Final Freestyle

Sorry for another late post to the blog, but yesterday was a busy day at the airfield and it was a difficult day for the Organisation with a landing incident occurring during the 4 Minute Free Programme involving Hanspeter Rohner in has Cap 232. Hanspeter was completely unhurt and stayed at the airfield all day and attended the closing ceremony. Unfortunately we ran out of time to complete the 4 minute free, but the organisers did manage to get three programmes (Q, Free and Free Unknown) complete despite some pretty poor weather during the Championships.

The closing ceremony was held at the contest hotel, which is built on the site of a historic monastary. Medals were awarded to the winners and Renaud Ecalle crowned Men's European Champion and Elena Klimovich Women's Champion. The British Team of Nick Onn, Gerald Cooper, Tom Cassells and Eric Vazeille were awarded the bronze team medal, with France winning silver and Russia gold.

Tom Korinek (Contest Director) announced that he would be retiring from running Championships - this is his third major Championship that he has organised - but that he hoped to stay in touch with everyone in the future. Tom is a great man and has worked very hard at all of the Championships to ensure that the contests are successful. He has an amazing ability to achieve all of this whilst still smiling and remaining calm, patient, understanding and helpful to everyone, regardless of the questions or requests being asked of him. It has been a pleasure to meet Tom and to share time with him at the Championships and I wish him health, happiness and lots more smiles in all of his future endeavours.

Here are some photos from the closing ceremony taken by Graham Hill.

Women's European Champion - Elena Klimovich.

Men's European Champion - Renaud Ecalle.

Team Mazda UK - Bronze Medal.

4 Minute Freestyle and Airshow

Today is the last day of the European Championships and the plan is to fly the 4 Minute Freestyle Programme, followed by an airshow and then a closing ceremony. Gerald and Eric are going to fly in the 4 Minute Programme. The weather looks good at the moment - a little foggy, but the forecast is for that to burn off quickly, so we hope to have a full day of flying which is good for the organisers who should have lots of flying on display for the public.

Its great that the weather improved sufficiently yesterday for the Free Unknown to be completed. The Organisers have worked very hard to get as much flying done as possible and to make this a very friendly event. They are very pleased that they managed to get the unknown done.

Free Unknown Finished

We completed the Free Unknown today and the final results from the Free and Free Unknown are published - the complete results are available on www.civa-results.com.

Gerald, Tom and Nick all flew clean Unknown programmes which was a very good way to finish the Classic Aresti part of the Championships. Nick was the highest ranked British pilot. The British Team won the bronze team medal, although the three Spanish pilots flew brilliantly to accrue more points than the three British pilots, but their placing did not count in the medal standings because they competed as Independent entries, registered as EXP (Expain) for various political reasons concerning their National Aero Club.

Castor Fantoba flew a simply excellent Unknown programme, backed-up by a very good performances from Juan Verlarde and Anselmo Gamez - it was great to see their team put in such a strong performance and demonstrate their talent and commitment to the sport at the Championships. Our sport is richer for their participation.

One of the things that is very special about these Championships is that the pilots compete with total commitment when they are flying and are focussed on doing all they can to post the best scores and win medals, yet at the same time, once flying is complete all of the competitors and teams have fun together - the atmosphere at this contest has been very friendly and the Championships have been contested with great sportsmanship, something that is often missing from sport these days.

Here are some photos of the British and Spanish teams after the final Classic flights were complete today. The smiles say it all - lots of relief that the stress of Unknown sequence flights are over and good sequences have been flown.

Update on Free Unknown

Sorry for the late post, but its been a busy afternoon. The weather has improved continually since lunchtime and we started flying at about 1400. It looks like we will finish the Free Unknown tonight. Nick and Gerald have both flown and put in good clean performances. So the results for the Free Unknown and the combined Free Programme plus Free Unknown (the Q Programme scores won't count towards the Championship titles if the Free Unknown is completed) should be available on the civa-results.com website this evening.

