Junior Team
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Flags from the various countries, displayed in the Town SquareThis year Martin, Slovakia hosted the 5th FAI World Aeromodeling Championships for Radio Controlled Gliders, Class F3J. We were fortunate to take a full junior team across to participate in this prestigious event. This was a first for South Africa.
Senior and Junior Team waiting for the Opening Ceremony
Junior Team: Kurt Stockton, Conrad Klintworth, Ilma Stockton (Team Manager), SImon Tladi
There were other firsts that need to be mentioned. This year at the worlds, for the first time there was a black pilot. One of our juniors, Simon Tladi is the first non white aero modelling pilot to represent South Africa at a world championship, he is also the first black pilot in the world to participate at the worlds. No small achievement.
The World Championships was preceded by the Martin Cup. This was a very hectic event, we had all our pilots and most of the helpers flying in this. Eight pilots in all, total of nine people. There were rounds where we had two pilots flying in a slot (juniors and seniors mixed), and there were two rounds where we had one pilot after the other with no break in between, (something like 14 flights in succession), 10 minutes working time starting every 12 minutes!
Kurt Stockton with the "African Pilot" plane
Kurt finished 85th (out of 177 pilots) achieving 91.7% of top result, Conrad finished 126th, achieving 83.7% of top result and Simon finished 149th. The pre event is used generally to condition the pilot and try and settle the nerves. The weather and the conditions changed substantially for the World Championships, became rainy and fairly cold towards the end. The photo shows typical cloud cover, and the event was stopped due to rain on many occasions. We did not anticipate this weather
General look of the sky during the event
and battled with our planes to fly effectively in these conditions. One of the things that we have learnt is the need to “hover” and spend more time practising our landings. With perfect landings we could have had a place in the fly offs. Goal for Turkey!
Kurt Flying with the storm approachingThe juniors flew 10 rounds, one throw away. Their flights were often under really tough conditions, and they had to work really hard to achieve the flight times and landings that they did. The pressure that the juniors experienced was rather high, both pressure brought on by general expectations and personal pressure. I believe that they handled the pressure well and proudly represented South Africa. With the ground being much softer that at home, we landed our planes more often than not by
planting the nose in the ground. Very effective method to get a spot landing, but often quite hard on the plane as the pilot would come in very fast and “plant” the plane quite hard.
Measuring the landing for Simon (his AVA)This landing of Simon's Ava probably caused the wing to blow on the launch later on in the competition. This was handled quite well by Simon, he safely brought his Ava in to land, receiving a round of applause from all the spectators who were watching the damaged plane's path to a safe landing, and had to immediately re-launch to get a flight time and landing.
Wing Blown on Launch
We had good support from the seniors, after Conrad hard landing, Chris immediately took matters into his hands and fixed Conrad's plane so that it could be flown in the next round. The nose had taken a pounding and needed a bit of carbon to fix it, which Chris gladly did.
Craig did all the calling, “left,..... left,..... Left,.... LEFT.” We realised that sometimes the juniors do not know their right from their left.
One of Conrad's harder landings
Pilots Buckets, containing all the pilots linesThe routine was always the same, for every round, most times we had two juniors, back on back, with a couple of slots open and then the other juniors. There were 6 groups (slots) per round. I would get the first pilot organised, have his lines ready, and ensuring that the tow men, made up of either Chris Adrian and Paul Carnall or Mark Stockton and Lionel Brink, knew which lines to run out and which would be the preferred line, with a back on back the tow men would take out the second pilots lines at the
same time and be ready to run out his lines as soon as they could. Get the planes sorted, and be ready to collect his TX. All the pilot had to worry about was clearing his mind and getting focused. Everything else was taken care of. I would arrange for the third junior to assist the second junior with TX and planes as soon as the next group was ready to go on the field (as I was already on the field with the first pilot). This tended to work out quite well, and the juniors knew what was happening and when, and did not need to stress about anything except their flight.
Launch - all the planes int he air at the same time!
We would get to the field just after 7 in the morning, check planes and hand in TX's. Flying started promptly at 8, ready or not. We never missed a flight, always ready The day was long and we would only leave the field around 8 in the evening, still have to get food and then some sleep. The juniors did suffer from sleep deprivation to a degree, but nothing that could really be helped. They made up for it on the field, taking naps when they could.
Conrad, only wake me if you have to
Simon, I can sleep anywhere, even standing..
Kurt, just far too much excitement for one week
The level of competition is tough, but we do have the talent and the potential to be competitive. Our final results were that South Africa came 7th over all, with Conrad Klintworth 17th, Simon Tladi 32nd and Kurt Stockton 33rd. Every flight, they gave it their best and on missed landings they would generally take it very hard. We had more than one junior so disappointed with his landing, that the tears were running down the face, they put their whole heart into it. We should be very proud of them. Generally it was an awesome event, the juniors have learnt vast amounts. They had the ability to meet and interact with well known international names. Our juniors were received well by the community and did us proud. We received a lot of support and encouragement from other countries.
Speaking with other teams, it is apparent that all the countries are battling with youth involvement in the sport, some countries do not have any youth at all who participate in RC Gliding. South Africa is well spoken off because of the initiative that we have taken in youth awareness and development. Both the Americans and the Australians follow our Development Programme with interest and have only good things to say.
Ines with our Flag, at the close of the eventWe are on the right track, and we have a promising future ahead of us. We need to be more focused on the specific task requirements, and things like landings need to become second nature to us. If we take what we have learnt for this World Champs and build on it, we will definitely have a good opportunity to do well in Turkey in 2008, we are looking forward to the challenge. From the F3J Junior team, we would like to thank all the individuals and organisations who assisted us with training, building of models, for donating funds and time and for mentorship. With out all the effort and input we would not have been able to achieve, Thank you.
Ilma Stockton
Team Manager – Junior F3J Team 2006
Kurt Stockton
Conrad Klintworth
Simon Tladi
