2B pilots. CIAM flyer

‘Stress’

022 CIAM Flyer

My first thoughts aboutdeveloping a youth-program for control-line

started during our national modellingsummer camp. As a staff member forcontrol line I noticed that my ideasabout building models from drawingswere in no way compatible with thoseof the visiting youngsters.In spite of my professional training asa youth worker, the educational ideasI had, simply didn’t match with theattention span of the youngsters.Building from plans, cutting your ownmaterials and starting at square-one,were all ideas that I grew up with andenjoyed, but they didn’t result in largenumbers of flying models.The kids at the summer camp simplywanted results fast, wanted to flymore than to build and were lookingfor Almost Ready To Fly-kits, thatwere at that time gaining in popularityin the Radio-Control trade. As thetarget-group for control-line wassimply too small, no such kits wereavailable in the Netherlands. So in1989 I decided to start producingARTF training kits.

Cooperation in thefirst years.

At first my production ideas were notwidely supported. So I started withoutany financial backing from mypersonal budget. In order not toproduce umpteen models that wouldremain unsold, I sought contact withmodel clubs and air scout-groups.They gave me a pretty good idea whatkind of model was needed and howmany would be required. Contactsfrom the summer camp volunteered tohelp me in my production efforts andsoon the first “team” was underway.Our first model became an aerobatic-trainer. To prevent having to make achild-proof instruction booklet, wedecided to assemble the kits duringbuilding-and-flying weekends. This toenable us to prevent any snags in themodel-assembly and thus assuringmaximum results. In 1989 my smallgroup made 30 kits, of which 27 flewsuccessfully during 3 weekends(many months later).The cooperation with model clubs andscouting groups assured me of a

balanced budget, as all the modelsthat were produced were actuallysold. Cooperation with groups outsidethe Aero Club took some getting usedto: within Scouting in our country,modelling is more a way to keepyoungsters occupied than a goal initself. Mutual respect for each other’sposition was in those years notsomething that could be taken forgranted, but that needed rather hardwork.The benefits, however, were soevident to me, that I found no realproblems in working towardssuccessful cooperation. Youngsterswere available in large numbers incivic centres, youth groups andscouting, but youngsters within theAero Club were generally restricted tothe children of active modellers.Although quite acceptable as astarting point for any youth program,the obvious restrictions were whenthose youngsters reached pubertyand started revolting against theirparents, would in the Dutch situation,lead to a far too great a reduction innumbers to make any program viable.

In the early ’90s the concept ofbuilding and flying a model in thesame weekend was developedfurther. Production techniques werealso developed to facilitate producinglarger and larger quantities of models.By the end of 1994 a total of about100 kits per year were produced.

The Models.

However, our first aerobatic-trainerbecame successful, soon the demandfor additional models was required.Popular amongst youngsters werebeginner-models for goodyear-racing,combat and last but not least basic-carrier-deck flying.These models were produced Inproportion to demand.We started withan .09 combat model, withappropriate combat weekends,followed by the racing weekends withgoodyear models.The more modern the materials used,the more popular the models. Ourmodels incorporated foam-wings fromthe start, because of ease ofconstruction and mass production, but

ControlLine YouthPromotion

in theNetherlands

Paul RietbergenFly-By-Wire Coordinator

Ideal for carrier deck

Paul Rietbergen giving a hand

other “fancy” materials like glass-fibrereinforcing, engine shut-offs andquick-fill systems greatly enhancedjunior interest.To explain the necessity of thesematerials, we needed expert help.With the cooperation of the team-racing fraternity in Holland the racingweekends were a tremendoussuccess.

Recent Cooperation.

Production of the models however,slowly proved to be too much toohandle. Stocks of parts needed for allthese models became too much of aburden for my personal budget.The S.U.L. - Foundation in Utrecht,well known as organizers of the ’76World Champs, became our firstsponsors and supports our team tothis day. After personal support fromRob Metkemeijer, not unknown incontrol line circles, the Royal DutchAero Club decided to include ourproject in the Dutch Control LineSubcommittee and to fund ourinvestments.Also, our cooperation with ScoutingHolland became more structural:more and more we came to jointactivities, instead of offering twoseparate ones at the same venue.This not only greatly reducedorganizing costs, but also the stresson man-power, though this might be apolitically incorrect expression. In lightof the extra burden of developingshows, this cooperation, however,was completely inevitable.

The Shows.

After 1993 the European Continentsaw a terrific growth in the number ofprofessionally organized Model -Shows. Although this phenomenonhad been present in the U.K. forseveral decades (or more), to us onthe mainland this development wastotally new.For our project, the opportunity wastoo good to be missed. Just imagine:an abundance of youngsters, allvolunteering to come to a venuewhere our project will present itself!

