NEW:
- Gossip column after WC from Uncle Sydney
Thanks Sydney. We appreciate it!
Sydney's column before WC is HERE

- Jojo will go to the NATS in Muncie, USA next year!! With help from a lot of cool guys he is able to finance the trip. Jojo thanks you a lot: Jim McCarthy, Larry Jolly, Gordy Stahl, Dr. Danny C. Williams, Jim Bacus, and John Diniz.
Jojo is now on the look for a competitive DLG also - to be able to compete in almost all sailplane classes over there!!

- Where is Roo ???

After the WC talk:

Final day of WC in F3J:

Final results is out. Click here
Models used during WC HERE (thanks to Bocquet)
Bunch of pictures HERE - Thanks Martin
We (Norway) have 1,5Gb of pictures but need to work thru them...

Wow it was exciting! There was a few guys out there that could have won it but in the end this one guy stuck his head out of nowhere and grabbed the trophy with honor. In the Juniors there were also one guy that was the edge better than the others. They both deserved it as they flew very well all week and could take the pressure in the finals.
Congrats to David Hobby and Thomas Fischer!
Also congrats to Germany that took home both the team places!

David Hobby has gone from "hobby" to an "athlete" :-)
Team Aussie is strong and fun to be around.

If I recall correctly these were the planes used in the finals (there will be a list of all competitors made by France in a day or two I am promissed).
1. David Hobby, Australia - Pike Superior (carbon 2,1-2,2kg)
2. Joe Wurts, USA - Icon (carbon 1,8-2,4kg)
3. Philip Kolb, Germany - Pike Superior and Sharon

Later today there will be a banquet were the medals will be given out.
Lots of pictures will be relaised later. And maybe a internet video when we get home. For now you can listen to the Australian anthem performeed by the Aussie team. thanks for a great event.

Team Aussie in the last final!

Germany IS excited!

Well done. Germany did not take the big one but all the rest
 

Day five of WC in F3J:
Launching in the finals

WC has nearly come to an end! We ended up with 9 preliminary rounds and have just completed 2 rounds of the finals both for seniors and juniors. The conditions today was windy but with thermals that could take you skyhigh if you just could spot them before you launched or hook up early with some others. There were also some wavelift that worked fine in the morning slots. The preliminary and finals have shown that this will not be a landing contest. Because of the big changes in weather we now might have a world champion(s) that truly knows how to fly and spot thermals. Not just do landings. We think that is very cool :-) Look at the scores... There were some landings far out today!
Tomorrow we will start up at 10:00 with the last two finals.
remember that we are -7 hours mountaintime...

Seniors in flyoff

Juniors in flyoff

So what happened to Norway ?
Aril did fine today and moved up from the bottom with a ok score in the last round. Tor missed out after a glitch in the start and switched model that also had a glitch. Alexander started with his fixed X-machine and was up for a good score when he hit sink and landed out. Switched to Giga since you get 0 score outside 75m but it was only a minute left of the working time. Jo had a very good round and almost a full score so he moved up a bit.
Maybe more txt about us later. Results Click here

Day four of WC in F3J:
 

One cool thing happened yesterday that needs to be mentioned. Our Senior Tor had stripped some gears on a flap servo so we talked to John Diniz the "JR dude" to get some shipped up here. It took some time so Jon decided that Tor should have a pair of new ones. He actually got a couple of JR368's for free. Now that is service!!! A big thanks to JR and John Diniz from us. Actually the whole USA team is to be thanked as they were keen to help.

Who is first up the line ?

Today wew have flown in great weather and most rounds everybody flew full time. On the top I think Tobias Lammlein leads the pack. We will probably fly a round or maybe two tomorrrow before we go for the finals at 12:00. In the Norway team there is ups ad down. Jo is now well out of the finals as he had some setbacks - things just did not work out a she planned. Tor is going a bit up on the list and Aril is developing as a pilot and competitor. Alexander is just out of the finals in 11th place (10 in flyoff). If he can keep smilling and keep his head sool he might just be there. That would be cool.
After finishing off at 19:30 we flew some electro and 75m starts (that we have ben using a lot this WC) just for fun. Alexander is always handlaunching something on the field and this time it was Jojo's AVA that were having a go. Watch the movie with unattended AVA catch HERE.
For those not faint harted (i think thats the right word for us "no english speaking") there is a new picture as a copy of the German Karl picture showing the US team manager... Thanks Jim... :-)

Tor's daughter Conni flyes Jojo's AVA, the cool guys in the tent and a report in the news!

