Aerotorp

Hole of Horcum F3F

2009-07-24T12:31:00.004+02:00

Finally I got to go to the famous Hole of Horcum. I have read about this place for decades and I always wanted to go there. The good reason was to enter the North of England Open which is part of the F3F Eurotour. I needed to try and improve my standings and even I did not fly well or had the needed luck I still managed to get better points for the Tour :-)

It seems like this year there is a very good fight among pilots all over Europe to do well in the Eurotour. This is very good as F3F now is growing and almost wherever you attend one of these contests there are top pilots. It means there is no longer a walk over in some contests like it has been a little bit in the past.
With 11 out of 13 races there is probably around 10 or more pilots which still have a chance to win the overall Eurotour. This is a little bit unique compared to the other classes in the Contest system. Also there is now 227 registered pilots. Very good! http://www.contest-modellsport.de/2009/fr_f3f_ergebnis.html

Well back to Horcum. I teamed up with Greg Dakin and he picked me up at Birmingham Airport. Mark Passingham joined us early in the morning and we drove up to the Yorkshire Moors. Greg and Mark invited me to the new team of the "Tea Swillers" and I was proud to be part of this legendary team.
The local club, North York Moors Ridge Soaring Club with Jon Edison as CD had a tough week with very bad weather reports. But we where lucky, the weather both days was quite good but a bit unstable with lots of variations. But most important very little rain compared to the ugly weather forecasts earlier in the week.
They managed 4 rounds each day and I think with a little bit more luck a few more rounds could have been flown. The wind direction did not cooperate all the time and it was difficult to make the right decisions.
Greg flew well both days and did his part so the Tea Swillers could defeat the SAF team. But both me and Mark did not fly as we hoped for so the SAF team with Perlick, Kowalski and Liebeck beat us.
But more important was Greg Dakin's first Eurotour victory. Well deserved! Did I mention he flew his RaceM made by ET-Air :-)

Thanks to the NYMRSC for a good event and we will meet again next year I hope.

Espen

Trip to Mosteroy

2009-07-05T10:50:00.003+02:00

Got up early this Saturday to make sure I did not waste any time in traffic to get to Mosteroy when the water was still flat. I like it when I can look into the clear water with no waves.

On my way out I called my friend Atle and asked him if I could park on his harbour site and of course it was no problem. In return I brought out my helicam and got some nice pictures of his farm.

My plan was to go to the area around Utstein Kloster and back. It did not happen, after 3,5 hours of kayaking and scuba diving I was a bit tired so I called up Kleng and asked him if he could pick me up :-) Kleng came and he wanted to test my Kayak and reached 6 knots by pedaling. Not bad. Later I was invited for a barbeque with Kleng and his family. So I brought out my helicam and managed some nice photos of their farm.

I am glad I did the trip, the weather was very nice, the water was warm and meeting my friends was even better. Thank you for a super day.

Here is a link with some pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/aerotorp/Mosteroy472009#

Espen

www.birdy.no

Local F3F, Hodne

2009-06-24T11:28:00.005+02:00

We just hosted a local F3F competition on Sunday the 21st. of June with few pilots but super nice conditions on our local F3F hill, Hodne. The wind came straight in from the North Sea with 8-9 m/s strenght.
Rolf B flew very well with his Aris and won before Arild (Freestyler) and Espen (RaceM/Ceres)
12 rounds was flown.
Thanks to all 7 pilots that showed up and helped organizing the event.
I will try to post some pictures here later.

Results:
1) Rolf Rettedal, 10847
2) Arild Moellerhaug, 10759
3) Espen Torp, 10704
4) Rolf Inge Waaga, 10386
5) Erik Morgan, 9621
6) Richard Pleym, 9024
7) Marius Leirdal, 8458

Espen

Asturia F3F 2009

2009-06-02T14:52:00.006+02:00

I decided on a short notice to attend the 2nd. Asturias Open F3F Eurotour in Gijon in the north of Spain. I team up with Tomas Eklund from Malaga and he picked me up in Madrid.

We drove up to Gijon and headed directly to the slope. Several other guys was there already and the wind was pretty strong but a bit cross from the north. Tomas was keen to fly, I was not but it was good for me to observe Pierre Rondel who demonstrated how to deal with the tricky conditions. Tomas flew his Skorpion and I also tested it a little bit.
Pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/aerotorp/AsturiasF3FOpen2009Gijon#

Next day we were sort of promised similar weather conditions but that did not happen. The wind was much weaker between 4-8 m/s. I had a bad first round with 77 seconds. Tomas was a little bit happy as he made a 74 second run. But the winner of this round was Sergio with 55 seconds.

For the first time ever I saw an organizer who had a wind and direction meter that actually worked according to the current rules. It can always be debated where to place the unit but in general when placed it is the same for all. As one can see in my last blog post we have made a device that does not use current rules because we believe that measuring an average is more fair way of doing it. More about this later in this post.

There was many Freestylers around and I was interested to test my RaceM against them. I think the conditions was too difficult to actually get a good test but I learned a couple of things. One was that clearly the Freeestylers does not work well in bad conditions either. This was proven in the second and third round were I managed to beat all of them thanks to good conditions and I think some good flying. Both these rounds I flew 59 seconds.

The 3rd round was not finished due to severe wind change after 20 pilots had flown and unfortunately the third round was cancelled after a protest against the weather station, ironic since this was not due to failure over the weather station but more a failure of the current rules (3m/s min and max 45 degree cross wind).