We needed to adapt to show-circumstances, but that more or lessspeaks for itself.In this light we developed hands-on-instruction. As hundreds ofyoungsters would be around at thesame time to have their firstexperience of control line modelling,we had to think of a way to handlethese numbers of kids properly.Our first attempt under thesecircumstances took place at the 1995World Jamboree in Holland. In twodays our team managed to give 1240youngsters their first hands-on controlline flight. Evidently, flights per personwere quite brief, as large queues ofscouts were pressing our instructorsat a tremendous rate.Subsequent shows were attended ata more normal pace. We adapted ourtrainers to fly as slowly as possible, tobe able to cope with indoor facilitiesand ceilings of around 8 metres high.We also developed special mufflers,to relieve the strain of indoor work forthe pit-crew and to facilitate verbalinstruction to the youngsters. Ourlatest development is the shut off onour trainers. As conditions naturallyvary per venue, settings aren’t alwayspredictable. In case of an adversesetting, our instructors simply shut theengine on the model and the pit-crewreadjusts the settings accordingly.

Basic-Carrier-Deckand further cooperation.

FAI-classes proved to be a very hardtarget to pass youngsters on to. Therevival of Carrier Deck, especiallyBCD as organized in the U.K., provedto be both an acceptable steppingstone for youngsters as well as aspecial interest for the team-members.As the carrier-group in the U.K.managed by Andrew Housden wasalready quite organized, we gladlyaccepted the opportunity to work withthem.Subsequently we organized carrierevents in Holland, resulting in theannual Karel Doorman Cupinternational competition, and helpedto set up similar events in Belgiumand organized them in Germany andFrance.

To prevent undue discussion, weaccepted the existing U.K.-rules forthis type of competition and workedtowards general acceptance on thecontinent and subsequentinternational cooperation onadaptations when necessary.All this from the developingphilosophy amongst our team-members that contrary to commonpractice it is useless to re-invent thewheel and find it square and with anoff-centre hole!In ’98 our team produced a series of30 BCD-trainer models. At our lastKarel Doorman Cup, 7 out of 18participants used this model in thecompetition. Although our trainer isnot a maximally suited competitionmodel, 5 of these 7 models werewithin the top 10-placings.

Working Title.

At the end of the 90’s a working titlefor our project was becoming moreand more necessary. Control LineYouth Promotion Team of the RoyalDutch Aero Club fitted the bill, but wasa bit of a mouthful.

Jokingly we came up with the nameFly-By-Wire Team, as the name ringsa bell with many people and isconsidered quite funny in the aviation-world. This name has stuck eversince.Logically, the next step was to be onthe Internet.Quite a few youngsters we met at theshows were active on the net and themedium seemed to suit ourpromotional needs.So two of my team-members madeour own home-page, which can befound on the net at www.flybywire.organd which was visited 1600 times in1999.E-mail facilities at our home-pagegreatly reduced our postal expenses,but had one adverse side-effect: Ireceived hundreds of e-mails from allover the world from people interestedin our products. Many times morerequests than the amount of modelswe produce in a year.

CIAM Flyer 023

024 CIAM Flyer

Fly-By-Wire now andfuture developments.

In ten years of investing spare timeand initially a lot of money, Fly-by-wirehas grown from my own one-man-hobby-project into a totally committedten person team of control lineenthusiasts.

Together we perform our youthprogram of demonstrations andinstruction at Model Shows all overEurope, organize events andcompetitions for youngsters andseniors in 1/2 A combat, beginners-stunt, goodyear-racing and BasicCarrier Deck and in the spare timethat is left produce model kits for theclasses above.

We sell models, engines and lots ofother specialist control line parts atcost price, as we are a volunteerproject from the Aero Club and not acommercial enterprise.

In general, we have a response-rateof 8 out of 1000. From every 1000children we introduce to control line, 8remain interested in the hobby. To usat this moment that is about our limit:from the approximately 6000 kids wereach every year, about 50 wantmodels, which leaves only half of ournormal production for the existingyouth groups.

Because of these production limits,this is also the method we developed:we only supply kits to children with agenuine interest. Selling for the sakeof selling would, of course, be atremendous waste of our spare time!

Practically all the models we producemake it to the flying field and aresuccessfully flown by youngsters.About 80% of the participants in ourprogram is able to fly solo within twodays. Internationally we work togetherwith kindred groups and individuals inthe U.K., Germany, Belgium,Luxembourg and France.

For the past few years we have lookedfor external producers for our modelparts. Although prices are interestingin the former Soviet States, delivery isfar from desirable as far as reliability isconcerned.

In future we will keep on looking forexternal producers and are quite opento offers from all over the world.Contacts via our home-page, please.In light of the enormous internationaldemand we are still contemplating toenlarge our production and to set upinternational distribution. To be quitefair: the whole project slowly is growingtoo large for its volunteer status.

A future step could certainly be tocommercialize the production andtrade part of the project or to find a

commercial distributor and producer.In view of the ecological awareness inwestern Europe, the development ofviable electric power for control line isa must. Although many attempts havebeen made in the past, the systemspower-to-weight-ratio still leaves a lotto be desired, as does the availabilityas a ready to use unit.

Many sites for youth clubs in Hollandare in the coastal dunes area, wherethe use of internal combustionengines simply is not possible. Next tothat some of our model shows takeplace in halls that are either toorestricted in size or too poorlyventilated for the safe use of internalcombustion engines. I’m certain thatin the year 2000 our team will reach apractical solution for this problem.