Results after round 5 is out. Click here

Sorry Karl but this picture of you were found on the RCSE list... :-)
http://www.jimbacus.net/soaring/Karl.jpg

Day three of WC in F3J (evening/late night):
To tired to write so much as wew are on from early morning to late night. But it has ben a great day and we have really managed to step it up a bit. To have a big championship like this takes time and I would like eto thank all the organizers, helpers, Keith Morrison and Amy Pool (results) for some great smiles and good laughs so far.

Jo is on it with Alexander's RaceM.

So a quick one on the Norwegians:
Junior Alexander finally does good and are soon into the finals. Sadly he crashed his RaceM but it might be repared in a day or two (the joiner tube broke so we need to do it well). His Giga also needed some elctronic repairs so Jo has been on that all day on spare time...
Tor is doing as wew expected or maybe better. Many guys have failed and if he continous to do ok he will have respect on the final result after throwouts.
Aril is the unlucky one. Landed out - wrong way - etc. But he is enjoying every bit of it and will not be without it.
Jo had a mishap today on the last round just before the thunderstorm. He flew alone all over and got some points from spotter Aril that he should have heard on. But he still up there and have good times although he bounced from 30cm to a 85points today. The ground is extremely nice (golfcourse like) but hard here.

The results for other pilots can be found here. You will see that many good pilots failed today. Look way down the list...

Tomas Bartovski and Jojo talkes about Ciam...

Day three of WC in F3J:
Today we were cut of by a big thunderstorm heading our way. We just managed to pack it up after round 5 on both Seniors and Juniors. More on today later when we have had some food.
As you see the rented tent of the organizers is gone...
It is very cool to see a thunderstorm for us Norwegians even though it is sad that the tents and maybe some equipment went with it.

Day two of WC in F3J:
Got to the field and the thunderstorm had ripped the food tent of the ground. It was laying wrapped around a telephone pole a few hundred meters away. We started of with juniors round 2 but had to quit when the rain started coming down hard. The weather forecast did say that it was going to be bad so after some boring hours I think we ended this day at around 13:00. Actually the weather became nice in the late day and wee might have made some groups or rounds later in the day. There is a descission on the protest but we will not get the answer before tomorrow morning.

Mister "ogaloo" on the left and Stork X-tail on right.

Our junior Alexander flew the first morning round and did ok but not more. It was difficult and nobody made full time I think. The Italian junior Filippo Gallizia made a 1000p that could be heard all the way from lane 10 and back to the tent! I guess he liked it :-) In better periods the juniors were out playing football (guess thats the same language..) and they were so we wet afterwards that it looked like they haf taken a bath (which they got at the Hotel afterwards).

Juniors in rain with common language

Morning: Just a quick morning update. We do not yet know what happened to the protest's but we do know that a big thunderstorm with tornado past by yesterday. It was just 10km from our flying field and we hope the tents are still there!

Day one of WC in F3J:

Results after 1 round Senior and 1 round Junior.
There are some protest so there might be some reflights.
Link to results HERE

So now we are on it again! We started the day with opening ceremony were the national anthem of Canada was played and offcourse also the FAI anthem. All hats off and some speeches from various persons offcourse. First of was round 0 for juniors and then seniors. It seemed that all went well but there were some planes coming down far away (we think it went apx 8 planes down). Some of them we could see that the pilot was flying the wrong airplane as the pilot kept flying... But I think most had real problems. The organizer does not have a propper scanner but have borrowed some small ones that show what is in use by the pilots. Pitty because Jojo's spectrum analyzer is sitting back at home... A good thing is that we are getting along and 5 rounds (2 juniors and 3 seniors including round 0) in one day is pretty good on a World Championship.