We still had 2 more days to go so it should be possible to manage enough rounds to make the competition. Much was at stake here as the first prize was a Freestyler 3 given by TUD-Modelltechnik.

Two days later we still did not one single round and the competition was cancelled. It also happened last year for the organizer and I feel really sorry for them as they did a lot to make this happen. I really hope they will pull back and try again next year. This is definitive a place I would like to get back to.

I had 3 very nice days mostly because of meeting old friends and meeting new friends but also because the weather was very nice and the place has a lot to offer than just sitting there waiting for wind.

They are expanding the harbor and this alone was worth watching, lots of activity. I also liked the bird mountain close to the lighthouse. I could stand there watching the whole day.

Once again I would like to thank the Asturian club for trying their very best all weekend.

Espen

Timing gear with weather station

2009-02-09T19:02:00.012+01:00

Kaare and I finally managed to assemble the timing gear on Sunday 8th February.

Kaare has made a great job of developing the electronics and program. I have bought some materials from which to make a protective casing, the results of which are shown in the pictures below.

We will certainly make these units available for sale to the F3F community. Producing these in small numbers from our base in Norway is certainly not the cheapest method of production, but we hope that even clubs of modest size should be able to afford this unit.

What is so special with this timing gear unit? Well, we have incorporated the weather station in a very simple and effective way.

Todays F3F rules are rather simple except for one major aspect, the wind and direction measurement.

We have considered this rule in detail, and designed a system to simplify the Contest Director's job, by providing accurate and meaningful information.

By capturing wind and direction measurements from leg one to leg ten, average values can be calculated for both parameters, and the results displayed along with the time of the flight.

As such, the CD or timing gear operator will be empowered to confirm the validity of the flight conditions.

The functionality will also enable the CD to define the windspeed range for the chosen slope, if required. It must be recognised that not all slopes produce sufficient lift at 3ms/+-45 degrees direction. If the CD sets a value for the given day we now have a machine to monitor weather activity throughout the competition lifecycle.

We also recommend that the pilot finishes the flight irrespective of conditions, and receives confirmation of the validity of the flight. The pilot can then decide whether to retain the flight or request a reflight if the conditions fall beneath the predefined limit. The pilot may wish to retain the flight if a thermal was experienced on course, in which case the pilot's wishes should be honoured. (Or maybe not, I would leave that to the CD or a definitive rule change)

Aside from specific rules, the weather station also possesses functionality which is also interesting. During training sessions it can be very valuable as testing becomes more accurate as variations in the weather can be seen very easily.

Very often it is difficult to judge whether a flight was successful because it was flown well or if conditions were particularly good. Now you have a tool to take care of at least the wind and direction and tell you from flight to flight what happened. We have not yet figured out how to find the thermals but we are working on it. It is possible to add sensors to the unit.

We can sell it with or without the weather station. Send me an E-mail if you are interested. We have estimeated the price to be around 400 Euro including the weather station.

The TGW (Timing Gear Weatherstation) will be delivered without the wires needed to A and B base. Apart from that it will come with the wind/direction meter as shown in these pictures.

We have made it with coax bayonet connectors to make sure of a solid and relatively weather proof connection. We deliver small coax cables (with the connector) so users can solder these to their own cables. The weather station has the same coax connector. The signal horn will be made (not ready when pictures was taken) with a separate connector to prevent mistakes.

The unit has a serial port which can be used to dump results to a Laptop or similar or dump the last result to a screen for the spectators to see.

It also comes with a rechargeble battery which will last all day long....

We might need to change the box itself as this one was rather expensive here in Norway.

We are already working on some "add ons" to the unit.
First on the list will be a MP3 player counting the 30 second to enter the course.
Secondly we would like to utilise the serial port by sending the data to a laptop using a wireless connection. The laptop could be placed in the area of the crowd and could display results as it happens. Furthermore take care of the data and store them. In the end I hope someone can make a scoring program.

Espen

Norwegian Championship F3F

2008-09-22T09:55:00.006+02:00

The lcd display showing the weather data
Not much space to do landings, but I think no accidents occured.
Depot, very close to the edge. But OK for this time since the wind speed was low.
Sceptical guys following one of the flights.
The weather station was placed a little bit down into to the slope to secure good and correct values.

This year it was held north of where I live approx. 2 hours away. I get there by driving through 2 under sea tunnels and a gas driven ferry which really can take a lot of cars and trucks.

I wanted badly to do well in this competition and I was thinking this was the most important contest this year. So there was nothing wrong with my motivation. But looking at the forecast earlier in the week it looked like it could be a no comp. On Saturday we waited patiently for ca 6 hours before we got legal wind. Everybody was keen and we installed the weather station and managed to start ca 15.30. 3 hours later we had 4 rounds and the Championship was secured. Good because we had 6 guys coming from the north of Norway and some other from the south as well. With wind from 3-5m/s times varied from 48 to 97 seconds it was not exactly even conditions but at least by using the weather station the CD had an easy task giving a few reflights. By all means even with this device it remains an outdoor sport with sometimes huge variations, but at least you can understand why you did not manage a good time or even realise that you in fact had some luck if you did a fast time. It is not very difficult to see what is going on when you log every flight.

After 4 rounds I was in the lead ahead of Arild M and Bjoern Tore. Some new faces also showed up and the 2 youngsters from Bodoe, Joergen and William flew very well.