Conclusion.

Our team has worked for the pastdecade to promote a category ofmodelling, that otherwise would havevanished in Holland.

We have given youngsters as good astart in an interesting hobby ashumanly possible, but it’s up to themwhether they will continue in theirdevelopment towards becomingcompetition pilots or not.

When they make that choice, there’s aspecific role for the existingcompetitors in the FAI-classes and achallenge as well: take a kid underyour wing, however hard you may findit to cope with current normalbehaviour, and enable him or her tobeat you in a competition in the longrun. If you don’t, you’ll shortly be quitesad and alone in competition circles!

CIAM flyer

Carrier deck proves popular

Prospective Champions

CIAM Flyer 025

Michal Zitnan from Slovakiawas the most successfulspacemodeller of the World

in 1999 and the unofficial “test” holderof the title World Spacemodeller of theyear 1999, with 718 SMIR (SpaceModels International Ranking) pointsout of seven best scores. He hasentered 14 times in 5 classes and thetotal amount of all 14 SMIR points was1225. Second was Stefan Mokran(SVK) with 662 (812) SMIR points, whoentered 10 times in 3 classes and thethird Ivan Turk (SLO) 617 (736) SMIRpoints, who entered 9 times in 4classes (See Table 1 - for details of thefirst 16 placings).

Modellers from Poland were the mostsuccessful group of spacemodellers - 6of them had placings in the first 16places in test SMIR for 1999, followedby 4 spacemodellers from Slovakiaand one from the UK, Italy, Lithuania,Macedonia, Slovenia and Yugoslavia.

The SMIR listing showed 261competitor names from 20 countries.This was more than twice in the Worldor 2.5 times more competitors thanEuropean SpacemodellingChampionships. The listing alsoshowed interest in spacemodelling indifferent countries. The greatestinterest was from Poland (53), Bulgaria(28) and Macedonia (23).Unfortunately, only one competitorparticipated from the UK, Italy andBelarus. We are also missing ladies -there were only 15: Bulgaria (5), Spain(5), Poland (3) and Yugoslavia (1).Seven classes were flown, that is theequivalent to the number of classes inWorld or European Championships.Open Internationals proved a good testfield for promotion of new or provisionalclasses (S8E/P and S9A).

Further analysis showed that almost allcompetitors were competing in severalclasses - good modellers withapproximately the same effectiveness.Statistics based on the first 16competitors showed an averageparticipation of 9 entries/competitor in4 classes/competitor during thecompetition season! So SMIR provedits importance - it evaluated everyscore in each class, it “measured” very

precisely each score consideringscores’ quality, rank of the contest andcompetition in it (See Table 2 - reviewof participation in SMIR recognisedcontests in 1999).

My Pentium surprised me also, bythrowing out the name of A. Chigakfrom Belarus. He was 19 in S6A inDniepropetrovsk. He was not awardedwith world cup points since he was inthe lower half of the listing and Belaruswas not registered there as a SMcountry. So, SMIR proved itsimportance and quality at the first step.

Spacemodellers may be really gratefulto the Swedish NAC and B.O.Sammuelson who proposed the ruleB.2.6. International Ranking, approvedby the CIAM Plenary Meeting in March1998 and effective January, 2001.What is really International Ranking?This is a continuous classificationbased on results of all the open andlimited international events, as well ascontinental and world championshipsand world cup contests. It may beorganized by the relevant CIAMsubcommittee for any of the classesrecognized as world championships.

If the CIAM subcommittee chooses torun an international ranking it must;define rules and ranking formula(which must be published in theSporting Code supplement), collectresults from each competition andapply ranking formulas on them andproduce and distribute updatedranking lists during the year.

The CIAM Space Modelssubcommittee has chosen first to runSpace Models International Ranking(SMIR). It defined the rules approvedby the CIAM Plenary Meeting 1999 -effective as the provisional rules for2000. The intent of the classification isto encourage competitors to enjoyversatility of spacemodelling by flying

more than one, traditional, class and tobe awarded for efforts made in thewhole of spacemodelling activitiesduring the year. All classes listed in rule4.3 as World Championship Events forSpace Models are recognised forSMIR.

All competitors in specifiedinternational contests are eligible forSMIR. All contests appearing on FAISporting Calendar-part Space Models,run according to FAI Sporting Codeand nominated at the CIAM Bureaumeeting at the end of the precedingyear will be recognised for SMIR.