Arend Borst is a high smiling guy and the team manager smiles also :-)

I was supposed to say that the flying went well and now we are eating again. BUT as I mentioned there was a lot of crashes but ours is still ok. Aril is a bit too excited to be here and in first round with his Tsunami he did a early restart and changed to number 2 model Big Sting. Sadly one rudder ball link was not completely on and he had poor elevator control. Second round he landed out.. But he was not the only one. In round one half of the flying field had poor scores and that is special to be a WC!! Tor was not tough enough in the first round but got a nice score in the second with his Superior. Jo is doing well and have 2 times 1000points. We really hope it works out. Jo used his Pike Brio Giant in both rounds and it seemed to work in todays conditions. Alexander our junior is doing just fine but did not find the full jackpot today. He is currently just outside the 10 man final. But there are more rounds to come and he will keep on going. It is all about getting to the finals. Alexander is using his Giga 2000 and X-machine (RaceM F3B wings and X21 fuse). It was windy but only 3-5m/s at the most and the sun was out all day with temperature in the high twenties.

TM meeting yesterday.

There were two things that got people a bit excited today. One was that many pilots lost their models and that it was all foreign frequencies and another is the descision to clarify the rules about reflights. The reflights is in the new rules changed to minimize the possibillity for other competitors to get better scores than the ones that really needs the reflight. So first option is to include some refliers in uncomplete slots. If that is not possible one should make a draw of competitors that shall fly with the refliers so that they have atleast 4 pilots against each other. The rules are to us clear but on the Team manager meeting there was some discussion that the competitors drawn should get the best score of the two flights in that round. The jury was set to decided what was correct and they found it to be that the drawn pilots should be able to pick the best score. So what happened? Well in the last round there was a few refliers and they draw some competitors to fly with them. One of the drawn was the famous Joe Wurts that allready had two poor rounds in. He was now able to get a new score and got a 1000p instead of apx 850 since he landed outside the landing circle. Now that is a lucky guy......... Read the Canadian version here of what happened.
I think there is some protest in on both the reflight and the crashes. (The reflight was cancelled 3 days later)
And I should say that Connie the daughter of our Senior Tor makes a good job distracting the juniors of other countries.
I promissed some pictures of team Netherland. Here they are:

-1 day to WC - evening
Team manager meeting was held today and it was just as usual. Lots of small stuff and clarification of the rules. But we did have a few good comments and was in good mood. We will try to fly 11-12 rounds and start the finals at noon saturday. There will be 10 pilots in flyoff both for seniors and juniors.
Earlier in the day the Norwegian team had a good time flying with Gordy Stahl and we exchanged some good airtime with a small landing competition included. We all did well :-) Gordy showed the best ribs that can be found in this area and I think we will not need any breakfast tomorrow. Everything is big "over here" - even the meat.
Remember that we are 8 hours behind Europe for the next update..
BTW Michelle Goodrum is pregnant and will have baby probably in January. We are not sure if it will be a F3B model or a F3J model. Maybe it is easier to push a smaller F3B model. Anyhow we wish you and Craig good luck and all the best.

The boys eating good stuff!

-1 day to WC
Today there wewre practice day, model prosessing and Team Manager meeting. The weather was ok with 15 degrees celcius and 3-5m/s wind from south so we got some good wind practice. The Norwegians flew mostly 75m launches (150-180m launch height according to Lolo) and did some 150m starts to check against. We finished of with one man tow and 0 man tow. That means that we just hammer the line into the ground and pull the line back for tension. The tension builds up during the launch and a good 150-180mm is achieved. Our 75m launches took 2,5-4 seconds deppending on wind and setup while the 150m launches took 4-6 seconds if we got of just above halfway. USA is one of the teams that have been practicing hard on fast launches (150m). Today they got of around halfway just as the tension is at its greatest. So they also have good fast launches.

Model prosessing was all day and it seemed to have gone well for all. Atleast I have no reports of other. Outsided the Japanese is again the coolest guys with DLG on 76g on the parking lot :-)
Alexander (our junior) was having a good time throwing it when Phil Barnes showed up. Alexander was throwing over the buildings. Phil was not!

-2 days to WC
Canada Cup has been held in Red Deer, Canada
A big applaus to Joe Wurts
Results are HERE
Bunch of pictures HERE - Thanks Martin

Pictures of a preliminary landing put together

Last day of Kanada cup and even more cool guys too meet. As always WC is all about meeting up and sharing information beside that we are hard competitors. Our team member Tor Midtlund had birthday today so the whole bunch of pilots sang a loud song for him :-) We started of with heavy rain but then suddenly the sky opened up and gave us sun and good thermals. The competition is not going fast but they are learning and they are calling us in on team manager meetings to resolve things. I also think Keith the contest director will be much harder when we are starting the WC. I would think he is capable of making the hard desissions after the Kanada Cup. It is always hard but right to learn thru a pre-event. What we also could see was that the helpers is doing a great job even if it might be warm and boring in times.