Next day was a bit better and we could start the flying much earlier but we also had to quit early as people had planes to catch. But 5 more rounds made it a good event and it was more even with less thermal influence. Times was between 48 and 65 seconds. Winning times each round was between 48 to 53 seconds.

I extended my lead and won ahead of RollaRolf and Bjoern Tore.

Espen Torp 7796

Rolf Inge Waaga 7384

Bjoern Tore Hagen 7344

Dag Skoglund 7204

Arild Moellerhaug 7192

Joergen W Stensen 7115

Rolf Boerge Rettedal 6897

Geir (8) Njaa 6817

Kjell Gai 6699

Bjoern Andersen 6578

William J Ringkjoeb 6548

Richard Pleym 6349

Tor Bruun 6137

Oystein Aadland 2386

Jarle Aadland 2286

The organizer of the contest was Haugaland RC club and even they did not get as much helpers as expected the competition was a success and also thanks to Kaare who operated the weather station.

Espen 23.9.2008

Viking Race, Slovakia 2008

2008-09-03T18:48:00.018+02:00

Kjell Gai, Norway
Doug smiling renaming his Furio

Vaclav waiting for yet another launch.

Greg Dakin, UK

Mathieu with his solid stance
Kai and Majo
Mark taking a bite of Grahame's BP sponsered Ascot
Kyle giving the model a good launch
Rado after a good flight, in the lead after 14 rounds

ET-Air fleet, 2 times RaceM X-tail
Benthe and Kai taking the "boat" down after a long day.

Me and my "brother" Grahame Reed

Marian "Majo" Maslo preparing for yet another round with big thermals coming his way.

Gerardo with a nice handle bar on his Freestyler3
We are well into the Viking Race 2008 which is this year held in Donovaly mountains in the middle of Slovakia. The same place as 6 years ago.
The competition has so far been a lottery (5 days of flying) and many pilots are happy and many pilots are not so happy with the conditions they are given. I am in the last group....it unfortunatly means far, far down the ranking. Right now after 14rounds I am at place 31. Only 25 points behind my rival Greg Dakin! I will catch him in the end I think.
I discovered a new method of getting to the horizon after falling down the slope due to not much lift. Lukas Gaubatz showed us the first day a spectacular way of doing it. When he first did not make the horizon he dived to get more speed and pulled up in the last second to make and tailslided back towards the ground but he recovered nicely and now has put a name to this manouver which is now called a "GAUBATZ"
However if you do not make it and end up in a tree it may be called a "GAUBATZ-REED".

More pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/aerotorp/ETAirSlovakia2008Tour#

After Thursday (4th of September) we have completed 18 rounds, The conditions on Thursday was still variable but not so much. If you got a thermal it was possible to do a low 40 second run. Most pilots ended up in the 50-60 seconds window. I jumped to 21st. place mostly because of the second discard round was applied. It is very even between pilots anywhere on the list so full focus is needed the last day that will be Friday. No flying on Saturday in other words. I hope all pilots agree that this is enough.

Finally a little bit time to write again. Congratulations to Marian Maslo with Slovakias first win in a Viking Race. Radovan Plch took 2nd. place while Pierre Platon grabbed 3rd spot.

Really important to mention was the job of the organisors, they did a good job for 7 days and without them there would not be a race!

Espen "Schnell wie die Forelle" Torp #21

New activity

2008-07-27T14:44:00.010+02:00

This morning I got up early and decided to take a trip to Feistein Lighthouse just offshore close to where I live. The weather was very good and it must be for a beginner like me to make a trip like this. The day before I was practising falling out and entering the kayak and the test went on fine so I felt a little bit secure after I had done that. The waters between Sele harbour and Feistein is known to have very vicious under currence and very often the waves get quite big in this area. But not today, I checked the forecast and it looked good. To get out there took me only 25minutes. I had one and a half round around the islands before I found a place to go "onboard". You can see from the pictures how wonderful it is out there. The temperature was around 25 degrees and my guess is that it is probably only 5 days a year out there like this one. This was actually the second time on the Lighthouse, last time was in 1983 when I was serving in the Navy. I had a task to operate a camera sensor which followed a "Penguin-boat to boat" missile during the Penguin test program. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin_(missile)

http://picasaweb.google.com/aerotorp/27_7_2008PadleturTilFeistein#

Eurotour Portugal

2008-07-22T14:44:00.002+02:00

I finally decided to attend the F3F Eurotour in Portugal. I made a short detour via Madrid to meet some people in a company making UAV autopilots. Then I got a ride with Alvaro Silgado and his girlfriend Manuela over to Lisbon. The trip took a couple of hours more than normal due to heavy traffic out of Madrid. Alvaro had a new nice Tiguan so the trip was very pleasant.
When we finally arrived in Lisbon my good old friend Jorge (JC) Infante met us and he took me to his new home in Estoril (not far from the famous Estoril F1 Race track). Next day we went to the Santa Iria flying field and several good friends was here already. This was where the Viking Race was held 8 years ago. We had a promising weather forecast with lots of wind. In fact I measured wind speeds over 20 m/s both days. We had 11 rounds the first day and 5 the next day. 24 pilots started and not so many finished all rounds unfortunately. With rather tough landing conditions it was a fight to keep the models ready for the next flight. I had a good lead with almost 400 points before the last day but it was not enough. Franz Demmler (Germany) made use of all the good air he got and beat me with 650 points in 5 rounds! (he had a 100 points penalty also, so in the end he was approx. 160 point in front of me). My conditions was not the best but maybe I got all the good air already in day 1? Inaki Elizondo (Spain) managed 3rd spot. Kjell Gai (Norway)flew really well and took 8th spot with his Pike Brio. I am looking forward to see what he can do with his new Ceres F3F. I flew my RaceM X-tail and a set of Aris wings on a RaceM X fuselage. Both of them working really well. I think the Aris wings on the X-tail fuselage seems to be a very good model. The CG can be brought back and suddenly it can turn much quicker than normal. My RaceM worked well for me as it has all year since I got the X-tail fuse. It is a dream to fly and handling is so easy.
Fastest time of the comp. was Jose Carrion with a 35 second ballistic run!