Points are allocated as follows:

For classes S3A, S4B, S6A and S9A:

B= K* (X + log A - log N) * 100max 10

For classes S1B, S5B, S7 and S8E:

B= K* ( X = log A - log N) * 100Y

B = points awarded to the competitorX = competitor’s scoreY = winners scoreA = number of competitorsN = placing of the competitorK = ranking factor of a contest

where for;

-World Championships K=2-Continental Championships K=1,5-World Cup contests K=1-Open International non World Cup K=0.75

SpaceModels

InternationalRanking

Srdjan D. PelagicSpace Models S/C Chairman

026 CIAM Flyer

The following ranking formula will beused for SMIR:

a) Points will be awarded only tocompetitors completing at least oneflight in the contest.

b) Only one competition of the samerank for the same class may becounted from each country in Europe(taking the better score for eachEuropean country where a competitorhad scored in two competitions).

c) To determine the total score up toseven events of at least two differentclasses will be counted by selecting acompetitor’s best results during theyear.

d) In the event of a tie, the winner willbe determined by increasing thenumber of events counted, one at atime until a winner is decided.

The SMIR winner earns the title WorldSpacemodeller of the Year.Certificates, medals or trophies, ifavailable, may be awarded by the subcommittee. Organization,communication and classificationsupervision will be as per World Cupcontests. That means the SpaceModels S/C will nominate aresponsible person to administer theevent. Each organizer is obliged tosend results of his contest to theChairman of Space Models S/C and tothe SMIR coordinator within three daysafter the contest has ended (e-mail

and/or fax is good for that). The currentSMIR positions shall be calculated anddistributed within the next seven days.

To illustrate SMIR calculations seeTables 3 and 4. Table 3 is an ordinaryscore list for a class with a columnadded for SMIR points calculatedaccording to the formula given above.The input table must be sent to theSMIR coordinator urgently after eachinternational contest. Table 4 is thecore of the whole SMIR with scores ofeach entry for each competitor whomade even a single official flight. Eachrecord contains: identification number,name of the competitor, country, totalpoints per entry, score points per entry,SMIR points per entry, placing in theclass, class and contest venue. Thistable is a real X-ray snap shot of eachand of all competitors competitorsparticipating in international contests. Italso contains total SMIR points andSMIR points for 7 best scores.

I made many tests of the SMIRprocedure starting with an ancient 386and lotus 1-2-3 as the on-fieldcomputer for making placings andSMIR input data of Table 3. I continuedcalculation using Excell 97 onPentiums with Windows 95 and 98,switched to MS Access and finallyconcluded with a self-developed SMIRdatabase. I hope all these versions willbe available for CIAM Plenary Meetingin Lausanne, March 2000. Theintention of all this work was to alloworganizers and competitors to get andcheck SMIR on different computers

SPACE MODELS INTERNATIONAL RANKING - 1999Test Calculation - FINAL PLACINGS of the first 16 competitors out of 261

Placing NAME OF COMPETITOR COUNTRY Up to 7 SMIR Pts Entries ClassesScores

1 Zitnan Michal SVK 718,75 1225,67 14 52 Mokran Stefan SVK 662,81 812,59 10 33 Turk Ivan SLO 617,8 735,77 9 44 Pienkowski Leszek POL 591,4 709,24 9 35 Mosin Vladimir LTU 558,55 598,19 8 36 Kolodziej Jerzy POL 557,21 866,45 13 47 Boniecki Bartosz POL 541,18 1092,81 16 58 Katanic Zoran YUG 534,87 574,64 8 49 Pieczka Marian POL 525,53 526,53 7 310 Boniecki Jerzy POL 511,32 516,34 8 411 Przybytek Krzysztof POL 479,68 761,70 13 412 Mazzarachio Antonio ITA 467,27 467,27 5 313 Szabo Mikulas SVK 466,3 466,30 6 214 Pavljuk Vasil SVK 441,95 475,56 8 315 Spasov Ilija MKD 429,07 429,07 6 416 Lodge Stuart GBR 417,02 417,02 7 4

Table 1

REVIEW OF PARTICIPATION IN SMIR RECOGNIZED CONTESTS IN 1999(SMIR Test Calculation 1999)

WORLD CUP CLASSES OPEN INTERNATIONAL-K=1.0 NON WORLD CUP CLASSES K=0.75 Number of

competitorsVENUE Country Date S6A S7 S8E S3A S4B S8E/P S9A per contest

OBERKULM SUI 30.04.-02.05 15 - 9 - - - - 24BRATISLAVA SVK 07-09.05 16 - 8 - - 5 - 29SAVENA CZE 22-23.05 21 - 21 - - 20 3 65LIPT. MIKULAS SVK 04-06.06 32 4 17 - - - - 53DUPNICA BUG 03-04.07 41 - 11 37 27 - - 116DNIEPROPETR. UKR 25-26.06 24 9 4 - - - - 37RYBNIK POL 20-22.08 51 18 20 - - 12 - 101STIP MAK 02-03.10 29 4 7 - 20 - - 60LJUBLJANA SLO 15-17.10 46 5 12 35 28 - - 126

