Team Manager Report on the 2015 F3A World Championships in Dübendorf (Switzerland)

Transcription

1 Team Manager Report on the 2015 F3A World Championships in Dübendorf (Switzerland) The Swiss Team The Swiss Team was composed this year by the pilots Sandro Matti, Marc Rubin and Pirmin Jund and, as junior participant, Sandro Veronelli I was in charge of the Team management Helpers were Viktor Matti, Romy Bertschy, Deborah Tanner and Mario Veronelli Sandro Matti flew his Galactik (Oxai/CPLR) equipped with a Plettenberg Advance motor Marc Rubin also flew a Galactik (Oxai/CPLR), but equipped with a Yamada 185 CDI motor Pirmin Jund flew his Acuracy Biplane (Oxai/Naruke) equipped with a Plettenberg Advance motor Sandro Veronelli flew his Peridot (Oxai/Matt) equipped with a Hacker Q80 14XS During the competition, we all stayed in Hotel Mövenpick (except the Veronelli s who lived about 30km away and preferred to sleep home for personal reasons) 1

2 Training: Before the WC, we organized several team training sessions (Bätterkinden, Kestenholz, Burgdorf, etc) Overall more than 150 training flights were flown For each flight, I wrote down (usually assisted by 1-2 pilots) all the mistakes we could detect After the flight, we all sat together with the pilot and discussed how to correct (especially systematic) errors This procedure was conducted in a very friendly and constructive atmosphere I truly think it was productive because it was evident that the flights improved in quality over the months and, I think, we all enjoyed it! We would also like to thank the judges who took on their free time to help us in some of these training sessions During the competition, our training flying site was in Fehraltorf We were warmly welcomed by the members of this club The site was perfect: close to the competition site and very pleasant The team trained there very actively during the week before the WC and, when possible, during the competition I would like to express sincere thanks in name of the team to the members of the club (especially Didi Burkhalter) The WC competition: In 2011, we thought that the AMA Campus in Muncie (USA) was unique in the world We now are convinced that the infrastructure offered in Dübendorf was even better We had two flying lines with the same orientation and enough separation The shelters, buildings and facilities around flight line1 were simply gorgeous There were however two other important factors that made the competition very attractive One was the new real-time scoring system: According to the code, in WC competitions, 20 international FAI judges are split into 4 panels of 5 judges For example in the preliminary rounds, each pilot flies one Preliminary P-15 Schedule per day, each day in front of a different judge panel After four consecutive days, all pilots have been through all judge panels and the statistical Tarasov-Bauer-Long (a Bayesian statistical approach) can be run Official results are only based on this lengthy procedure While there is no doubt that this official method is effective, it is almost impossible for naïve public, but also to some extent for the competitors, to get an idea of what is happening in real-time Therefore for the first time (I think?) in international championships we could see the points given by each judge in real-time while the pilot was flying This new way of showing intermediate scoring was enthusiastically welcomed by worldwide competitors While it is clear that this system requires a sophisticated IT infrastructure, I would suggest to patent this very competent Swiss development and make it available for future FAI aerobatics championships The second factor of attractiveness was the high level demonstration flights First of all, the show during the opening ceremony was simply gorgeous and attracted thousands of enthusiastic spectators Second, there were frequent demonstration flights with sophisticated model airplanes The later took place during pauses (judge breaks, lunch time, etc), providing some non-stop entertainment quite unusual in F3A competitions and also demonstrating the high level aeromodelling tradition in Switzerland Finally, the weather conditions in the region of Zürich City during the competition were mixed and quite typical of this warm Swiss summer We had some days with extreme heats (more than 35 Celsius), a few with rain and wind, but those had no real impact on the performance of experienced competition pilots 2