Pictures http://picasaweb.google.no/aerotorp/Portugal2008

Results:
1 Franz Demmler 12701
2 Espen Torp 12540
3 Iñaki Elizondo 12270
4 Gerardo Lozano 12160
5 José Carrion 12131
6 José Costa 11980
7 André Austen 11974
8 Kjell Gai 11825
9 Álvaro Silgado 11783
10 Andoni Gorriñobeaskoa 11718
11 Pedro Lemos 11477
12 João Faria 11454
13 Claudio Figueiredo 11305
14 Américo Gonçalves 11155
15 Vitor Gandarela 11055
16 João Figueiredo 10867
17 Manuel Costa 10661
18 José Rocha 10567
19 Tomas Norrby 10446
20 João Costa10134
21 Lorenzo Dávila 8585
22 João Mestre 6237
23 Rui Silva 4423
24 Fernando Moro 2293

Ørebro Open F3B

2008-06-03T09:23:00.003+02:00

I do not know exactly how many times I have entered this competition but it must be close to 17 times now. And why do I keep returning to this competition? Several reasons I think. First of all it is tradition, second it is the people and the third reason is that it is relatively close to me (only 14 hours one way.....)
The club members of Ikarus is doing a good job I think, year after year more or less the same people show up and run the comp in a relaxed way. They now also a have some catering and that makes it more easy for us pilots.
The participants from year to year is a good mix of newcomers and veterans and it is always good to see some new faces and the old friends in F3B. I certainly missed the Danish pilots this year. I hope they can make it next year.
Well maybe the distance for me to Ørebro is not so close but at least I do not have to take a ferry to get there and that is good.
We had very good weather this time and pretty warm as well. It was close to 30 degrees so we could not complain.
I had a plan to fly to Stockholm this year and drive with Conny Ulvestaf to Ørebro but I changed my mind since Kjell wanted to tag along. Kjell did his first ever F3B contest and was up against Martin Weberchock, Martin Herrig and Pasi Vaisanen in his first ever distance flight. Kjell flew his Pike Brio to perfection and got a win over those experts!
Kjell and me flew with Team Tornado (Conny, Owe and Peter) and the team worked well both days.
I got 8th. place this time and was pretty happy with that given I missed 3 minutes in the first duration. I flew a sub 15 speed for the first time since 1997 I think and won the second speed round. Also distance was good and I only lost 1 lap to Andreas Herrig (24 to 23 laps). I had a good fight with Martin W. and won with 26 against 24 laps in the last distance.
Results can be found here: http://www.f3k.se/orebroopenf3b/
Pictures will come....

Espen

Neuhardenberg F3B

2008-05-21T12:03:00.004+02:00

Last year Francisco on the right asked me if I would like to join him and the team he is flying for (TU Dresden) in some Eurotour event and I must admit that I was very glad to get this opportunity to fly in the same team as the best pilots in the world at the moment. Their team spirit and professional attitude is very high and to experience this from the inside was very interesting. I was very glad Axel Freiberg could pick me up from the airport in Berlin. I am also thankful to Holger Au (Contest Director) to stay in their house over the weekend. The contest was held in a relaxed atmosphere and it seemed that all participants was enjoying the contest. The flying field is very well suited for this activity and it also provides for variable conditions.
As mentioned the Dresden Team worked well and they do in fact have an own Team Manager in Reinhard Dylla. This is not something that all teams have of course but from my point of view a big advantage. In this contest also the father of Mike Müller was present and did a good job.
I got very good help from all the team and in the end had a good result with 7th. place. Martin Herrig won with Thomas Dylla and Mike Müller on 2nd. and 3rd. place.
For full results check www.f3b.de and www.contest-modellsport.de/
Look here for more photos: http://picasaweb.google.no/aerotorp/Neuhardenberg2008

Norway Open 2008

2008-05-13T11:11:00.005+02:00

The weather forecast did not look good for this years Norway Open, nice weather but not so much wind. Luckily the forecast changed the last day and we managed 4 rounds with minimalistic conditions. We are proud to announce that we used our new weather station with great success this day. All flights were measured and we will soon publish the results. We used an average for the flight itself both for wind and direction. All pilots agreed on this new method instead of the old rules. We also agreed that a re flight would be given after the flight was finished if it was ruled under the level and that the pilot could choose either reflight or keep the score.
It was quite amusing to see the pilots being more interested in the weather measurements than their times. It is our club member Kåre Aareskjold who have made the weather station. We will look into offering it to others.
Slope used was Obrestad south.
Windspeed was between 3,1 to 4,5m/s.
Fastest time of the day was 66 seconds.