The WC site

So what happened today: The weather started with thermals and more thermals and even more thermals. Most planes had no problems getting full times as long as the pilot and spotter was looking a bit up from the scoresheet. It was kind of like Finland with thermals becoming stuck and got biggere on a nearby treeline but the trees were smaller than Finland. Some of the teams have been testing a lot to get quick launches so the time on the line ewas sometimes down to 2-3seconds with launch heights in the 140-180m range. There was actually no 75m starts so I would think us Norwegians will have to be the first again when we get to the WC days. The Norwegians did a ok job today and we are very happy with the team effort. We work great togheter and we are noticed as lobster red and smiling Norwegians. Everybody now knows that the Norwegians likes to smile and be a little crazy. We did not end up high on the list this time but there is potential to work on.

Canada cup ended with 3 rounds and two finals. The finals were flown really late just after the last thermal had went so it was a whole other deal than the strong thermals we had earlier. All the finalist had set their planes for fast starts and that looked completely wrong to us. The launch height was essential as nobody flew full time in the finals. It got to be really close and it was not really clear who won before the results were taken out by the hard working and smilling girl by the computer. All competitors flew in different directions and some did some huge mistakes. Worst might be to end up on the wrong side of the airfield in downdraft from the trees. Another is to come home from good air going straight into the wind. One should fly 45 degrees from the wind when leaving a thermal/good air. Anyhow maybe we should shut up as we were not in the finals - but it is great to see from the sideline and find some mistakes other do. It is called entertainment :-)

A big congratulation to Joe Wurts that won it. But remember in Finland reigin champion Jan Kohout won the pre-event but flew poor in the WC... What will happen this time?
Tomorrow there will be prosessing of models and we will do some practice on 75m starts.

Food and srinks are essential. Both were available and cheap.

A pile of stones was the big trophy for numner 1,2 and 3.
The story is that the stones were used in old times to see directions.

-3 days to WC

"Live and in color"

06:00 - Just a quick morning update (for us atleast). Today is the first day of Kanada Cup.
We have added a guestbook if you want to send us a greeting.
23:00 - -2 days to go
We started of with Kanada cup today. First round did not start before 13:30 of various reasons but it seemed to work fine with the organizing. They had prepared a CD for the timing and we are happy for that. We know that computertiming is not good but a CD should be correct. There was a small mistake on the CD with "working time at the end of the tone" (should be start of the tone) but all agreed that we use start of the tone. I think this discussion will go on forever on every championship... We could see the first model go into ground allready in group one.

Norwegian tent

Dont know the reason but in round two Carl Strautins lost a model. It might have been harmonic frequencies or something as there are a problem with some on 35 and 36 Mhz (atleast what somee technical guys say). He only had a few seconds of airtime. It was a few more accidents. Jaroslav Vostrel hit a line and got a reflight in anothr group. The Germans and the US guys colided hard just 10m from the spot. They had to battle it out by flying in a drawn group of 4 flyers (two drawn). We ended the day at 19:00 with only one round flown. Sorry I did not get hold of the results as we left just before 19:00 and there were no results during the day for us to see at all.

Organizers tent

Conditions today was extremely simple at times but also very difficult. The thermals came for 30min and went with apx 30min sink afterwards. Most pilots seemed to circle on lift that was not strong enough to lift their model in the thin air. But it was a great day on the field with temperatures well above 20 celcius.
So what about us? Well not too good but we needed the learningcurve since we have not flown much together. In Aril's first start the line was torn of and stuck in the turnaround so he got a lousy start and had to relaunch. Tor launched in good conditions and we stayed in fine and our own air the whole 10 minutes. In the landing a thermal passed and he were blown into a 50p landing. When Jo launched there was absolutely no air to spot anywere so we made a plan about flying forward into the next air. Problem was that we did not follow the plan and instead cruised around trying to find the center of som thermals that had allready gone. Went for a early relaunch and went straight into the air we had planned... Alex is sadly sick today and was not able to fly. But he feels better now in the afternoon and will fly tomorrow.

Contest director Keith with a lot of meeting during the day..
Maybe it is good for the upcoming WC or not.

Before and after. Sh..

Aussie on the way out!

