Choice of Unknown Sequences for the Free Unknown

The pilots have now submitted their choice of sequence for the first unknown and all of the pilots have chosen either Sequence D or G, pretty much in equal numbers.

Sequence D was designed by the French team and Sequence G by the Russian team. The organisers hope to be able to start flying the first Unknown this afternoon, but that will depend on how quickly we can get the Free Programmes finished - there are about 15 Free Programme flights still to be completed which will take about three hours. So we hope that the heat from the sunshine will lift the cloudbase soon so that we can start flying again.

The weather forecast for the next few days is for good flyable weather tomorrow (Tuesday), but a high probability of poor unflyable weather on Wednesday and Thursday, with better weather predicted for Friday and Saturday. So its looking possible that we will get through two Unknown sequences which would be excellent.

Update on Free Programme Flights

Monday morning in Touzim and it is a nice day, although there are some small clouds building up now in the box. The grass airfield is on top of a hill at around 2100 feet and so we tend to get a clear start first thing in the morning but then small clouds build up during the early part of the morning. Today there was just enough time before the clouds arrived for the warm-up pilot and Tom to fly. Tom flew what looked like a clean Free Programme from where we were watching - some minor errors but overall a good flight which should keep Tom in contention as we head towards the Unknowns. We will see what the judges made of the flight once the scores are in the computer (see www.civa-results.com).

Flying is now suspended while we wait for the cloud base to rise - which usually happens late morning. Gerald is the next British pilot to fly, then Nick.

Update on Progress with Free Programme

The Free Programme flights are progressing well and more than 30 will be complete by the end of today. The decision has been taken to fly the final block of pilots tomorrow, so all of the British pilots will fly then, with Tom likely to be first up in the morning. So its an early night for the team today and an early start tomorrow.

Progress with Free Programme Flights

Flight 17 of the Free Programmes is in the air now. Tom is the first of the British pilots to fly the Free Programme and he is Flight Number 33, so its probably at least three hours from now, so perhaps six o clock local time or later.

Unknown 1 sequences

And a few more...

Unknown 1 Sequence Options

Here are some of the options for the Unknown 1 sequences:

Free Programme Update

The weather this morning at Touzim is sunny but there have been some clouds in the box. We completed about 8 Free Programme flights yesterday before the 1900 curfew. Overnight the teams prepared their Unknown 1 programme submissions and 8 alternative sequences have been proposed - I will try to get copies to upload to the blog. Each pilot can now select one of the eight sequences to fly, which gives them an opportunity to pick the design that best suits their style and aircraft. The deadline for notifying the organisers about their choice is 1730 today.

We have not done much flying this morning because there was a landing incident involving one of the Italian pilots, Gianfranco Cillario. Gianfranco is unhurt and needed no medical attention which is good news, although the aircraft is damaged.

The cloudbase midmorning was below 800m, so the judges have had an early lunch and we are hoping to start again at about 1330. If the weather holds we should get a good way through the Free Programme and its possible that Nick, Tom and Gerald will fly today (late afternoon).

Mike Heuer's Blog

Mike Heuer (President of CIVA and the International Jury at EAC) is writing a blog. You can find it here (http://www.fai.org/aerobatics/PresidentPage). It gives you more info about what is happening here and has some excellent photos.

A few photos

Here are a few pictures taken by Graham Hill.

Figures for Unknown 1

The figures for the construction of the 1st Unknown (Free Unknown) were selected by the 10 teams representing NACs at the Championships - competitors that are registered as Independent do not propose figures. The teams draw lots to decide the order in which figures are submitted, since no duplication of elements of figures that have the same catalogue numbers is allowed - so those who submit their figures first get the best choice of components to use to build their figures. The final 10 figures proposed are shown below (this is not the official drawing from the organisers - just our notes from the selection briefing, so we need to check that its the same as those documented by the organisers, but I hope it is accurate!).

Each team can design a sequence using these 10 figures plus between 1 and 4 linking figures of their own choice. The teams must submit their proposals to the Organisers by 1000 tomorrow morning. Sequences are then checked for legality and then all of the proposals are published so that each competitor can decide which of the proposed sequences he or she will fly. So its going to be a busy night while people design their sequences in time for the deadline tomorrow. A lot of high K (difficulty) figures have been proposed, so its going to be a challenging sequence and it needs a lot of skill to design a sequence that is flyable. It will be interesting to compare the different proposals tomorrow.

Q Results

The preliminary results for the Q programme have been published. Tom is 8th, Gerald 12th and Nick 13th. All three will fly in the highest seeded block for the Free Programme which is an excellent team performance, although there is a lot more flying to go. Renaud Ecalle won the Q Programme with an impressive 81.6%, with Oleg Shpolyanskiy in second and Svetlana Kapanina in third. Elena Klimovich was just out of the medals in third place, putting two men and two women in the top four.

The organisers are aiming to start the Free Programme this afternoon to make best use of the good weather. Its a high pressure job for the organisation to calculate the results of the Q programme, set the flying order and collate the Free Programme paperwork ready to start, but the organisation here have been very good at getting on with the flying and making the most of good weather when it is here. Everyone is working hard to make the contest a success and it is appreciated by the pilots.

The weather forecast for tomorrow is reasonably good, so with luck we will finish the Free Programme tomorrow and it looks likely that we will fly at least one Unknown sequence at the Championships.

The draw for Unknown figures for the first unknown is at 1930 this evening.

Three British team flights complete in Q

Tom and Gerald have just completed their flights. Both put in very clean sequences. A number of pilots watching thought that Tom's flight was possibly the best of the day, so we will see what the judges think. Michael Racy flew a little before Tom and Gerald and put together a very nice, clean, rhythmical sequence which displayed the Sukhoi very well.