The conditions was not super but I think very, very even and to master so little wind is just as difficult as master other conditions. It is not so nice to hear comments like "this is not F3F". F3F is not about the fastest speed, it is about mastering all kind of conditions and slopes. Those who can do that will do well, always.

So we had a competition (4 round) and the next day we choose to go to another slope (Austre Bokn) which is much higher and has more thermal influence than the previous slope. This turned out to be a big success with another 8 rounds with pretty good conditions. The weather station was used but since the wind speed and direction was not an issue the results was not so interesting as day one. But we have the data and will publish them soon. Windspeed was between 5 and 9m/s Thermals where coming and going but the variations was not so big.
Some pilots did DS circles in the landing area and this was not so popular among the organizing staff. Please let us not see this while we are trying to run a competition. Some pilots had trouble in the landing and got minor damage.
Fastest time of the day was 41 seconds.
So we had 12 rounds after 2 days and we were very happy with that.

Next day did not have a good wind forecast but we could maybe make a round or two. Unfortunately one pilot provoked the Contest Director by flying a DLG on the slope when the organizer was still setting up the course even he was strictly told not to fly. It almost came to a fight between the CD and the pilot and the jury made the decision to call off the competition. This could be seen as a drastic decision but the pressure on the organizer had been built up over the whole weekend and enough is enough. We have always had a non flying rule before the contest start. This was told specific for the last day and when someone chooses to ignore this just to provoke certain people we will and can not tolerate this. Everybody wants to fly before the contest and that can sometimes be solved with a zero round. But we never do a zero round after round 12! If we let everybody fly, time will run and this could effect the number of rounds. One guy asked for a flight to test his newly fixed V-tail, he was not allowed this. A hand launch on the field would have solved this this problem.
It was unfortunate that this time we had to cancel the whole day but we still had a good competition. It is really sad that one person can cause so much problems.
I would like to apologize to all participants for his behavior. We hope that we can invite to next years Norway Open after we have evaluated this years event.

Espen

Our sponsor http://www.smartmodel.org/ offered us a Swift EPP model which was won by Kåre Aareskjold.

Many thanks to all that helped us during the competition with buzzing etc.

End results:
1 Espen Torp, Norway 10719
2 Bjørn Tore Hagen, Norway 10565
3 Dag Skoglund, Norway 10289
4 Jørgen Larsen, Denmark 10119
5 Arild Møllerhaug, Norway 10116
6 Tom Erik Smedal, Norway 10032
7 Rolf Inge Waaga, Norway 10019
8 Jack Farstad, Norway 10013
9 Angus Lee, Hong Kong 9749
10 Andre Austen, Germany 9744
11 Rolf B. Rettedal, Norway 9674
12 Geir Njaa, Norway 9539
13 Kjell Gai, Norway 9495
14 Jo Grini, Norway 9184
15 Jørg Becker, Germany 8973
16 Martin Knöpfel, Germany 8489
17 Jan Eric Klausen, Norway 8427
18 Tor Bruun,Norway 8050
19 Kåre Aareskjold, Norway 6130

Rennesoy, 2.5.2008

2008-05-03T22:11:00.008+02:00

Gloomy rainy day and not so cool to fly F3B

Me with my new Foxtrot Aerobatic glider
Arild is really making it clear what I shall to in the DS circle!
Landing approach, it does not look to be but it was.

1st. of May should have been a local F3B contest here in my region but bad weather with rain stopped it quickly. Next day was much better and Kjell Gai and me met went to Rennesoy to meet Arild Moellerhaug for some fun flying and F3F practice. Forecast was promising and it turned out to be even better. We all clocked sub 40 times with Arild all the way down to 34 seconds using his Aris. I flew my RaceM and my best was 38 seconds. I did not bring any ballast except my steel joiner so I hope some of the lost time was due to that fact. But Arild looked sharp and I was impressed. Kjell flew his Brio very well and I think he will move up the ranks this year. I also had the chance to test my RaceM in some rather light DS but rough air DS and it was steady as a rock.

I spent the day before to finish my Foxtrot which is an aerobatic model made by some of my friends in Slovakia. This was a very pleasant surprise and both Kjell and me enjoyed flying. I even tested it in DS and it was very easy to control. Landing was not so easy as this slope really demands crow brakes. But I managed so it was all in all one of the best flying days for a long time.
All pictures: Kjell Gai

Norway Open 2008 Eurotour F3F

2008-04-19T09:22:00.010+02:00

This years sponsor is: Smartmodel, Hong Kong

This years Norway Open is held the 10-12th of May. The entry list is very good and we have pilots from 5 nations so far:

1 Andre Austen, Ger
2 Jörg Becker, Ger
3 Espen Torp, Nor
4 Rolf B. Rettedal, Nor
5 Geir Njaa, Nor
6 Arild Møllerhaug, Nor
7 Rolf Inge Waaga, Nor
8 Tom Erik Smedal, Nor
9 Jørgen Larsen, Den
10 Bjørn Tore Hagen, Nor
11 Jack Farstad, Nor
12 Dag Skoglund, Nor 66154 75/76
13 Angus Lee, Hong Kong
14 Kåre Aareskjold, Nor
15 Kjell Gai, Nor
16 Jo Grini, Nor
17 Tor Brun, Nor
18 Martin Knöpfel, Ger
19

It is still possible to enter.