Total / Class - - 275 40 109 72 72 37 3 608

Table 2

CIAM Flyer 027

SPACE MODELS INTERNATIONAL RANKINGTest Calculation 1999

ID NAME OF COMPETITOR Country Points SMIR Placing Class Venue

1 Chigak A BEL

Total Score 46,38Best 7 Scores 46,38

1 Chigak A BEL 245 46,38 19 S6A DPE

71 Lodg e Stuar t GBR

Total Score 417,02Best 7 Scores 417,02

71 Lodge Stuart GBR 728 81,80 5 S7 LJU71 Lodge Stuart GBR 729 80,15 3 S7 LIM71 Lodge Stuart GBR 861 75,52 11 S3A LJU71 Lodge Stuart GBR 311 60,24 25 S6A LJU71 Lodge Stuart GBR 313 59,72 10 S6A OBK71 Lodge Stuart GBR 313 59,59 22 S6A LIM71 Lodge Stuart GBR 0 0,00 28 S4B LJU

233 Zitnan Mic hal SVK

Total Score 1225,67Best 7 Scores 718,75

233 Zitnan Michal SVK 2208 112,30 1 S8E LIM233 Zitnan Michal SVK 1972 110,79 1 S8E LJU233 Zitnan Michal SVK 1528 110,08 2 S8E SAZ233 Zitnan Michal SVK 1597 109,54 1 S8E OBK233 Zitnan Michal SVK 1676 109,03 1 S8E BRA233 Zitnan Michal SVK 428 84,03 5 S6A OBK233 Zitnan Michal SVK 396 82,97 5 S6A LJU233 Zitnan Michal SVK 400 79,51 6 S6A SAZ233 Zitnan Michal SVK 950 78,75 2 S8EP SAZ233 Zitnan Michal SVK 389 78,64 7 S6A LIM233 Zitnan Michal SVK 2611 77,30 2 S8EP BRA233 Zitnan Michal SVK 654 76,72 2 S4B LJU233 Zitnan Michal SVK 385 76,35 5 S6A BRA233 Zitnan Michal SVK 467 39,64 28 S3A LJU

21st LJUBLJANA CUP - WORLD CUP 1999LJU (SLO), CLASS: S6A,

K= 1 1A= 46 46Max= 540 540

Placing NAME OF COMPETITOR COUNTRY Class Pts SMIR Pts

1 Mazzarachio Antonio ITA 457 101,262 Mosin Vladimir LIT 448 96,583 Turk Ivan SLO 423 90,194 Stricelj Igor SLO 406 85,795 Zitnan Michal SVK 396 82,976 Katanic Zoran YUG 390 81,077 Roura-Misse Albert ESP 389 80,21

Total of competitors in S6A : 46

Table 4

Table 3

and in different programs in order tostimulate modellers to participate ininternational competitions.

A few words about the quantity of thework: input tables with all scores for1999 were given on 18 pages, A4format, Table 4 also contains 18 pages,and a listing of 261 competitors takes 6pages - a real book of 42 pages. I shalltry and put all this on floppies andmake it available for spacemodellers atthe CIAM Plenary Meeting.

Let us now think how we shall bringSMIR into practice? Internationalranking exists in tennis, boxing, skiingand many other sports. Its advantageis to make known to the competitorstheir current international standing.Competitors with higher placings shallbe better treated by the media andshall easily find sponsors and support,this will lead to further improvement ofthe whole activity. SMIR takes intoaccount all competitors who completedat least one official flight in internationalcontests. So at any time there will be alist of “SM international sportsmen” forthe current year with their placings.

Saturn 1B in S7 scale1998 World Championships - Romania

The Space Models subcommittee shallpublish test calculations based oninternational contests held in 1999. In2000 provisional SMIR with currentplacings will be made . Thus in 2001this will be normal procedure and havea continuous presentation ofspacemodelling scores. It looks very

promising and we wish to encourageother CIAM subcommittees to definetheir own IR rules. We are sure it willcontribute to much better treatment ofaero and spacemodelling by the publicand media in the coming years. CIAM flyer

028 CIAM Flyer

The Y2K - computer millenniumbug has frightened millions ofcomputer people, but finally

appeared in practice, after 1 January2000. Sweet like a ladybird, andharming very few computer systems.HT/S-Space Models Millennium Bug,dated 2001, may be not so sweet.HT/S stands for hobby, technicalactivity and/or sport - A ‘tri-lemma’facing spacemodellers, their sponsorsand most often the media and public.

The ‘triangle’ HT/S is alwaysimproperly understood - and theresult is the same - lack of sponsors(reads: money) and very poor supportby the media. Everyone’s explanationis routine: ‘You are a hobby (or atechnical activity) - not a sport’. And itmust be clear these days, sportsattract the public and the media - andgenerates revenue.

It is necessary to present our activitymore like a sport, or we shall lose outfor decades. I realise, we enjoypresenting ourselves like ‘appliedscientists’ or something like that, butthe public do not understand this andas a result show no interest.

First dangers may be predicted, butwill not become obvious until 2001.Namely - there will be nospacemodelling in the second WorldAir Games in Spain in 2001, thegreatest airshow for coming years(only a few aeromodelling classes willbe there as well). Organizers havedesignated our activity as boring!

Let us consider our mistakes:

✱ Our models are to small and notattractive.

✱ To popularize spacemodelling weoften call everyone’s attention toyoungsters. So all this seems‘childish’. Remember WAG 1997 inTurkey when a 12 year old Spanishboy became European Champion.It looked charming, but was not arecommendation for our wholeactivity.