The weather is holding - it looked like we may have got a rain shower or two, but those seem to be holding off. So the organisers are hoping to complete the Q and start flying the Free Programme this afternoon.

Lunch Break

Its lunchtime in Touzim, so we expect Tom and Gerald to fly at around 1530. Nick is in 6th place at the moment which is an excellent start. There are about 18 more pilots to go. Philipp Steinbach also had a good flight putting him in 4th place, flying an aircraft he designed himself. Its impressive to see how much performance the aircraft has - its got a remarkable ability to maintain height throughout the Q sequence, which means that the figures can be positioned nicely in the box for the judges. There are Russians in first and second place at the moment, France in third, but more flights to go.

The weather looks good for this afternoon. Wind and Judges in same configuration. We are just starting again now.

More Q Flights done

We are now up to flight 32 in the Q Programme (out of about 53) and the weather is OK although there are some small clouds forming which may make their way into the box soon. Nick Onn has just flown and he put together a good sequence which looked clean from where we were watching. This is only Nick's fourth flight in the Sukhoi he is using, but his hundreds of hours experience on type served him well. We expect Tom and Gerald to fly in the next couple of hours, weather depending.

The atmosphere here is very good with a lot of banter between the teams. Its one of the things that makes this a great sport - very competitive when people are flying, but extremely friendly on the ground - not something that happens in many sports these days.

Saturday morning and good weather

This morning is a lovely day at Touzim. Currently the only clouds in the sky are very high and the wind is light and variable. We had some rain overnight here, so we may see some cumulus develop as the temperature rises, but at 0925 it all looks good and the warm-up pilot is about to fly. If the weather stays within limits we expect Nick will fly at about 1045 and Gerald & Tom at about 1215. Given the very light wind the judges will be in the South position, with the main box axis being aligned with the runway. Forecast is for the wind to increase a bit during the afternoon from the North, making it an on-judge wind. I've just heard Nicolas Ivanoff take off to do the warm-up flight and low lines and the box looks clear of cloud. Nicolas stepped in to do the warm-up pilot job at short notice, because there were no other warm-up pilots available from the participating teams, so we are very grateful that he was prepared to do the job.

Update on Q Flights

The weather remained flyable all afternoon, so we have completed 25 Q flights today, which is excellent for the first day given that we had poor weather this morning. Results are available at www.civa-results.com. From the flight line the pilots standing close to me thought that Alexander Krotov had a very good flight and he is leading the provisional results list.

Briefing in the morning is at 0800. The weather forecast is for cloud in the morning with a lunchtime start likely. Nick Onn should fly about an hour after we start tomorrow and Tom and Gerald will fly about an hour and a half later.

The German team provided beer, wine, cheese and meats for all the participants and organisers at the close of flying this evening so that people could relax, meet and chat, which was an excellent way to finish the day and very kind of the German team.

Let's hope that we get some more good weather so that we can complete the Q Programme tomorrow.

Q Programme Flights Start

The cloudbase has lifted to around 850m, so we have had a warmup pilot flight and the first two competitive Q flights have been completed by 1445. We can fly until 1900 tonight. Each pilot is allowed 10 minutes flight time in the box, so in 4 hours it is theoretically possible to complete 24 flights and Nick has drawn flight 30 for the Q programme, so it looks like all of the British pilots will fly tomorrow. The weather is still cloudy here, but the base looks to be sufficiently high to allow sequences to be flown with a free break.

A few photos below - Castor Fantoba getting ready to fly the Q. Flags over the main club hangar. British Team in their smart gear, minus Eric who has to fly an Air France jet to Africa before he can come back to Czech to compete in the 4 minute free.

Clouds still being cloudy

It is 1245 in Touzim and there are still clouds in the box at 600m, so still waiting for the cloud to rise another 200m. Fingers crossed that it will brighten-up this afternoon and we can start the Q programme. So there are a lot of pilots sitting around the airfield trying to work out how to fill their time while we wait. iPads and videos on laptops seem to be replacing iPods as the preferred entertainment. Hope I have some flying to report later!

Preparations under way for Q flights

Its Friday morning at Touzim and the 0800 briefing is complete. The judging positions are now being set-up ready for the warm-up pilot to fly at 1000 if the weather is good enough - at the moment we have low scuddy cloud forming, probably due to the moisture in the ground all around the airfield. Touzim is a really nice airfield, all grass on a plateau which is about 2100 feet high. So its likely that we may have to wait a while for the sun to burn off the cloud. Current wind is around 6m/s from the North and the judges will sit at the Eastern judging position this morning. We have three possible judging positions - W, E and S. The runway runs east to west, so with the judges in the East pilots will be flying across the runway when they are on the main contest axis.

The warm-up pilot will go up at 1000 to assess the cloudbase and once its above the minimum we will start the Q flights.

The aeroclub at Touzim is a very welcoming, friendly place. The club house has been rebuilt over the last 15 years or so and it is warm and cosy, with a bar, sofas and internet. Everyone at the club is working hard to put the facilities in place that we need for the contest and its a very nice place to be.

So all we need now is some good weather and we can start flying.

Order of Flight for Q Programme

The first briefing and opening ceremony are done and the pilots have drawn lots for order of flight for the Q programme. 53 pilots are competing from 13 countries. The British Team all drew high numbers (Nick 30, Tom 42, Gerald 43). Two of the Italian pilots drew flight numbers 1 and 2, so they have an early start in the morning. Nick may fly tomorrow late afternoon, depending on the weather, but its unlikely that Tom and Gerald will fly until Saturday. So lets hope for some good weather tomorrow so that we can make progress with the Q flights.