This years sponsor is: Smartmodel, Hong Kong

Spain, La Muela 2008

2008-04-05T14:55:00.007+02:00

Finally I was back at the Tooth after 4-5 years. I like this place and it is a good place for hosting F3F competitions. Yes it is inland but the fact that it is sticking up like it is makes it suitable for any wind direction.
This year only 35 pilots entered the contest and some of these did not show up so the total was around 30. A good number if you ask me. You get to fly relatively often and this is good. As far as I can remember we had all kind of conditions from 3m/s to 20m/s and with sun, rain and even hail. At least 2 rounds was cancelled due to change in conditions (I think).
The organizers did a very good job and we all got a T-shirt and a goodiebag. One item I liked was the A3 size calendar with all F3F Eurotour events already plotted into it. I was in the lead from round 2 and kept it all the way. But I really had to fight and Carlos did what he could to try and catch me. Variations in the conditions made it more exited than I like. Alexis Marcheal was 3rd and could have been a lot closer if he did not do so many mistakes. Well I guess it was an early start even for Alexis. My new team mates, Juan and Tomas from Malaga, was taking care of me during the contest and I really apriciate that. Tomas Eklund is a Swedish guy who moved to Spain some 30 years ago. He is now a Spanish citizen. He used to be a hang glider pilot but have now moved to RC gliding and has quickly become an enthusiast.
On Sunday one of the bases was hit by a model. Luckily nobody got hurt. This happend when the wind was very weak and the model did not have much speed. Please consider at all competitions to move back the bases so people can be in safety when we do our sport.
Some results and info can be found here: http://www.livef3.com/reportages/2008F3FInternacionaLaMuela.html

Tomas, Juan and me. The Malaga Fantastico!

French camp.

Rainbow

Tomas Eklund and me after the contest

Weekend trip to Manchester

2007-12-16T00:09:00.000+01:00

Had a nice weekend in the Manchester area last weekend and visited Ian Masan and Greg Dakin. The idea was to go to Wales and attend the Wales winter league event with Greg. Well the weather did not cooperate so we did something else on Sunday. Monday Ian took me to a trip to North Wales and the Llangollen slope which turned out to be a very, very good slope. Even it was a rather cold day with sunshine the thermal influence was clearly there. But the slope was pretty good just windriven also. I flew my Ultimate and Ian got to test his brand new RaceM F3F and I could tell he was pretty exited.

Many thanks to Ian and Cubbitt's models to get me a very, very needed mitt for my new Futaba 12Z radio. In fact I think I will start to fly in the winter now. I have had big problems in cold conditions before but these days seem to be over now thanks to this excellent product.

Thanks to Ian and Greg for a nice weekend.

Pictures by Ian Mason.

Good weekend in Wales!

2007-09-18T12:14:00.000+02:00

Just back from the Welsh Open Eurotour 2007. This an event I have been visiting regularly since 1999 I believe. Last year I did not attend because the Viking Race was so close.
This time I had Bjørn Tore Hagen with me. We flew in to London and Alex McMeekin picked us up and we drove straight to Wales and the Bwlch (yes, try to pronounce that if you can!)
This year it was a 3 day event and 50 competitors showed up. Lots of withdrawals but who cares, the size of 50 pilots is very good.
Friday started out with low clouds and rain and we waited for 3 hours before we managed to get in 1 round at Mickeys slope before the wind turned so much that we could fly anymore.
Next day the forecast was light winds and we could fly on "Back of the Wrecker". This is a fairly good slope and with 5-7 m/s wind we did 4 rounds. I got lucky and pulled out a 37 second flight in round 5. I did not have any bad air so I had fairly good times in all my rounds so far and was the overnight leader. BTH and Alex also did well with 7th. and 4th. place before the last day.
Long before we started the comp. we formed the TGT team and we were all agreeing that this year we should try to make the podium in the team event. This team effort made us all work for the team and trying to avoid mistakes as they would effect not only yourself but also the team. Before the last day we were doing well and was in the lead.
The last the the forecast was good but with much higher wind from the south west. So again back to Mickeys and again waiting for the clouds to lift. Finally it did and we started in 15-20m/s wind. Many people set PB's and fastest time came from Jarda (CZ) flying his Ascot to perfection with a 32,7 second round.
Unfortunately the wind increased and the organizer could nothing else than to stop the flying until the wind came down under the max allowed wind speed of 25m/s. That did not happened so we only got this single round on Sunday. I stayed in the top, Alex moved to 3rd place and BT moved down to 9th place after some bad air in the last round. But the team The Gnome Team stayed in top and won the team competition with a good margin.
Many thanks to the Welsh organizers who did another good event. I hope we all learned a few things when it comes to setting up the safety area. I also hope that the Viking Race committee soon can take a look on the current rules and perhaps make some suggestions in the future rules so organizers can have a manual on how to do it.
Look here for my pictures (not so good as there was something wrong with the camera)
http://picasaweb.google.no/aerotorp/Wales2007
For results take a look at Kevin's web page: http://www.knewt.com/ Also check out RC-Soar's http://www.rc-soar.com/gallery/2007/wo/index.php

Espen

F3F Norwegian Championship

2007-09-10T10:21:00.000+02:00

This weekend our club, Forus RC Klubb hosted the Norwegian Championship F3F 2007. 15 pilots entered and we had a pretty strong field of competitors. The weather forecast was rather poor but luckily for us it turned out almost perfect as we got good strong wind from northwest straight into our best slope for F3F. Thanks to Sigve Hodne for letting us using his fields.