3 Results: Preliminary Rounds Results: On the first evening after the opening ceremony, I had the delicate job to draw the starting numbers The result of the procedure was no1, no 7 and no13 for our senior pilots and, no41 for our junior Of course, we could have wished better! We were all disappointed by my unlucky hand, but after a few hours the moral of the team had recovered After four days of flying the Preliminary P-15 Schedule, Christophe Paysant-le-Roux (FR) was leading the competition of 101 participants with 3000 points and our Swiss pilots ranked: 18/101 Marc Rubin with 2755/3000 points 20/101 Sandro Matti with 2739/3000 points 22/101 Pirmin Jund with 2723/3000 points 55/101 Sandro Veronelli with 2488/3000 points The jury decided that the 30 best ranked pilots would advance into the semifinal Semi-final Results: For the semi-final, the pilots had to fly the much more difficult Semi-Final and Final F-15 Schedule twice on the same day in front of two 10-judge panels The flight lines in Dübenfdorf were opened for training during the rest day separating the preliminaries from the semi-final and our three senior pilots took large advantage from this opportunity Christophe Paysant-le-Roux (FR) also won the semi-final with a total of 2000 point and our Swiss pilots ranked: 13/101 Sandro Matti with 1823/2000 points 16/101 Marc Rubin with 1803/2000 points 20/101 Pirmin Jund with 1781/2000 points It is absolutely remarkable that all our Swiss pilots could improve their ranking on this much more difficult schedule Sandro improved by 7 ranks; Marc and Pirmin by 2 ranks The ten best ranked pilots advanced to the final Final Results: The final is composed of four rounds Pilots have to fly two different Unknown Schedules with a K-factor of 70, as well as twice again the known Semi-Final and Final F-15 Schedule The final score is determined on the basis of the scores of both Unknown Schedules and one (the best) Semi-Final and Final F-15 Schedule Sandro Matti (13 th ) was asked to serve as calibration pilots for the two Unknown Schedules, which were composed automatically on the same evening via an intermittent internet connection to Argentina Sandro flew the unknown schedules as well (perhaps some time better as some pilots in the final)! Christophe Paysant-le-Roux (FR) won the four final rounds and became therefore World Champion for the 8th time!!! 3

4 Overall Final Results Individual Results: 1/101 Christophe Paysant-le-Roux (FR) with 3000 points 2/101 Tetsuo Onda (JP) with 2941/3000 points 3/101 Stefan Kaiser LIE) with 2889/3000 points 13/101 Sandro Matti with 1823/2000 points 16/101 Marc Rubin with 1803/2000 points 20/101 Pirmin Jund with 1781/2000 points 55/101 Sandro Veronelli with 2488/3000 points Team Results: 1/35 USA 21 points 2/35 Japan 28 points 3/35 France 48 points 4/35 Switzerland 49 points! Junior Results 1/17 Joseph Szczur (USA) 2/17 Jan Votava (CZE) 3/17 André Bracht (GER) 9/17 Sandro Veronelli (SUI) 4

5 Remarks and Conclusion: Generally speaking these 2015 F3A World Championships in Dübendorf (Switzerland) were very successful for the Swiss Team For the first time (I think?), all our three senior pilots were in the Semi-Finals with rankings equal or better as 20 th place This excellent group result brought us to a superb 4 th place in the team competition, missing by only one small point the honors of standing on the WC podium When one knows that this exceptional performance was achieved in spite of bad luck (one 0 in the final figure in an otherwise wonderful semi-final flight by one of our pilot) as well as nonoptimal start numbers for some, one can consider that our F3A Swiss Team can still progress in the future It might even be possible to follow the way paved by our pioneers and welcome once again a European or World title in Switzerland How to progress in the future? My personal opinion is as follows: 1 We should continue to use the kind of systematic team training that we developed this year 2 As in the past, pilots must be encouraged to participate each year in a few international F3A competitions 3 More important and perhaps new: It would be extremely important to have every year a big international F3A competition in Switzerland After the huge success of the WM in Dübendorf, many international (at least in Europe) pilots would be ready to travel to our country just to enjoy Swiss Made competence I have spoken to several persons about it and I am aware of the hurdles to organize such an event But this would really be a major step forward to progressively build a stronger F3A Swiss Team for the future Thank you to all the Team, Helpers and Sponsors for this exciting year 2015 Marco Pelizzone Team Manager of the F3A Swiss Team Website for results and photos: 5