✱ Our competitions are to long.There are too many ‘tactics’, sosometimes for almost one hournothing happens in the field andjust after that, ten minutes beforethe end of the round the whole fieldlooks like a mass of activity, whichthe public may not understand.

✱ It is very difficult for the public torealise what is going on duringthese competitions for tworeasons: 1) rules are prettycomplicated and not explained tothe public in an easily acceptableway and 2) usually there are noannouncers on the field so you donot know who is winning and whois losing. The scores are postedtoo late when the competition isover-and already ‘history’.

✱ There is almost no informationabout the competitors (curriculumvitae and photos) so, the mediararely mentions anything aboutevent champions.

✱ There are many champions, medalsand cups - 14 sets of cups andmedals are necessary for WorldChampionships for Juniors andSeniors (that includes about 200diplomas). So, prizegivingceremonies take almost two hours,quite enough that the food at theclosing banquet gets cold and drinksget warm. The value of all prizestherefore, goes down and expensesfor prizes go up considerably!

The CIAM Space ModelsSubcommittee tried to qualifyspacemodelling for the WAG 2001,but the existing rules were to rigid andan attempt to adapt them was notvery successful. But, there will be a3rd WAG...

Mr Guy Revel, CIAM mediaconsultant gave several very usefulsuggestions to the committee on howto make spacemodelling “telegenic”:

✱ Competition space models mustbe larger.

✱ Space models should beconsidered as sporting tools forspectators and the media. It isimportant what is done with them,not who made them and how.

✱ Competition classes grouped so asto have one class with more tasksand possibly with more models.

✱ Modern competition is not made forall competitors to go through allrounds with scores gained by simpleaddition of results in all rounds, butby progressive elimination.

✱ The number of classes should bereduced: too many classes and toomany winners only delude anddegrade the value of any title andreduces the interests of TV andspectators.

What is the solution to the problem?We must change and revise ourdirection, approach, and attitude topopular sports.

Firstly, to make SM “telegenic”, wemust provide for each first classcontest:

✱ “Competitor profiles”, i.e. curriculumvitae with a photo of eachcompetitor.

✱ Easily understandable rules for thepress, TV and public.

✱ Competition histories and statisticsfor each class (venues and datesof preceding contests, score listsfrom them, world and otherrecords, etc).

✱ Public address systems and skilledannouncers, and easily visiblescoreboards (with updated results)etc.

HT/S-SPACE

MODELLINGMILLENNIUM

BUG

Srdjan D. PelagicSpace Models S/C Chairman

CIAM Flyer 029

✱ Precise time-tables.

✱ Distinctive sportswear for eachnational team with visible startnumbers, etc...

In a technical sense we must realisethe following:

✱ Spacemodelling classes aregrouped in the following areas:time-duration, altitude, scale andRC rocket-glider/FF Boost gliders.

✱ Models for junior competitionclasses must be inexpensive andeasy to build to appeal to themasses (so models may be small),but senior competition classesmust be sophisticated with biggerand very attractive models.

✱ For these reasons the CIAM PlenaryMeeting in March 2000 shallconsider many new proposals toachieve “telegenic” spacemodellingin the future.

The following World Championshipsclasses are proposed:

Juniors: S1A, S3A, S4A, S5B, S8Dand S9A,

Senior: S1C, S3C, S4C, S5C, S6C,S7, S8E/P and S9C.

This will allow us to have advancedequipment onboard and to have further

developments and improvements inspacemodelling.

✱ Dimensions of the models shouldalso be changed: Event class Astays as in the present rules-minimum length 350 mm andminimum diameter 30 mm, but forsubsequent classes, diameters willbe increased by 10 mm, and lengthby 15 cm. So, class B shall be500/40, class C - 650/50 and thehighest class F -1100/80 mm.

✱ Spacemodels in all classes exceptS5 and S7, should be paintedaccording to the paint pattern in atleast three bright colours specifiedby each NAC for the currentcompetition season.

There were some proposals for thenew classes like: RC spot landing(A.Mazzarachio-Italy), S6A/P-Streamer duration and precisionlaunches - for flight duration close togiven maximums of flight andreduction of points for shorter orlonger flights (V.Minakov-Russia),and a completely redesigned classS2-Payload altitude, etc...

These proposals are mainly based onthe contributions of co-workers of the SAPPHIRE SpacemodellingDevelopment program and some SMS/C members, but all spacemodellersare invited to contribute to thecomprehensive revision of SM rules.Finally international rankings must beset up, like in other sports. Thatmeans NACs should make someselection for sportsmen participatingin international contests. Also WorldCup and Open International contestsshall provide selection forparticipation in World or ContinentalChampionships. World Cup andOpen International events must occuras soon as possible on othercontinents where SM is alreadydeveloped (for example America andAsia). Through this principle we shalleliminate “random winners(champions)”. Also we may be surethat sponsors and the media will paymuch more attention to sportsmenranking higher on SMIR lists and

earning their awards under moredifficult conditions.

