27 09 11 13:58 - 4th Eurocup, Vipava, Slovenia

At the end of last season we had some issues about which club will be organizing F5J eurocup event, so we asked for the last event in the season to get some more time to find an organizer and prepare everything. Ventus club from Vipava raised to the challenge and we split the duties: I took over the paperwork, they provided the field and manpower.
Altough reaching Vipava means some 2 hours of driving for most of you, I think it is worth it. The valley itself gives a bit of a feeling how it was to fly in this year F3J european championship in Bovec with mountains on two sides and second weekend in September offers statistically good chance of nice weather. This is very important since the whole region is known by the strong wind Burja (also known as Bora) that the valley "enjoys" for at least 50 days per year. That's also why you didn't see any tents there, just solid concrete and iron containers.

As I said, this event was my first opportunity to try myself at organizing such an event. I think the overall expirience was positive for everyone involved, altough there are a miriad of details that could be improved and I hope most of them will be improved for next year event.

See some impressions on our forum, a video from our cameraman Peter Karner, another video from Ventus guys, a report from Matic Sevšek, and whole lots of picture from Lana.

I also have to thank all of our sponsors: Pipistrel for a demo flight and prizes for winners, Hotel Ajdovščina for providing all the beer and one of the local wine cellars for providing the wine.

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17 08 11 00:43 - FAI F5J in Trnava, Slovakia

This was the one event that I was really looking forward to this year. Slovak guys organized a nice "package" with three competitions within 10 days, starting in Holič and ending in Trnava. I participated in Holič and didn't enjoy the weather, skipped Dubnica (I heard later that weather again didn't participate) and then went to Trnava.

Boleraz airfield (LZTR) lies nortwest of Trnava and sits atop of a small hill. It has a single 14-32 grass runway that was once used by military and is now home to Trnava aeroclub. It is also home to Trnava modeling club that has quite long history of organizing F3J events at the highest levels. This time they also organized a FAI F5J event on Thursday-Friday that also served as a warm-up for their weekend F3J event.

For the first time I also saw guys from Italy and Ukraine on the F5J style event. It's good to see FAI bringing people together.

Main sponsor of the event was mr. Jaro Muller and as I understood it was his wish to test some variations to the FAI accepted rules. So we flew with 30s of motor time before 10min working time with argument that it is safer when models climb at different speeds and slovak scoring - linear scale, 0 at 200m, bonus below, penalty above 1m = 1 point with argument that it is simpler. My opinions on this below, let me describe the competition first. (more)

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16 08 11 00:14 - 3rd 2011 Eurocup, Holič, Slovakia

Holič now traditionally provides the event at the height of the season, which brings together many people from distant lands. We're now used to see English and French teams there. Good to have you, guys!
Weather this year was a total disappointment. Overcast, windy, with high chance of rain. FAI competition on Friday didn't offer everything it could in terms of thermal soaring (can't do that if there are no thermals) and I joked that English guys brought their weather with them. Same weather continued through the weekend. While there was a thermal here and there, it was very weak and stretched far downwind, so while it was possible to gain a few meters, you had to travel few hundred meters downwind and it was then impossible to come back. Preferred tactic was then to use 20-30s of motor time and try to stay high up in the sky. But even that wasn't always possible - we've seen some spectacular downdrafts where the models were down from 400m or so in less than 5 minutes. But the rules of eurocup are such that one has to fly for 10min no matter the weather, which created a hard to enjoy conditions. I also had some technical issues (gearbox pinion decided to let loose after four years of faithful service) and the overall expirience was almost depressing to me. (more)

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15 08 11 21:56 - 2nd 2011 Eurocup, Chomutov, Czech Republic

New country and new place for eurocup events. Over 800km ride called for a van with at least two drivers. Ride was uneventful, worth noting is the number of police cars we've seen on Czech roads. The event itself was taking place at the western part of the runway 14 at the LKCH airfield. Due to the wind direction the starting line was placed diagonally to the runway, which caused some confusion when you had to walk to your point while keeping your eyes to your model in the sky. Weather was unusually cold for the end of June, with broken clouds rolling over us. We even had a shower on the Sunday morning. Sun was strong as expected in this time of year and strong thermals started to rise with as little as 5 minutes of sunshine, but due to the clouds such moments were rare. We soon discovered that due to terrain configuration there's a greater chance of catching a thermal south of the runway, over the road and above the hill there, while majority of the pilots chose to ride the wave west of the starting line. Some brave guys explored air downwind to the east, but most of those explorations were unfortunately unsuccessful. (more)

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02 06 11 12:05 - 1st 2011 Eurocup: Matko, Hungary

Hungary has always offered some weather extremes. Either it was hot, cold or windy. This time it turned out all of the above. We traveled to Matko with mixed feelings since memories of wet Krško and moist Matko last year were still very much alive. Weather forecast promised some storms, but their timing was hard to predict. I hoped for the Saturday/Sunday night. We arrived in Friday afternoon to find nice sunny weather, people were practicing even after sunset. Same weather continued in the morning hours of Saturday, but soon grumbling from the south announced a storm front. Showers began at about noon, with a short break that we spent for lunch and then another storm cell passed with proper lightning and thunder. Fortunately winds were light enough and didn't cause any problems at the camp site.

After the storm the air cooled substantially. While thermals were still present, they were much weaker and further away from eachother. While before noon it was possible to do a full 10min from 150m or so with a bit of luck (I didn't manage to gather enough luck), that was virtually impossible in the afternoon. We've seen some extreme heights at start because of that. We ended the day at 7pm, since there was no point in continuig for another hour. (more)

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07 03 11 22:58 - 2011 Eurocup season

We have the dates for this season events. I'm glad to announce that Czech Republic is joining eurocup with their own event:

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30 09 10 10:54 - 3rd eurocup 2010, Matko, Hungary

Rain seems to be the main topic at this year Eurocup events. Since Krško was washed away we decided to organize two competitions on the same extended weekend in hungary. Well that plan was again disturbed by rain, but luckily only friday was too wet to fly and was spent socializing instead. Then we pushed to fly from dawn till dusk to finish both competitions. It was very intense weekend, but somehow we managed it. Weather was mostly overcast with occasional weak thermal here and there, so one had to know exactly how many seconds of motor he needs to complete the task. One second less and you'd be on the ground too soon, one second more and you'd be on the overtaken by those who knew better. It was a competition of motors and landings.

As we promised in Krško, our sponsor Mibo modeli awarded a brand new Vision Sport to the best junior in slovenian event. Prize went to Malcik Radek. Congratulations!

We also discussed eurocup rules, introduced some changes and left some details open. I'll let you know when we iron them out and post the revised rules here.

Hit our forum for results and pictures or click f5jfun for more photos.

See you next year!

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16 07 10 16:09 - 2nd Eurocup 2010, Holič

Clear skies and hot weather marked the event in Holič that took place on 10th and 11th July 2010. On friday we also had a height limited "FxJ" event, so that meant three days of flying. Fortunately the conditions were perfect: thermals began very low and the only wind that was present was caused by the thermals themselves. So we saw lots of spectacular circling at only few meters and many group landings in last few seconds. Check the videos below. (more)

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