We flew 14 rounds on Saturday. Windspeed was from 12-18m/s. Best time of the day was 40.16 seconds set by Bjorn Tore Hagen with Crossfire. Leader of the first day was Rolf Inge Waaga (RaceM F3F) only 19 points ahead of me (RaceM Ultimate, Aris, Ceres) with BTH in third place only 40-50 points behind.

Next day we had 7-9m/s dropping all the day so we managed only 4 rounds. Rolf Inge was still going strong and won 3 of these rounds and earning his first ever Championship! It was well a deserved victory as he made no mistakes and flew very close and short both days for 18 rounds.

I kept my 2nd place and so did Bjorn Tore. In fact the 4 rounds on Sunday did not change any positions. Results and pictures can be found here: http://www.f3x.no/

Also I must thank Jan Eric Klausen and Sigurd Torp for helping us organizing the event.

The slope on Hodne is quite difficult to master and some of the "new" pilots to this slope needs more time to adapt than the locals. The main reason for this is the stone fence on top of the slope + the narrow lift band. We prefer to use the slope mostly because it is very easy to host comps there due to very easy access, car parking and landing facilities. Also there is no doubt that this slope is one of the most equal slopes I have ever been to.

Espen

World Championship F3B

2007-07-30T23:23:00.000+02:00

I thought I finally should write a little bit about this years World Championship F3B. This was my first time in Switzerland since a ski holiday in the French part of the Alps (we could ski over to Switzerland). So it was really my first time here. I only regret one thing about the trip..... I should have made it to the top of the Pilatus! Well it only means I have to go back one day. Here you can see what I missed: http://www.pilatus.ch/
I was not really in Switzerland for a holiday anyway. Up at 06.30 every day is not my kind of holiday but F3B is something it is all worth getting up early for. I'll be honest and say it is easier when the results is better than I experienced this time but I have only my self to blame. No training and no preparation this time due to work related stuff was hindering me.
But overall I think I learned a lot and I will certainly not give up this sport. I could also see clearly that many countries had done their homework and came well prepared and their results showed that clearly. Good to see the French guys were doing well, likewise with the Aussies. Also Holland were doing well. The Americans surprised a lot of people grabbing 3rd place.
What I like about the sport is that it brings me around and I would not mind if the USA, Argentina, Japan or some other country would try to host it. I think it is about time that some non European country hosted the World Championship. My advise to any nation wanting to host this is to get an Airline sponsor if possible. This will make it a lot easier for most of the Europeans to accept a bid from overseas. Maybe it could be possible to charter a plane as well. A chartered plane from central Europe would be a very interesting way of doing it.

The contest was dominated by the Germans and especially the Herrig brothers. Martin Herrig only lost about 40 points of maximum and that is remarkable. The conditions were not easy to master and many pilots lost a lot of points in duration and distance. Speed conditions were not super fast as one may expected the last two days when the weather was getting better.

Visitors

2007-05-27T10:39:00.000+02:00

When we host international contest I normally get a couple of visitors staying in my flat. And this year I had Ian Mason, Brano Legersky and Jan Tulak coming . Ian came by boat and I met him at the Stavanger Harbour and showed him the way back to my place. But before Ian came I also had to take care of Kjell as his friend Kaare was still in Poland. Kjell came early and was mostly out practicing. I was mostly sick with the flu..... On Thursday I picked up my good friends Brano and Jano from the Airport. Brano did not get to fly much, he was unlucky in the very difficult conditions on Friday and got only to fly one round before the earth came and claimed his Aris. But Brano was here mostly to relax and have some holidays and he took it very nicely. One should think that he could just get another Aris as he and Jano is running the Aerodesign company who makes the Aris. It is not so easy as the orderbooks is pretty packed and customers is waiting. Well I think Brano has one more Aris at home so he will be OK. Sunday Ian left and we went to Rennesoy to fly the contest. After the contest we did some sightseeing and had a small trip around Rennesoy and Mosteroy before a little detour via Stavanger before we visited my family. Next day I had to work and I sent Brano and Jano to the Pulpit Rock. I think they enjoyed it very much. In the evening I took them to the Bore Beach and the outlet of the Figgjo river where we took the pictures. What a nice evening, no wind, waves from the day before and I got to fly my Logostick.

Norway Open F3F

2007-05-21T15:02:00.000+02:00

This years Norway Open F3F which also was a part of the Eurotour is over. We had one day with one round and the next day we flew 11 rounds in rather difficult but interesting conditions. The 4 first rounds were flown on the south side of Obrestad. Round one was terrible with low clouds and high winds. Some pilots had problem with this and had some bad luck. Round 2-4 the next day it was even more wind but no rain. The wind was moving towards southwest and we had to change to the southwest slope over at the lighthouse. Here it was much better for a while until it started to shift back to south again! But it was flyable and we decided to stay.

This year we were lucky to have pilots from 6 nations and I think this is a record. The Norwegians were not many so this was very fortunately for us to have so many foreigners.
I think the 17th. of May(Our National day) is the cause of why we had so few Norwegians.
Next year we will avoid this problem I hope.

The contest was won by Rolf B. Rettedal flying an Aris for the first time in contest. Filip Kalensky was 2nd. flying Ascot and New Sting. I managed 3rd place with RaceM Ultimate and Opus. Both Filip and me got unlucky with our A models after round 4. Filip had a hard landing and I had my plane blown out of my hands and dropping it on the tail.....
Filip clearly had problems adjusting to the New Sting and I flew the 190cm Opus almost to perfection and snatched 3rd place 2,5 points ahead of JoJo. (hehe) JoJo flew well and would have taken second place if it was not for his 100 point penalty in round 1. Also Rolf had a 100 point penalty.