We may be sure that the reaction bymany present champions will be veryreactionary. Some of them alreadyhave a habit of earning medals andcups according to the old fashionedrules and will not be happy with anychange. However, life is a permanentchange. So, start getting used to newhabits for the good of spacemodelling.

Some things already confirm ourefforts to approach spacemodellingthe same as we do the other sports.There are many signs that aero andspacemodelling are more and moreaccepted as sports. First SandyPimenoff, CIAM President is also theCASI President and CIAM 2nd Vice-President Werner Groth is CASISecretary. This is real recognition thatmodelling is an air-sport. Second inmy own country two spacemodellingworld champions (A.Ducak and B.Milanovic) earned last year twoscholarships from the Ministry ofSports and joined the league of topsportsman after many years. Also I.Kolic, aeromodelling F1B & F1JEuropean junior champion wasdeclared Junior sportsman of theyear 1999, beating soccer, basketballand other sportsman on the list of the“Sports Journal”, the greatest sportsnewspaper, for the first time in thesporting history of my country.

So, we should realise finally,spacemodelling is a recognized airsport and we must do our best toimprove it all the time, leaving behindold fashion habits. CIAM flyer

Scale ModelsImpressive start of RC rocket glider

in S8E class

030 CIAM Flyer

A fter the Space ModellingEuropean Championships inNovi Sad were cancelled by

the FAI due to the war in Yugoslavia,a large number of participants wereexpected at the 21st Ljubljana Cup atthe end of the contest season. Theorganiser hoped many well-knownmodellers who are prominent in thespace modelling world would attend.Almost 70 competitors from 12countries constructed their launchingdevices at Kamnisko polje airfield,which can be considered a uniquerecord. Participants from Croatia, theCzech Republic, Italy, Yugoslavia,Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia,Spain, Switzerland, Great Britain andSlovenia took part in the competition.Such varied attendance couldn’t evenbe found at the recent worldchampionships; not to mention aWorld Cup competition! For theorganiser ARK Komarov it wasundoubtedly proof of the popularity ofthis competition. So the 21stLjubljana Cup was the main event ofthe year for ARK Komarov which wascelebrating its 30th anniversary.

For all the competitors it was the lastopportunity in the current season toshow their skills and wascompensation for missed chances atthe cancelled Europeanchampionships. Optimal weatherconditions, which are rare atLjubljana’s competition, helped themodellers to complete all six eventsand the show program.

The large number of competitors whoentered the S3A class proved thatWC categories are not the only onesthat attract modellers as is theopinion of certain FAI officials. The

parachute duration class is one ofthose that will be most likely sharingradical rule changes in future, and itattracted some real masters of thisevent. Eight of them finished thematch with a maximum score andentered the fly-off. For the localcompetitor Andrej Vrbec, of ARKKomarov, it was a day of triumph hewas hardly expecting. One of the bestSlovenian modellers in S3 finallystepped on the highest step of thewinners podium, followed by theyoung Spaniard, Jordi Roura Misse,and Italian master, AntonioMazzarachio.

Boost gliders are considered as aspecific class in space modelling withsome specialists usually placed in toppositions. Among them AntonioMazzarachio proved again hismastery with the best score. Next wasSlovak Michal Zitnan, while JordiRoura Font of the Spanish teamplaced third. It was probably the firstappearance of a Spanish team at aWC competition. A strong Spanishteam entered the competition with tenmale and female competitors, all ofthem experienced modellers.Slovenian veteran and S4 specialistEgon Engelsberger was kept out ofthe medals this time. Despite hisannouncement that this was his finalcontest, no one really believed him.However, being an experiencedcompetitor he intends to remain astrong supporter of the Sloveniannational team in future.

The final world cup competition inS6A class completed the first day ofthe competition. Who else could bethe winner than the actual world cupwinner Antonio Mazzarachio? Hisrivals had good reason to envy him ofhis success. This time Antonio wasinvincible. Lithuanian Vladimir Mosinwon the silver and Slovenian IvanTurk, the traditional bronze dragon.

As the contest went on at the airfield,scale judges did their job measuringand getting points for S5 and S7scale models. Judges Milan Jelinek ofSlovakia, Srdjan Pelagic ofYugoslavia and young promisingreferee Primoz Kuhar of Sloveniadecided the winners. 787 went toArnis Baca from Latvia for hiswonderful Soyuz, while Joze Cudenand Mateja Kozjek took the lead in S5achieving 604 points for their NikeCajun sounding rockets.

After the fly-off in S3A on Sundaymorning, the first round of S8E classstarted and promised to be a toughrace. RC pilots of rocket glidersperformed several perfect flights.There wasn’t any distinctive favouriteamong the masters of this class. Atthe end only three seconds separatedthe winner Michal Zitnan of Slovakiaand young Slovenian Ivan Turk atsecond place. An excellentperformance helped Slovak StefanMokran to reach third place who wasclose behind Turk.

