World Championships 2009 Report from Portugal
Photos from this event can be viewed in the gallery -- click here.
Full results from preliminary, semi-finals and finals -- click here.
The first thing I felt when I arrived off the plane in Portugal was the instant heat. It was approx between 25 to 30 degrees centigrade every day with blue skies 90% of the time. Shane and John had arrived some days earlier so were at one of the practice sites where I met up with them. This particular site had what was called a “carpet” runway, made up of a material (wide rolls) used to keep grass and weeds from growing in a flower bed. It was very effective as the ground was so dry and compactable. The next few days were available to practice on the main flying site or at the 6/7 other sites within 80km.
The first thing one noticed at the competition site were the number and size of the trees very close to the runway, because of which base lines had to be kept high to avoid turbulence. The runway which was about 1Km had to accommodate 2 flight lines( 101 pilots) ,25 pilots each end each morning and afternoon but because the runway was running Sw to Ne both sides were used each day, the near side in the morning and the far side in the afternoon to allow for the suns position in the flight area. Effectively this meant that each pilot had to fly in front of 4 sets of judges on four different flight lines for their preliminary flights.
The Irish team had their model processing and official practice flights on Saturday at 8am. This involved weighing (5Kg), length and wing span (2 metres), noise check just before flight (94 dB) and for electric models a battery voltage of 42.56V. A tolerance of 1% is allowed on all measurements. The official flight practice time allowed was 28 minutes per team or 1 flight of 9 mins per pilot. The weather was very clear but cool at that hour and all pilots had a good flight and no problems with processing. We were now ready for the next day when the first round would start. One decision the organisers took which helped the team managers was that Transmitters weren’t required to be impounded each morning as most pilots were operating on 2.4GHz. This also meant that pilots could go to practice sites before or after their flights without needing a spare transmitter.
Sunday morning dawned with a low cloud base and as Brian Carolan was 2nd to fly on line B we were early at the flying site. The pilot doing the flight for the judges had to test the cloud ceiling before the first pilot officially got to start his flight at approx 10am. At last we were off. Brian had his 1st flight followed by John and Shane later in the day. Over the next 3 days all pilots completed their 4 flights without mishap and it was looking possible after the 3rd flights that either Shane or John could still make the semis if they had really good last flights (which they did but so did other pilots) but alas it wasn’t to be although Shane was only 2 places from this goal. Shane ended up in 32nd (within top 1/3), John ended up in 45th ( Top ½) which as far as I know is the best position for an Irish pilot at their first WC and Brian ended up in 78th (He was a late replacement for Niall). Overall the team finished in 15th place out of 37 countries.
It is felt that the Irish performance is the best ever in terms of placings but it is difficult to compare with other results as so much changes all the time. The quality of the models we use and improvements in technology have helped improve the overall quality of the flying. The top 20/30 in the world have changed very little but the next 50/60 have improved dramatically over the last 10 years. We have beaten countries that traditionally beat us but we have been beaten by countries that we used to beat regularly. This is one of the interesting facets of travelling to compete against so many different countries, we never know how we will do.
The semi finals were held on Friday, which is comprised of 30 pilots doing 2 ‘f’ schedules and as expected the final 10 were comprised of 2 French,3 Japanese,2 USA,1 German,1 Austrian and 1 Italian. These 10 fly the final day, comprised of 2 ‘F’ schedules and 2 unknown schedules that the pilots help put together on Friday evening, in front of all 20 judges. The temperature rose to approx. 40 degrees with low wind for these flights so the pilots could really show their skills to full effect but at the end of the day there was no match for the consistency and ability of Christophe Paysant-le Roux, who won all four rounds with relative ease. His brother Benoit took a surprise 2nd place with a very high score for his last flight and the still young Tetsuo Onda (Japan) took 3rd. Because the le roux brothers finished 1st and 2nd they also wrested the team prize from the grasp of the Japanese by one place with the USA in 3rd spot.
Finally I must congratulate the Portuguese organisers and people in general for their very well organised event and hospitality. The Lord Mayor of Pombal invited us to two separate events where food and drinks were freely available and we also attended a well run Banquet where we sampled some local food and entertainment. I must personally thank the team and our supporters for helping make this trip very successful.