We flew 8 rounds on the south west slope in pretty even conditions. Rolf flew very well and we had no chance against him. Landing on this slope is very easy and the contest ran very smooth thanks to our Slovak, Czech and Norwegian helpers.

Results can be found here: www.f3x.no

Sunday we had the scheduled Cooldown (The race after the big one, still official but more relaxed) Rolf and Joergen decided to stay home so it was now down to 7 pilots. Anyway none of us wanted to fly at Obrestad anymore so we went to Rennesoy Island and checked out the South west slope there. SUPER-DUPER conditions! We set up the course and all agreed on flying 8 rounds running 2 and 2 so only 4 landings were needed. 2 pilots backed out because of slightly though landing area. Rolle Rolf had the fastest time of the day with 34,72 seconds and was in the lead all the way up to round 6. I flew very even all day and "stole" 1st. place from Rolle. Arild was struggling with his Aris having servo problems, still enough to take 3rd. spot in front of JoJo and Kjell. Kjell is BTW getting better and better and it want be long before he is on the same level than most pilots here. He won round both in the Norway Open and the Cooldown.
Thanks again to Brano, Jano, Kaare and Tor working the bases and the middle.
Landing was not as tough as we thought, it was very laminar and crow brakes was all you needed to get down safely.

1. Espen Torp, RaceM Ultimate
2. Rolf Inge Waaga, RaceM F3F
3. Arild Moellerhaug, Aris
4. Jo Grini, Crossfire
5. Kjell Gai, Brio

No pics.

Easter F3F Hanstholm, Denmark 2007

2007-04-11T20:44:00.000+02:00

This year I decided to enter the Easter F3F in Hanstholm mostly because it was part of the F3F Eurotour for the first time. Over 40 pilots entered and that is close to a record I think. I had to take a quick trip to Hamburg and pick up Tom Copp which decided to go to Denmark instead of La Muela, Spain. The wind direction was west and that meant the Cafeteria slope which is not the best. Building the harbour bigger and bigger has more and more destroyed the slope and makes it very turbulent. But turbulence is one thing, change of wind direction during rounds was another problem that many pilots had problems with.
It would have been very interesting having the weather logger going all day and actually could have seen what was going on. I hope my friend Kaare Aareskjold will have this device ready in not so long time.
Helge Borchert had the new Freestyler 3 and impressed us all with good flying. 3 Czech guys had also taken the long trip and Filip Kalensky (Fastest time of the day) flew his Ascot to 5th place. Kai Henning Nielsen won one round and got 6th place. Tom Copp flew his Caldera and Aris to 7th. place. Good old Klaus Untrieser showed us all that he still is a top contender and ended up in 3rd. I flew my prototype RaceM Ultimate to 2nd place and was quite happy with that. This model is not yet in production and we will test it properly before we decide to produce it. It was quite promising but to early to tell if it is any better or worse than the RaceM F3F.
Top ten list:
Helge Borchert, Freestyler 3
Espen Torp, RaceM Ultimate
Klaus Untrieser, Aris
Knud Hebsgaard, Ellipse 2
Filip Kalensky, Ascot
Kai Henning Nielsen, Elita V
Tom Copp, Aris and Caldera
Jörgen Larsen, Aris
Jan Wichmann,
Frank Wiedemann,

Going outdoors

2007-04-01T11:40:00.000+02:00

Last Sunday we had our first F3F competition this year. As can seen on the sea it was not much wind so it was cancelled. Anyway we had a good day out and it was good to meet the guys again. Some of us went to Ole Vidar and had a look at his 1:2,5 Wilga positive. If you ask me this is a crazy project. The size and the amount of details is breathtaking. Ole Vidar has several big projects behind him and one of them can be seen in a big article in the latest Auwind magazine. It is a ca 8meter wingspan Antares.

Arild Moellerhaug giving the Aris of Rolf B. a good launch

Arild with one of his 3 Arises (they all used to be mine)

Wilga positive, Ole Vidar on the left.

The positive is pretty heavy

Karl Petter had a little show with his Schock flyer.

In Slovakia week 9 and 10

2007-03-01T09:17:00.000+01:00

A picture of me and the positive for the new RaceM elevator made in aluminium by Jan Hansen.
The progress is a little bit slower than expected due to heavy work load but we hope to start production soon.
I am in Slovakia to help my partner in ET-Air Slovakia with the UAV project. All molds will be ready this week and we can start to make tests.
The weather here has not been so good but that is fine for us as we have to work indoors anyway :-)

Finally we got some better weather and we went to the Airport for some flying.

Very nice Wizard Compact II with Ferrari paint scheme

Miro Polonec with his electric and DLG Logostick

Miro Majercik launching the Logostick

www.et-air.com

New model for Video filming

2007-02-04T10:14:00.000+01:00

I have finally made ready the new Videoplane which I intend to use for landscape filming.

Check this link: http://www.et-air.com/index.cfm?id=120883

Apart from this the weather here is not normal with + 6 degrees and rain (well rain is pretty normal). The fields are green and if you did not know better it could be April.

So there has been no chance to test the videoplane with camera yet, but the first flight without equipment went very well.