This is how the Aussie team saw the competition. I get this from his blog.
http://aussiemodelflyers.blogspot.com/
The Wind conditions were very good, light winds, but as usual across the track. There was a slight bias towards a direction but the pattern could be flown either way.
We, the Aussie's, watched everyone of the finals flights. Obviously everyone had good practice for the final schedule, and were flying well. It was the styles that was interesting. Onda, the Paysant-Leroux were HUGE, they had to be easily pushing the 60 degree box marker. But obviously this had no effect on the scores. The Austrian, Gerhard Mayr, to our boys mind, flew brilliantly. Within the rules, not too big or small, with a very controlled flight of constant speed and precision. He flew very level, very technically correct. He is the guys with the unusual little extra-fins on the fin. See pictures below in previous post. In our mind, he should have been in the top three. His electric engine was superb, very quite and just a light hum sound.
Next to comment on is Quique Somenzini, again flew brilliantly. Fairly open pattern, his rolls in the pattern were similar to everyone elses, slow and long, but in the last unknown where they had a vertical square 8 with half roll in the middle (see photos Unknown Schedule 2) he cleverly tightened up the radius and quicken the roll rate to keep the maneuver to a reasonable size. Just about everyone else using a slow roll, made a square rectangle, and would have gone into the clouds - if there were any! Quique is one of those flyers who are able to keep the plane absolutely level. His rolling circles and loops were brilliant, on the last unknown he was the only person to go reverse direction on the wind. The reason being, he told Steve, was that the snaps could be done into the wind with more control. In the Aussie's minds Quique would have been a good bet to win the event. We are devastated and that he has been robbed to be given 7th place. As we said to quique at the banquet, now you know what the Aussie feel like.....
Onda flew the same style as Christophe, huge, very large radius' with long smooth rolls. His rolling circles were very wide and deep. His ability to fly the plane like this is amazing. All the Japanese all seemed to fly very level. (Because of their training no doubt). The only question on this style "can it be flown at 150m and inside the box, as the rules state?" we think not! But as at most world championships, the guys will copy or follow the person's style who is scoring the maximum!
Suzuki and Akiba flew very similar styles to each other, slightly smaller than Onda, but still reasonably large. To the boys, they still flew reasonably well with just small errors creeping in on the harder maneuvers, such as the rolling loops and circles.
Christophe and Benoit flew the same type of aircraft with similar styles. Their patterns were HUGE! or bigger! To the Aussies, the wings were always 15 degrees out of level, at least, (we know this looks right, because that is how most of the sportsman flyers want to fly, when you are training them. of course the rules say, wings out of level is a major area of downgrade) One of the areas that was very questionable, was the stall turns. The aircraft never, ever stalled, (so it was never going to flop) and seemed to be driving over with alot of throttle. You can see this by the smoke trail at the top of the turn and the fact that the plane turned over very quickly.
Radius and rolls were so big and long that there was little time for straight lines between individual parts of the maneuvers and between some maneuvers. The snaps of alot of the flyers were questionable, with very little elevator being used. So is the case with Christophe and Benoit. (but hey if they get scored for it, why would they want to change!) and example was in the two snaps reversed in the Unknowns where the aircraft wanted to finish nosedown, this being a direct result of very little elevator to pitch the nose up at the beginning of the snap. To Steve, the snap looks like one wing throws itself over.
To the Aussies, the scores left us amazed, unsurprised, but amazed. To us we thought they would have finished much further down the results. especially Benoit. It seems strange that one person can dominate the scoring in this type of company for all rounds, including the preliminaries. Christophe won every round of the comp bar one. Especially when the pattern is flown technically incorrect. wings out of level by at least 15 degree, box infringements, lack of straight lines, questionably snaps with no pitch, driven over stall turns, wings not square in vertical lines when there is a crosswind (so you don't have to yaw the model into breeze when pulling level) Spins becoming unstalled when the nose drops so far.
Jason Shulman flew his tighter style that we saw in Australia. He also seems to have a tendency to fly wing down (as most of the US team do and have done, except quique) On his last flight of the comp he also hit the famous Darty Fence when landing.
The German flyer, Bernd Beschorner, fly brilliantly. Technically correct, very level, within the rules of the box. His only fault was perhaps having difficulty landing the snaps.
What is sad for the Aussies, is that the World Championship title should be the best on the day and this title should have been someone elses, we have all spent lots of money and hoped for the opportunity to do our best, and when you make it to the final 10, and out fly people, you expect to get the podium. That was definitely not the case here. We feel for some of the other pilots.
Podium Photos.
There are lots of pictures in the web. Try this.
http://aeromodelismocampoo.com/foro/...er=asc&start=0
http://www.aeromodelismoecuador.com/...etines2009.htm
http://equipoargentinof3a.blogspot.com/
http://2009worldsportugal.shutterfly.com/