March Model Massacre
(AKA the 2006 MMS HTL #2 report)

The two days of low cloud and drizzling rain did nothing to dampen our spirits prior to Sunday for the competition which yielded a record HTL field with some of the best flying & weather we have had all season. With a friendly atmosphere and relatively challenging albeit informal format, the Highveld Thermal League proved again to be one of the finest intermediate level competitions on the MGA calendar.

Before the Carnage started

Our day started early with laying out the field (twice, to cater for variations in the predicted & expected wind directions). Planes & winches were setup in record time so that the pilots briefing could commence only 25 minutes later than advertised, also a new record. I would recommend that for future events, the first slot/flight starts earlier than 10h00 as the 17h30 finish was late (maybe too late for the winter events?). For the record the request for strict observance of the safety corridor appears to generally have been upheld all day & we even had a large number of spectators sitting only a short distance away from the flight line much to their enjoyment (especially considering some of the comments and antics of pilots on landing).

The flight line - rarin' to go!

We only had a few noteworthy incidents - but these were fortunately limited to pilots trying to lose their landing points by stopping their planes themselves, or in Wolfgangs' case, using his caller to BUMp to a stop. A potentially serious incident was narrowly averted by Mark's quick reactions, when Kurt's Eish! experienced some very serious glitching / interference. We understand that Kurt's frequency issue may have been caused by a rogue pilot in the area potentially also on the same frequency. This was fortunately stopped by Peter Joffe who happened to be driving by and noticed this. Many thanks to Peter for his quick thinking and willingness to take action too!

A note about the weather is important, as this was as close to perfect as is possible. A light breeze, with only a little cloud, made sure that we enjoyed tremendous thermal activity throughout the day. The closeness of the final scores reflected just how important being able to scratch for lift & precision landings are for events such as these. It is therefore strange that we experienced the model carnage that this March Model Massacre at MMS produced (Evan counted at least 12 wrecked models - a third of the field & hence the title of this report!). I suspect that the breakages alone must be something of a record but would prefer not elaborate further due to rather personal & terminal experience regarding this.

Eish!

One incident worthy of mention was Mark's Eish! that lost half a wing on launch - but he was still able to fly the model down and landed without further incident / damage, mumbling something about "..making sure about getting all those d... digital servos back in one piece...". Well flown Mark!

Mark's 1½ winged Eish!

As a change to the 45 minute "open" round we flew during 2005, we decided to hold the competition in a matrixed format, teams of up to 4 people competing in 6 rounds of 4 slots each. It took some time and many attempts to matrix the entries, as late entries, and numerous frequency clashes occurred across the teams. The lack of available alternates created a real headache for the organiser. Thanks to everyone who did supply alternate frequencies, and to those that did not, well you certainly made the job a lot more challenging ;-) The supplied score sheets & matrixes appeared to have worked well for most of the time, and we only had one team that briefly challenged the matrixed sequenced, but thankfully this was all sorted out without any clashes.

Keeping your body perpendicular to the wings is important?

After 3 months of intense F3J practice, the start of each slot was generally a little bit of an anticlimax. All me to explain; in F3J, the pilot has a 10 minute working time to complete the best possible flight time, so when working time is called - each second after the start is wasted time - and everyone tends to launch very quickly, en masse. Now consider the HTL where the teams are all lined up, winch lines connected, pilots have twiddled the stick to confirm that the servos are moving, the CD steps up and counts down from 10.9.8...3.2.1, the flag drops, and, ..., nothing happens. All rather underwhelming! The pilots had 2 minutes in heir 12 minutes working time in which to launch & still achieve the 10 minute duration task, but nobody really wanted to go first. The funny thing was that the pilots launching first generally appeared to take the best advantage of the air & we appear to have a record number of maxed slots timed for the day. Ilma, our CD, was completely awesome throughout the day, & never wavered in her enthusiasm (or timing) to start the slots, capture the scores, chat to the teams & spectators, and personally taking each score sheet back to the teams.

She noted that t the 6 rounds were very long & that a lot of people and models were relatively exhausted by the end of round 5. Maybe future event hosts might consider reducing the competition down to 5 rounds only, possibly without the throwaway round?

Sandbagging for that photo opportunity

The results are attached, and I am sure that the "what-if' (or "if only") scenarios will be heavily considered. It is interesting to note that we had 31 competitors, which is a reasonable sized field for any gliding competition, let alone the HTL. I think this shows just how important the intermediate level of thermal competition is, which provides newbies with the opportunity of extending their skills flying with some of the top glider pilots in SA, who simultaneously are also suitably challenged to stay in form.

Please note that the provisional results announced at the competition (available before everyone had completed packing up) failed to identify John Monk as a 2M pilot & subsequently the attached results show some positional changes wrt RES/100 & 2M

Some memorable moments (these are only a few that I observed):

• Craig Goodrum spearing his model into the ground at 30 degrees for his first landing - made it look so easy, but making the rest of us mortals realise that just to land in the same field that we launch from is our achievement
• Gert Nieuwoudts' awesome yellow thermal eating monster - gently stopping with its nose just under the spot in one of the most controlled landings I have ever witnessed
• Stephane du Ponsel thermalling at tree top height with his El Diablo for over 6½ minutes at the very furtherest extent of our vision (note to self, just what Tx/Rx combination does he use?) and still maxing his flight time
• Craig Goodrums calling for the overall winner, Conrad Klintworth who incidentally showed everyone ho to fly consistently well
• "Prepatation" Piet's whistling speed-run during his landing circuit with his new RES/100 model
• The BERG teas' unwavering willingness to accept lone pilots into both of their empty slots
• Being able to host people who have traveled some considerable distance for a local event, including Frank, the Vaal crew 7 Evan :-)
• Having matrixed, normalised results and prize giving completed by 17h00 & everyone completed packing up by 17h30
• Chris McNeil's Tsotsi crashed during launch and speared into the ground up to its leading edge - without any serious damage (these models are certainly built STRONG)

• Hugh's team still managing to enter scores for him in his absence - proving that everyone was having good fun and a laugh too
• The kind donation of their prize money to the SA F3J team fund by some competitors (as well as the announcement of the BERG club recently donating R500 to the F3J team)
• Some members of the erstwhile F3J team flying flat-out (see photo's below) during the competition
  
• Evan's OD flapped & wingletted Tsotsi. Codenamed "Flinglet"
  
  
• The Overall spirit of friendship & camaraderie that we shared at the event
  
  Team VMG launching_______________________ "The SPOT Simon!"
  
  Kurt launching____________________________ Another 2M on finals