DAY .. 31.march 2006
- Practice day for the Eurotour F3J in Istanbul. All sunshine and shorts all day and the field is drying up for the competition I think. I flew my Pike Perfect 3 flights and also got to fly the Nemo DLG. Funny little bugger that seems to have some potential. I was up early since my room mate Jan Kohout had set his clock to 6:30 instead of 7:30.... #*¤@? and had a good breakfast. On the field we were served a very nice meal and I have to say it was a "Perfect" day ;-)
The 3 flights were all long and since there was lots of thermals but also a little turbulent conditions I got some good practice flights. It seems that the winter conditions ARE a bit different. What I was lacking in reaction to thermals were here now. It responded to more than I wanted actually. But I think that was mostly due to turbulent air. The flying field is surrounded by hills and with a bit wind it gives a turbulent layer flying low and in the landing zone. Got some great flights and the two winches that were set up did not have strong enough line for my model... looks like both me, Philip and Jan Kohout (that also got a Pike Perfect) has come to a CG of 110-112mm in calm conditions. If the conditions are like today it will be a launch/landing competition. But in the middle of the day it was a few flights were the thermals kind of died. Now we are waiting for dinner. Tomorrow we will leave for the field at 07:00!!! This is no vacation ;-)
Others? Well so many I could name here. I might say that the Experience Pro now comes as a "Shadow" with new tips so it is even bigger. A very light model I felt was 2000g but it was not built for windy conditions. I also heard that the Graupner Super Soarmaster will be glass Vision wing and the Soarmaster fuse. I did not see other new models I think. Maybe I should look more closely tomorrow.
BTW Turkey will have World Championship F3J in 2008 (Ankara). Sound very good too me! Pimenof is here to look at the organisation of the contest.

DAY .. 1.april 2006 - Istanbul Eurotour F3J
- First day is finished. It was a long day but we got 5 rounds in very different weather. We started with cold and wet morning air at 08:30 and I flew my first round to a 1000p with only 6:46 flying time. Yes it was very difficult in the first slots. Then the wind picked up so a nearby slope worked for some and now and then a thermal came thru. The sun came out after a while and we could put our shorts on but the ground was a bit wet on some places. At least half the field is walking around in yellow boots from the local shop. I think he made some money on us ;-) There were no lunch break but all teams have free rounds to enjoy the great food served by chefs. Organisation runs very smooth though we pilots tend to do some crashes that causes some reflights as always. I had one 90p landing but had very good points until the landing in round 5. The wind had changed and I did not want to risk coming in to land in 3-4m/s downwind. The landing spot is only 15m from the safety corridor so me and Jan discussed to come in high. Sadly I was a bit late so I speeded up and forgot all about the corridor... I did not get a penalty marked on my scorecard but I know many could see it so I asked for a penalty afterwards. I landed outside the landing spot also so only 850p for that round. This gave me -100 points on the final score so I am probably out of the finals :-( The funny thing was that Philip flew against me but was low and could not get over the safety corridor without penalty. He landed in his hand on the other side instead... Pitty as I was now in 4th place of 72 competitors. 12 is going to the finals. I am flying together with Jan Kohout, Karel Koudelka and Vlastimil Vostrel. The team is working well and Jane Vostrelova is our key runner. She does not have boots (like many others) and was extremely wet but still running! Today we also flew together with hundred of storks. Amazing to be in the same thermal. They outfly us for sure!!! In the evening we had a great barbeque and some bull-riding on the field. Great day and I am so happy to see all my friends on the international arena!!!! My boots was even on direct national television today :-O  I flew my Pike Perfect all 5 flights and are happy with it. In most of my flights I have been the highest one though I needed to adjust the hook a bit for downwind launches. It is surely better than the Superior though still not sure if my flying style is sometimes better with Giant. There is little or no thermal activity on the field and we had many downwind launches. I have logs but forgot to bring my cable to download. Top 20 after round 5 (without penalty). Be sure to also read the march diary. I am sorry if there are any files missing. I can only get dial up and transer is in the range 0,5-07kb... So I cant even answer emails!!

DAY .. 2.april 2006 - Last day Istanbul Eurotour F3J
- I did have a small hope and guess what it happened!!!! After 8 rounds and some small mishaps I just managed to slide into the finals. I think they checked my overflying of the safety corridor and the official timer could not confirm it. I must say that it was a slopeflying final but I already had dialed in the Pike Perfect for fast launches and very accurate landings. I also had super helpers in the finals with Jane and Vlastimil as runners and Jan Kohout as caller (Not to forget I had Jane and  Karel Koudelka as runners in most preliminaries). Jan urged me to go off the line at 2 seconds and so I did in 3 rounds. We might have used 3-4 seconds in one start but it was anyway fast. The altitude achieved was probably apx 120-150m and in the landings I had dialed in 100degrees flaps to stand still over the mark while waiting for the tone. I did a mistake in final round 2 and pushed a little too hard to a 95p. landing.
I ended up in 3rd place after a very happy Colin Lukas (Pike Superior) and Philip Kolb (Pike Perfect). Philip was extreme and had 14:57,2 (reflight round 1), 14:56,1 and 14:56,3 so I could never had taken first place without launching beside him.
We had no idea of how the other flyoff pilots was doing. A very nice thing also happened during the price ceremony. I got the "Fair Play Price" for telling that I might have flown under the safety height (3m) over the corridor (the official timekeeper had not seen or marked this on the scoring card and could not confirm it when they asked afterwards). This is where we launch from and go in/out from pits. We sometimes have to fly over it to land since the landing spot is only 15m from the corridor.
Corrected results from Winfried de Vries

DAY .. 3.april 2006 - Going home from Istanbul Eurotour F3J
- So how do I feel about the Perfect? As I have mentioned it is better than the Superior but still need lots of testing on morning flights. To get those last seconds we need to find the best gliding speed. Flying too slowly clearly is not good. The Sharon is still a good plane but the Perfect will be there with more testing. The morning flights of Philip, Mustafa and Murat was very good and I still have a few % to go on to reach that. In the high winds it seems to cope well even without ballast. I was a little afraid about that but it has better glide ratio than the Superior on distance. Not quite up with the Giant but good. I need to fly against others clearly. Maybe I should check my bank account or take out a credit card to visit some more competitions...
The last day was spent together with our President Mr. Pimenoff and his wife. We had a great boat trip in Istanbul and visited a market for some local shopping. After that I ate lunch in the workshop/clubhouse of the Soarist club (amazing 2 floors with moulds, planes, resting area, everything you need) and later stayed in the Harem Hotel. Late dinner with Croatians and Slovenian (Primož Rižner) was good at a local restaurant.
There will be a lot of pictures out soon. I need to get home and transfer first ;-) Attendants might ask for CD offcourse (apx 950 pictures total) at jo (@) grini.no . Big thanks to the organizers, my friends, Samba, Volz and Horizon Hobby that makes this trip worth flying further!

DAY .. 4.april 2006 - Pictures from Istanbul Eurotour F3J
- A bunch of photos HERE (not either cropped or rotated much).
Corrected results from Winfried de Vries

DAY .. 5.april 2006
- I downloaded the logged flights from Istanbul. Sadly the logger went full on the 7th start so I only have logs from round 2-8 and no finals. I did not bring a cable otherwise they would have been there. Some starts were 5seconds and the low ones 3 seconds. As you see the conditions on launching were not good in Istanbul. This is because the field is not producing andy good air but is a "feeding area" for the thermals around. So first 4 flights were saturday and last 3 were sunday. Download logs here

DAY .. 6.april 2006
- I was in the local newspaper today. Copy HERE