1.
Ideally
need an authoritative coach for training at home and guidance at the comp. How to fund it?
2.
Aircraft
differences will always exist from what you train on at home, and rarely will
you be able to change settings on a hired aircraft to suit you.
3.
Budget
on at least a weeks training in-location prior to comp overseas. Adjust to the time-zone, weather, food and
aircraft. Possibly send Team Manager in
advance to scout arrangements.
4.
Take
copies, soft or hard, of all your docs and Free sequences. Invariably the organisers ask for them repeatably.
5.
As
newcomers, we need to really nail the Q flight to maximise our chances of
getting into the 1st or 2nd group. Similarly for the Free. Aim should be an 80% flight in both, and then
take what you get.
6.
Stay
cool and fresh. Natural desire is to
hang around airport, socialise and watch the flying. Schedule time away, stay hydrated and
rested. Roster team
members/manager/coach to check in-tray, attend briefings, check score sheets
etc. so others can stay away from airport when not required.
7.
Establish
comms and transport plan to reduce stress when timeline is critical.
8.
Established
teams use all tools at their disposal to favour their pilots. Eg. Have a warm-up pilot to report back
conditions and gauge aircraft performance for start heights. Influence schedule to favour your pilots. Video flights, protest if
necessary.
9.
Set-up
of aircraft ailerons/spades and elevator, locking the trim prior to flight.
10.
Putt
all ¾ snap figures so the snap finishes edge-on to the judges. Wing low or side drift after the snap will
not be seen. Offset positive or
negative in plan on entry vertical line to finish vertical when side-on.
11.
On
looping figures with snaps, offset nose during looping segment so that you
finish on-axis (if that’s what you need) after the snap without a lot of
pedalling.
12.
Use
‘N’s and half loops or Cubans as linking figures in Unknowns. Adjust altitude and position during these
low k figures. Also saw positive
depth-charges used by USA.
These linking figures get horribly abused in order to position high K
figures correctly.
13.
Top
pilots fly to the bottom of the box (or maybe below). Positioning right in front of the judges is
very important for a top score.
14.
Extra
330SC and Su-26/31 perform well and present well if flown well, but appear at a
performance deficit to hot Experimentals like the MXS and Edge. Estimate is that Rob Holland’s MXS has significant margin over the 330SC. Ivanoff’s Edge 540 and
Illes’ 540T exceeded 330SC by a fair margin also. Sbach goes well, but did not appear as
energetic for some reason, and some opinion that it does not present as well as
the MXS/Edge due to short fuselage length.
15.
Sat
next to a judge at dinner. Opinion
that in general judges favour slower flying Sukhoi’s?
16.
Need
to nominate judges through CIVA rep to CIVA.
Is it likely we will actually send a judge and assistant?? First 7 judging teams paid for from entry
fees (if selected), last 3 by organisers if able. Need JPD to support.
17.
Raw
scores and scoresheets are released immediately after data has been entered
into scoring system. It is the Team
responsibility to check their sheets and sign them off as correct – or protest. I detected two score entry errors, both were corrected
without drama by office.
18.
Each
Team has an in-tray and all official correspondence will be deposited
there. Time sensitive operational
matters are communicated verbally (in our case by Christian on his pushbike!)
or via SMS. Each team was issued a backpack
with a mobile phone pre-loaded with all Officials and Team numbers, good for
calls to those numbers only.
19.
Rolls
were precise and stops hard. Rate of
roll varied depending on objective, but was consistent throughout. We need to develop this technique more.
20.
Varying
power was used by the high-performance aircraft to shorten up lines and slow
down lines. All good for minimising
drift and keeping the sequence ‘smaller’, in the box, and in front of the judges.
21.
Without
line judges, many pilots exceeded the box by a large margin, and it appeared
this was done consciously during Unknowns if it favoured presentation of key
figures and the sequence overall. The
lesser of two evils approach.
22.
We
didn’t have much wind, so didn’t see many wind correction techniques on the
main axis. Most correction was being
done cross-box, to and away from the judges, to position figures.
23.
Many
top-level sequences don’t have any cross-box figures. Pilots rely on other techniques to move
sequence toward and away from judges. Crabbing, flying off-axis, spiralling during
looping segments and non-vertical lines.
24.
Many
Free sequences have more than the minimum number of flicks. Possible advantage with simpler figures to
judge and less busy for both pilot and judge cf. lots of point rolls. More research needed here.
25.
Looping
figures with roll elements at top/bottom are always positioned on the main axis
for scrutiny by judges in unknowns, never cross-box.
26. Diamond loops down should start downwind
conversely those going up should start into wind.