Still waiting

The cloudbase is currently 500m and so we have to wait to see if it will lift to 800m. Unlikely to get much done before lunch. Lets hope it starts to rise this afternoon.

Clouds in box

We have just finished the first briefing for Friday and there are clouds in the box, but it is hoped that they will rise sufficiently to allow us to fly. There are around 20 flights left from the Free Unknown and the priority is to get those finished. Box orientation will be 26 with judges in the south. Forecast wind is 270 at about 10 knots. So we are waiting to see if the clouds will co-operate.

The forecast for tomorrow is better, but it would be really good to finish the Free Unknown today.

No improvement in the weather

The weather is not cooperating today and the Organisers have reluctantly cancelled flying for the day. So we will have a briefing at 1000 tomorrow morning (Friday). The forecast is a little better, although there is a chance that low cloud could disrupt flying again. Let's hope that the occluded front moves away from Touzim soon.

Cloudy Thursday Morning

This morning is cloudy at the airfield and the weather forecast suggests that flying is unlikely today. We are going to wait for a while at the airfield to see if there is any unpredicted improvement, so for now we are waiting and hoping for better weather. The forecast for Friday is a little better, although the weather man still thinks it is unlikely that we will fly. Saturday sounds like a good day. So it looks like its going to be a waiting game for the next few days.

Next Briefing

There is definitely no flying planned for today because of bad weather. The next briefing will be at 1000 on Thursday morning, although the weather forecast suggests that it is unlikely that we will fly. The met forecasts have been pretty good so far throughout the contest, but its possible that the weather system could change in a way that has not been predicted, which is why the Organisers have scheduled a reasonably early briefing. We need about 5 flying hours to complete the Free Unknown, so its possible to get that done if we can just find one good afternoon's worth of weather.

The Four Minute Freestyle is scheduled for Saturday, but the Organisers have said that priority will be given to completing the Free Unknown if time is limited and a choice between running the two programmes has to be made.

Second Unknown Final Version

A number of protests were received about the first sequence selected for the Second Unknown Programme, so the Jury recommended the following sequence which has now been officially adopted as the programme that will be flown if we manage to get sufficient flyable weather.

Progress Update

Its Wednesday morning and the bad weather that was predicted has arrived - in fact it arrived a little sooner than expected and stopped us from flying from 1800 last night. There is no chance of flying today with low cloud, wind and some rain here at the moment and forecast to stay all day. The likelihood is that we will have the same weather tomorrow, with a possible break coming on Friday afternoon - although even then we may have low cloud in the box. Saturday, which is the last competition day, looks better, so we are hoping to get the Free Unknown finished on Saturday.

The Organisers have done a really good job of getting as much flying done as possible when the weather has been good. I really hope that the weather improves so that we can complete the Unknown - everyone here in Touzim really deserves that after all the hard work they have put into setting up and running the contest.

Second Unknown Sequence declared provisionally

The International Jury has selected the following sequence from those submitted and it will be the one all pilots will have to fly for the Second Unknown - it is provisional at the moment until the two hour protest period expires. This allows the teams to look at the sequence and raise any safety concerns they have about the design with the Jury before it is finally confirmed as the sequence that will be used.

Update on Tuesdays Activity

We have not managed to get any flying done yet today, except for the Jury Plane which has done quite a few cloud base checks, but at the moment the clouds are hovering at about 600m and we need them to go up another 200m before we can start. The wind has increased a little compared to the last two days (its now about 7 meters per second from 100 degrees), but the sun is still making an appearance, so perhaps the cloudbase will either rise or dissipate. It would be great to make some more progress with the Free Unknown. Each sequence is taking about 12 minutes, so we can get around 5 an hour done, which means we have something like 6 hours of flying left to do to finish the Programme. Its 1345 here now, which means its unlikely we will get the Free Unknown completed unless we can start at 1400 and fly beyond the 1900 curfew. But everything is set-up here ready to go as soon as the weather improves, so lets hope we can get some flying done today.

