As F3f is a provisional class
there is no FAI sanctioned World Championships but for the last twenty years or so the
bi-annual Viking Race has been a World Championships in all but name. In October 2004 the
event was held at Rugen, the most northerly point in Germany.
The majority of the UK team
arrived in time for a few days practice on Rugen's less than familiar small slopes. Our
first day was spent on probably the least fun slope on the island, the SW at Polchow. Most
pilots probably wouldn't even recognise this as a slope, which is fair enough as it's more
of reed bank that barely reaches four metres high. Also, as the wind was cocked off it was
truly dreadful and as there was little to be learned from drifting back and forth at
minimum sink we trudged off to the pub.
The next day was much more fun. By
now around half the pilots had arrived and we all headed off for the famous 'Turbulator'.
The slope is about 6 metres high, shear and populated with large concrete posts a few
metres back from the edge. Conditions were excellent and it was good fun to watch pilots
from different nationalities try their hand at this tiny hill.
There was a distinct optimal line
which was actually inside the lip of the slope; essentially you could double your speed by
flying at around one metre above the lip with the majority of your wing back behind the
edge of the slope. My Viking and I were absolutely loving this; things were going really
well. So well in fact that after each run we'd get straight back in the queue for another
go. Other pilots just had a go or two, checked out their models and got a glimpse of the
conditions. Not me though, I was addicted, this was great fun; that is until the infamous
just one last go. The Viking was going particularly well, so much so that most stopped to
watch and I could hear mutterings of discontent from behind. Never one to disappoint a
crowd I pushed and pushed, tried different lines, pushed some more, really got up a head
of steam and then flew straight into a concrete post perched near the lip!
Turning your two piece wing into a
three piece wing is a bad thing. It really makes you wish you hadn't put all your eggs in
one basket and not flown your other planes for 6 months in the case of the Brio and 3
years in the case on my foam winged WR prototype; there's a lesson there!
Next in line for a less than
blissful experience was GBR1 team member John McCurdy. After some earlier radio related
problems John had replaced his Tx and all the gear in his Aris and was basically just out
for a trimming flight. After a few passes the Aris again stopped listening altogether and
headed for the surf. Not being the highest slope in the world it was in the sea before you
knew it. 'Fortunately' it had impacted far enough out so that the water was deep enough to
soften the blow and leave the airframe undamaged. Somewhat less fortunately there was a
rip tide dragging it out at an incredible pace. By the time American Bart Vaio and myself
had descended to the beach it was already out beyond wading distance. We both stripped off
and argued about who should swim out; I said he should do it and he disagreed!
Seriously, we had a very earnest
discussion as the tide really was scary, the plane was disappearing into the distance, the
rocks were nasty and the sensible thing to do would be to wave the Aris goodbye. Bart
though has Californian surfy dude, no-fear blood coursing through his veins and plunged
in. After a rather tense tens minutes or so, Bart staggered exhausted back up the beach
with the rescued Aris to an enormous cheer that guaranteed him the winner of the fair play
award at the end of the competition.
In true story book fashion the
Brits revived Bart with tea, spent most of the night drying and fitting new radio gear in
the Aris so that John could go and win round 2 with it!
Day One
Day one of the competition proved
a challenge for many reasons. Conditions were very variable, indeed several of us ended up
with a couple of rounds of just 700 points apiece which pretty much meant our personal
competitions were over and we were just playing for the team place. Added to that were the
rather challenging landing conditions.
After your flight you had a half
km or so walk along a path with trees and bushes either side leaving a very narrow tunnel
to actually see your plane, in addition to which what would have been the optimal place to
view your plane was occupied by the sun!
Several pilots lost sight of their
models resulting in quite a few crashes. Later in the day the lift improved and the sun
moved making the stroll back to the landing area pretty straightforward. The downside of
the increased wind was that there was now vicious rotor in the landing area which caught
out the first wave of pilots and caused a fair bit of damage until a safer spot was found
another 100m or so further on.
At the end of the three rounds of
the first day the scores were quite a mix but already the Germans had started to prove
their worth, with the Herrig and Kowalski brothers doing particularly well.
Day Two
Day two was on a smaller cliff at
Vit but at 25m or so it was still far higher than those we'd trained on. The site itself
again held its challenges. The local shrubbery meant the course had to be reduced to 85m,
there was a metal statue only a few metres back from the edge and another fair stroll to
another rotor filled landing area; certainly enough to keep your concentration levels up!
We managed to fly two and a half
rounds before a rain shower hit and halted the day's proceedings. The reduced length
course and sometimes good conditions resulted in some fast times. Peter Kowalski flew a 32
and there were several 33s. Stefan Eder's Crossfire tangled with the statue in round 4 and
the turbulence claimed a couple on landing, but it wasn't as bad as the previous day. Alex
McMeekin flew well to take his own designed and moulded Falcon to third spot in round
four. With Mike Evans making fourth and Dave Woods getting sixth it was a good round for
team GB.
The team placing were starting to
take shape and it was clear that all three German teams were very strong, with the
Norwegian number one team not far behind. Next in line were all three GB teams in fifth,
sixth and seventh - not bad at all considering that none of the 25 teams were bunnies, as
we used to say in cricket.