21stLjubljana

Cup

Joze Cuden

Photos: Nina Cuden, Stuart Lodge, Anton Sijanec and Joze Cuden

Gaining three medals made AntonioMazzarachio from Italy the most successful

participant of the contest.

Joze Cuden placed 2nd in S5B with his NikeCajun sounding rocket.

CIAM Flyer 031

Scale models are considered as the‘royal’ class in space modelling; trueminiature astronautics. Largenumbers of spectators have alwaysadmired their realistic flights. ArnisBaca could not defend his first placefrom the previous Ljubljana Cup. Aslight malfunction during the flightstopped him from regaining themedal. It was a chance for Slovakmodellers to win the top trophies.Mikulas Szabo, Lubica Samelova andVasil Pavljuk carried out valid flightswith their Ariane scale models andplaced in pole positions. Anoutstanding appearance by BritonStuart Lodge cannot be overlooked. Itis evident that he is slowly becominga strong rival to the rest of the gang inS7.

Results of 21st Ljubljana Cup S3APlace Competitor Team Score1. Andrej Vrbec (SLO) 900 + 4202. Jordi Roura Misse (SPA) 900 + 4083. Antonio Mazzarachio (ITA) 900 + 3914. Matija Vrtacnik (SLO) 900 + 3545. Andreu Palau Pera (SPA) 900 + 269

S4BPlace Competitor Team Score1. Antonio Mazzarachio (ITA) 7172. Michal Zitnan (SVK) 6543. Jordi Roura Font (SPA) 5904. Esther Roura Misse (SPA) 5885. Denis Grguric (CRO) 560

S5BPlace Competitor Team Scale model Static pts. Altitude Score1. Andrej Vrbec (SLO) dragon III 576 330,2 906,22. Joze Cuden (SLO) nike cajun 604 301,2 905,23. Matevz Dular (SLO) dragon III 508 141,5 649,54. Mateja Kozjek (SLO) nike cajun 604 - 05. Miha Kozjek (SLO) nike cajun 600 - 0

S6APlace Competitor Team Score1. Antonio Mazzarachio (ITA) 4572. Vladimir Mosin (LIT) 4483. Ivan Turk (SLO) 4324. Igor Stricelj (SLO) 4065. Michal Zitnan (SVK) 396

S7Place Competitor Team Scale model Static pts. Flight pts. Score1. Mikulas Szabo (SVK) ariane 3 V-12 735 155 8902. Vasil Pavljuk (SVK) ariane 3 U-12700 147 8473. Lubica Samelova (SVK) ariane 1 l-01 675 138 8134. Arnis Baca (LAT) soyuz-T 787 0 7875. Stuart Lodge (GBR) vertical-1 638 90 728

S8EPlace Competitor Team Score1. Michal Zitnan (SVK) 1080 + 480 + 4122. Ivan Turk (SLO) 1080 + 480 + 4093. Stefan Mokran (SVK) 1080 + 480 + 4054. Vladimir Cipcic (YU) 1080 + 480 + 3625. Bogdan Makuc (SLO) 1080 + 480 + -

Slovenian modellers performed someperfect two stage flights in the scalealtitude competition. There was aclose final result when Andrej Vrbecout scored Joze Cuden by only onepoint, while Matevz Dular laggedbehind. The crew manning trackingdevices once again proved efficientand no tracks were lost. We wish tohave such well-experiencedpersonnel at World and Europeancompetitions, which is rarely seen.

After two days of tough competitionthe 21st Ljubljana Cup ended with theshow programme where somestrange and odd rocket flights wereseen. It is always a practice to giveawards to the best show modelswhose construction sometimestechnically exceeds some contestmodels. CIAM flyer

Mikulas Szabo and Lubica Samelova ofSlovak Team inspect their Ariane 1 scale

model before flight.

Stuart Lodge (GB) is attaching clips to theigniter of Vertical 1 scale model.

032 CIAM Flyer

International AeromodellingSporting Calender 2000

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

2-8 July World Aeromodelling Championship - F3J Corfu(Greece)

12-19 July World Aeromodelling Championship - Control Line Landres(France)

6-12 August World Aeromodelling Championship - F5B, F5D San Diego(CA) (USA)

14 August World Junior Aeromodelling Championship - Free flight Vsechov(Czech Republic)

20-26 August World Aeromodelling Championship - F4B, F4C Interlaken(Switzerland)

10-17 September 13th World Space Modelling Championship Liptovsky Mikulas(Slovak Republic)

2-7 October World Aeromodelling Championship - F1D Slanic Prahova(Romania)

CONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

29-30 April European Aeromodelling Championship - F3D Sumperk(Czech Republic)

15-24 June 3rd Combined Asian-Oceanic Aeromodelling Championship - F3A Singapore(Singapore)

18-22 June European Aeromodelling Championship - F1E Cluj Napoca(Romania)

19-24 August European Aeromodelling Championship - F1A, F1B, F1C Buzau(Romania)

19-26 August European Aeromodelling Championship - F3C Assen(Netherlands)

2-9 September 10th European Aeromodelling Championship - F3A Othée(Belgium)