Morning Mist

Tuesday morning is a bit foggy at the airfield, although we can see the sun, so perhaps the mist will dissipate soon. The warm-up pilot has now been scheduled to take-off at 1000 and then we will continue with the Free Unknown flights. The box orientation is the same as yesterday - main axis direction 08 and judges in the south. The weather forecast suggests a stronger wind for this afternoon as the warm front approaches - perhaps as much as 24 knotts (120 degrees). So we will have to see how much flying is possible today. Hopefully we will get the Free Unknown finished, because we are expecting poor weather for Wed through to Friday. That would still allow us some time on Saturday to fly the Second Unknown and proposals for that sequence need to be submitted by 1200 today. The Organisers are working hard to make maximum use of any good weather, so I am sure that we will be flying as soon as possible this morning. Nick and Gerald will probably be flying after lunch.

Figures selected for Second Unknown

Here are the figures selected for the second Unknown. Eight figures were proposed by the remaining National Aero Clubs still represented in the Championships and two of the figures (9 and 10) were added by the International Jury.

Each team can now submit a proposed sequence that is composed using these ten figures and some simple linking figures to make the sequence flow. The International Jury will then review the submissions and select one sequence that all pilots will fly. The deadline is tomorrow morning.

Free Unknown flights started

The organisers, especially the scoring team, did an excellent job at processing the final results for the Free Programme and sorting out the running order and paperwork for the Free Unknown and we were able to start the next set of flights at about 1700 today. Tom has just finished his flight and he flew an excellent Unknown sequence - three or four of us watched the flight following the sequence card and couldn't see any zeros or major errors. It is a difficult sequence - we timed it at 11 minutes on average to complete the sequence (with no breaks) from getting in the air to final wing rocks, so its a test of skill and endurance. Tom got into a very good rhythm and flew all of the rolls and flicks accurately with good, solid clean stops. Very stylish.

The organisers want to get the first 14 pilots complete tonight, so they have got an extension to fly beyond 1900 tonight to get all of those flights done if possible, which would put us a third of a way through the programme. The CD, Thomas Korinek and his team have really pushed on whenever possible to get the flying going and the pilots appreciate this. So with some luck with the weather, we should get the Free Unknown complete tomorrow.

There is a briefing at 1930 today for selection of the figures for the Second Unknown and then sequences have to be submitted to the Organisers by 1000 in the morning. The Jury then select one of the proposals and all of the pilots have to fly that sequence - no choice this time!

The weather forecast for tomorrow is good, but poor for Wednesday and Thursday, so we may end up flying the second unknown on Friday and Saturday. But the Organisers have done an excellent job of moving things forward and that means that even if we have a day or two of poor weather we still have a realistic possibility of completing the second unknown.

Free Programme Completed

We have just finished flying the Free Programme - scores are just being entered. Gerald and Nick both had clean flights and scored in the high 70%s. The full listing of the results for the Free should be on the civa-results website in the next hour or so. We will then get the flying order for the Free Unknown which the organisers plan to start this afternoon. It is possible that Tom will fly the sequence today.

Flight Progress

The judges have stopped for a lunch break and we will resume flying soon - the jury plane is just checking the cloudbase to see if a Free Break is still permitted. Assuming we start at 1300 we expect Gerald to fly at about 1330 and Nick about 1430. The box orientation is the same as the last couple of days - Judges South and wind from the East.

Flying Resumes

The cloudbase has lifted to above 800m so flying is starting again here now. We expect Gerald to fly at about 1230 local time.

Free Programme Update

We are still waiting for the weather to improve. Tom's scores have been published and unfortunately he zeroed figure 1 flying a 6 of 2 instead of a 4 of 2. The rest of the sequence was clean and he scored about 67% for the Free including the zero which shows that the rest of the flight was good, so its still possible for Tom to make up ground in the two unknowns.