Day Three
The next day saw us move slope
again. This was another relatively high sea slope with a few bushes and a slight
promontory near base B just to spice things up. Conditions seemed a little more stable so
we could undo some of the damage done in the earlier rounds but with such a good field of
pilots it was always going to be small gains when big ones were required.
Another long day allowed us to
finish the previous day's round, have a brief discussion about group scoring and complete
another full three rounds - making nine in total so far.
Martin Herrig seemed less at home,
cut a few times and got a safety penalty. He wasn't on his own though and the blowback
caused a whole bunch of penalties. The landing Area looked beautiful but the wind was
relatively strong towards the end of the day and the rotor picked up enough to catch a few
out. Dave Woods nearly poached a round win in the ninth but got bumped into second by
Espen Torp.
At the end of the day the Brits
had consolidated the team positions with GB3 (Woods, McMeekin and Newton) in fifth, GB2
(Bennett, Evans and Ellison) in sixth and GB1 (Southall, Phillips and McCurdy) in seventh.
Mark Southall's consistently good times were squeezing him close to the top ten and the
rest of the team weren't too far behind.
Day Four
Another new hill and another
challenging slope, this one with one end higher than the other, a few sneakily positioned
shrubs and a smallish landing area that required a very positive approach to punch through
the turbulence.
Four
rounds later and it was another good day for the Germans, except one of the Kowalski's got
badly mistreated by the landing rotor. The very same rotor compounded poor Doug Reel's
misery by hurling his McLean Extreme into the metal pole that held the windsock after he
had only just repaired it following a shoot down incident a few days earlier during a
trimming session.
Mark Southall sneaked in a second
place in round 11 with John McCurdy close behind in third.
As we were leaving a few of the
German team were doing a spot of DS racing using the tree line, all very apt as that night
Dr Helmut Quabeck (www.hq-modellflug.de) gave an interesting lecture on Dynamic Soaring
theory.
Day Five
We ended up at the same hill in
very similar conditions on the Thursday, which seemed to suit the Brits with John Bennett
picking up second and me sneaking an eighth in round 14 and me picking up second and John
McCurdy getting fifth in round 16.
Day six
The day started well for the Brits
with John Phillips getting third and Andy Ellison getting fourth in round 17. Andreas
Herrig and Klaus Kowalski finished strongly but Martin Herrig's consistently excellent
flying and wins in rounds 13, 14, 15,16 and 17 meant he had done enough to win his second
Viking race in succession.
So that was that, a record number
of flights, the highest standard of piloting I have known and an awesome effort by the
organizers all made for a truly memorable event.
Viking Race 2004 - Individual Results (top 10 of 79)
Pos. Name
Team
Points
1
Martin Herrig
GER 2
16831,33
2
Klaus Kowalski
GER 1
16806,99
3
Andreas Herrig
GER 2
16739,34
4
Espen Torp
NOR
1 16578,42
5
Knud Hensgaard
DEN 1
16555,40
6
Peter Kowalski
GER 1
16451,61
7
Mark Southall
GBR 1
16355,69
8
Dieter Perlick
GER 1
16337,48
9
Carlos Rivero
VZL
16099,82
10
Helge Borchert
GER 3
16096,08
Viking Race 2004 - Team Results (top 10 of 25)
Pos Team
Members
Points
1 GER 1
Kowalski, Kowalski, Perlick
49596,09
2 GER 2
Herrig, Herrig, Goebel
49407,77
3 NOR 1
Torp, Hagen, Rettedal
48083,08
4 GER 3
Borchert, Hortzitz, Eder
46851,21
5 GBR 2
Bennett, Ellison, Evans
46502,27
6 GBR 3
McMeekin, Woods, Newton
46501,08
7 GBR 1
Southall, Phillips, McCurdy,
46215,77
8 CZ 1
Triska, Plch, Blaha
46154,11
9 USA 1
Reel, Cone, Bingham
46124,85
10 DEN 1
Hebsgaard, Larsen, Norholm
45965,33
Viking Race 2004 - the people
Germans Martin and Andreas Herrig
and Klaus and Peter Kowalski clearly posses awesome skills and are well practised enough
to fully realise their potential. Espen Torp of Norway and Knud Hebsgaard of Denmark were
as smooth and consistent as ever. Mark Southall was deservedly top Brit, flying
aggressively and accurately. A surprise package was Carlos Rivero of Venezuela. I met
Carlos the previous year in Spain and he's refined his flat and smooth style even further.
The variable conditions in the early rounds and the incredibly high standard not allowing
the ground to be recaptured meant there were some notable names missing from the top ten.
Brits apart, Rondel, Marechal, Kristoffersen and Goebel all had their own hard luck
stories and would normally have been capable of troubling the podium.
Viking Race 2004 - the countries
Clearly Germany performed well.
Their pilots are skilled, their models were extremely effective and they didn't make any
significant mistakes. Although Norway 1 were deservedly third, their second team were
thirteenth, so I think Britain, whose teams placed fifth, sixth and seventh, can fairly
claim to be the second strongest nation.
It was particularly good to see
high quality entries from Venezuela and Hong Kong. Several countries like USA, Czech
Republic, France and Slovakia did not perform as well as expected. I wouldn't claim to
know why but I think it only serves to underline the challenging conditions and the
immense achievement of the British teams. Personally I feel that I've learnt a lot more
from this event than I have in the last five years and if we can apply ourselves I see
absolutely no reason why the podium should be out of our reach in two years time.
