Personal Reflections.
By
Espen Torp
Calm weather even in the afternoon...
The 14th. F3B World Championship was held in Kircheim unter Teck and is simply the best run Championship that I ever attended. The organizers made a super job and we can all just applaud and be envious of what they did. The did not do to many mistakes in distance either, when you think about the people sat there in more than 40 degrees heat it is just fantastic.
My 9th. World Championship is over and I am already thinking ahead to the next one in Finland in two years time. The reason is clear, I did not fly up to my expectations and I think I disappointed some of my followers. I have had problems in previous Championships with midair collisions and so on, but I have never crashed due to technical reasons. For those of you that does not know the rules a midair will give you a reflight and even let you use another plane for the rest of the round if it is beyond repair. I did not retrieve my plane until the next day and lost both speed and distance in round 2. But this is not the reason alone for my poor performance. I did not fly consistently and only a few times I was happy with what I did. Our team did a good job considering we were yet again a new team. I hope some of the same guys will try to run for the team next time, we need the experience a World Championship gives.
Team
Norway 2003
I was very impressed with the Swedes and the Swiss team, though I did expect both of these teams to do well I did not expect them to be so dominating. Sweden's "third"guy, Henrik was thrown in very late and I think had a personal best speed time of about 20 seconds before the Worlds. He flew very well and helped the Swedes to yet again be at the podium. Well done!
Andreas Böhlen won his first individual title and there might be more to come if he qualifies for the team. It is pretty hard to qualify in some of the top teams and I guess that is what makes them so strong when they get to the Worlds. This does not apply to the Swedes who only have a handful of high standard pilots. It does not seem to bother them to much. Andreas used the Supersonic of Markus Becker, many thought he used the Estrella but after a closer look it was the Supersonic. This might boost Mr. Beckers sales a bit :-)
Pasi Vaisanen with his
stretched Race Machine (I guess many people did not know that
either! 20cm longer wingspan) made second place again, when
will he make the next step? I am glad I live quite near to the
Swedes and get the possibility to compete against them on a
regular bases.
The Swiss team won the teams for the 3rd time in a row and it
is hard to see which team that can stop them for winning a
fourth time in a row like Daryl Perkins did from 1995 to 2001.
Daryl did not play a major role this time and I can not stop
thinking about if Joe Wurts has something to do about that?
Maybe we will see them team up again for the next
Championship.
The German Team came
strongly in the end and managed to get 3rd. with Reinhard
Liese and 2nd. in the team competition.
I learned a lot this time. I will for sure dedicate models for
F3B next year, not like I have been doing lately with using
the same models for F3F and F3B. F3B is complicated and
training is necessary to achieve results at a high level.
ET-AIR
www.et-air.com
No limits, just DS! It will change your life!
-----------------
9/8 the WC is finished.
We congratulate the winners!
Results: Induvidual:
1. Andreas Böhlen (SUI)
2. Pasi Väisänen (SWE)
3. Reinard Liese (GER)
49. Widar Holmedal (NOR)
55. Erik Morgan Villadsen (NOR)
59. Espen Torp (NOR)
Team:
1. Switzerland
2. Germany
3. Sweden
19. Norway
WC-site
| Total results
| Team result
7/8:
Espen have been playing a bit with his camera and gives us
aerial shots of the WC-site.
Look at the pictures here
Other
News:
- Dieter Perlick got a controversial reflight in speed
- Andreas
Böhlen
leads with Supersonic
- Stefan
Böhlen crashed in
the speed (5th)
- Perkins
missed a thermal. Did a restart.
- Swedes doing good
- Lasse Nyberg did a new Finnish record in speed (16.16s)
- Almost all teams using EMC-line (except
maybe Denmark and USA)
- There will be flown 8 rounds (finished on Saturday..)
5/8:
Some gossip: Espen crashed because of a servo horn on the
elevator. The model is not repairable. Pasi Vaisanen and Daryl
Perkins used up their working time in speed but Pasi got a
reflight (as usual..:-). The Swedes are doing very well but the
Swiss is now on top (they are as always almost invisible but in
the end...). The weather is like the
rest of Europe extremely hot with 37 degrees at the WC site and
32 now at 21:30.
Norwegian picture of the day:
-
Gjermund throwing Espen's Caracho
5/8:
Download TV-report by German television (20,4mb .zipped
.mpg).
In the picture you can see Espen Gukild (Norwegian helper) and
just behind the reporter Espen Torp.
The WC-site is also the best ever from any World Championship I
have followed. Congratulation to the organizers and the
Webmaster for making the effort in not just having a site but
also update it!
Be sure to visit:
www.f3b-wm-2003.de
4/8-17:00: Espen have crashed in a tree and needs the fire department.. It seems that he had little control of the elevator. He managed to fly over 6 min in round 2 duration.... Now they are repairing.
4/8-15:45:
There have been a "disaster" at the flying field. A strong wind
came over the field and took some tents with it high up in the
air. But it also took some models and Widar's Tragi went 50m up
into the air and crashed. It is no longer with us... Espen's X21
almost went also but Espen held it and he was almost in the air
(he made himself "heavy"... He knows how..).
Picture
of flying tents
by Team Japan here
Picture of Tragi in air ? here
Espen gave up on the first distance after several restarts so
the results will not be good before throw outs... Roman V. (
www.lomcovak.cz ) got the
best speed in round 1 by 16,5s.
2/8:
The Norwegian Team is in place and ready for WC.
Kircheim Open is ongoing at the moment and Martin Webershock
just managed 30 legs in the distance. That is super. But the
record is at 35legs by Espen Torp some time ago. It is very hot
at 33 degrees and the Norwegian Team will have some training
tomorrow morning.
29/7:
We are on our way to WC. Just have to stop in Czech Republic and
Slovakia.. Ooops there we were almost in Poland after bad
map reading. We are now practicing mental F3B training in the
car.
---------------------------
Ever wanted to start with something that is:
Fast, Cool, Silent and on the edge of
what's possible ?
F3B is just that!
Do you also like to compete with the best ?
And maybe become World Champion ?
There are possibilities out there - Just grab them.
So get yourself a sailplane and start practice.....
As always - the National Team of Norway likes just
that....
Pilots: Espen
Torp, Widar
Holmedal, Erik
Morgan Villadsen
Team manager and tech support: Gjermund
Westad
Moral support and helper:
Espen Gukild
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