Slovak team and Czech (Samba is offcourse yellow or?)

Left: Martin Rajsnr and Jiri Tuma. Right: smiling Japan as always.

What on earth is that my friend ?

-4 days to WC

The day started with Jo and Aril going to Calgary airport seaching for
lost luggage and deliver some paperwork (Jo is missing all his cloth).
Connie , Tor and Alex went for some shopping and sightseeing to kill
some time. When Aril and Jo got back, we headed for the flying field for
practising and measuring of lines. We were already there at 12am.
Because of jetlag. We were up at 0600 strange enough... The airfield
looked very nice. Huge, golf grass, flat, some small treelines.
We soon got a spot to camp on and our famous Wal-Mart tent was put up.
Most of the competitors enjoyed sun and strong thermals during the warm
day. Alexander offcourse met up with the Japanese (smilling as always)
and borrowed a mini-DLG on only 74g. It flew nice and as you seee on
the pictures Alex gave it all in the throw (sunglasses coming off). The
Germans however did some DLG launching of the new "super-model" from
Kanada. EPP?
It is so good to be here and feel the tension and offcourse everybody
is smilling. We love you guys - it is pure fun and adrenalin to be at
WC F3J because of the good feeling between all.

-5 days to WC
Today it is travel day for the Norwegian team. We are going to Canada via Heathrow in England. In Norway the security had to look thru our line suitcase but it was ok. Our three model boxes also went thru with mostly no problem (32, 13 and 12kg).

The stop at Heathrow was an experience by itself. We knew the new gate was at the same terminal but there was more to it. This airport is extremely big and aftere touchdown we taxed in 50-100km/h for over 10min before we got to our gate. When we got to the gate the luggage was to be transfered directly onto thee new plane. So wew relaxed and walked over to the monitor that should show us our newe gate. The monitor showed nothing about Calgary so we asked a security guy were to go. "Follow me" he said and we went walking for agees (atleast thats how it felt). We finally found a monitor that showed our new gate. We had a little over 1 hour to wait for the flight and the big line of people was not what we wanted to stand in. So we sat down and waited for the line to get smaller. 20min before departure we headed the last meters for the gate just to discover that we should have gone thru a "security check". So now we had to start running... Half a mile of running, security check (we jumped the line), new running and into the airplane by a margin of only a few minutes. But there were more passengers left in security so the departure was delayed with over an hour! Anyhow we are now on the plane to Canada and hopefully our equipment is with us. The Airbus 330 is ok with movies (old but...) and good food. As we write this it is 3-4 hours to go and Greenland is below us.

The team in Oslo

Conny our "secret weapon"

Goodnight Alex

19 hours after...
We are now at the Hotel and are on the interenet but Jo has lost one luggage. Thankfully it was only the clothes, Wlan and som small stuff! We had a meal at the Hotel and are now going to bed. The clock here is 23:00 and back home in Norway they are early morning. Tomorrow there might be somee meetings we have heard but havee no idea when... We picked up somee info on breakfast as eearly as 06-08:00

Jo smiles driving our BIG truck 4x4

Dinner LATE at the Hotel

-6 days to WC - 28/7
Jo and Alex is in training at Klanten airfield. That means high altitude training just as we will exprience in Canada. More txt in Jojo's diary.

 

-8 days to WC - 26/7 Our Junior is arriving down south after travellng apx 1500km by airliner, train and buss. The security on the airport suspected his carbon joiner (for RaceM) was a bat to kick the airline pilot in his head. But he managed to get it in and he did not "hi-jack" the plane :-) And today Tor picked up our tickets and the guarantee for the boxes to be OK on the flight "over there". While we sit here I found some most amusing email about the Nats F3B in US

Practice at Klanten airfield in Norway (at 820m)

 - Map to flying site
  - Weather in Calgary - Red Deer
 - This WC's Gossip column by Uncle Sydney
 - Pilot list is now online! www.f3j.ca
 - More info also on our page "Small stuff" before the WC
 - Norwegian jackets arrived (sorry it was to big for my wife)

Welcome to F3X.no
This site contains all information you need about
F3B, F3J and F3F in Norway.
The text is sometimes in Norwegian...
Beware that for the time being there might besome links
that does not work properly...

Ever wanted to start with something that is:
Fast, Cool, Silent and on the edge of what's possible ?
F3X 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 Teams of Norway likes just that....