Great that this finally happened, after it's been under discussion for three years, give or take some.
"Thank you" to all the participants who had the courage to compete. And to the others, this is quite a bit harder than it may look. For example, you get only one chance per set move. Therefore, those who think "awww I can do this better", be prepared to prove it in the next round
A little bit of "post mortem" from my side. In no way criticisim, more like things to remember for the next time.
First, the microphone wire was too short, unfortunately. This didn't exactly improve the communication between pilot and caller, sorry for that. I put in an extension after the set round, so everybody had to suffer equally...
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Then, since it's the first competition for most, we should have a common pilot briefing
in Finnish. What I tried to tell everybody is:
- The inverted fly-by and roll are
much easier with the wind.
- loops are
much easier against the wind.
If you have never tried both: With a wind as yesterday, the difference is quite extreme:
- Flying against the wind is like going uphill
- Pulling into a loop with the wind doesn't really work because you're lacking airspeed, and then you're flying uphill in the inverted section
Nobody is rushing you, so you can take a five second break anytime between moves, take a breath and think which way you want to go next. If you're on the wrong side, tell the caller "flyby" and drive your heli to the other end of the field.
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Speaking of callers: Again, it's been the first time for most or all. We should have a demo round, so that also the callers can get an idea how it should look like.
For example, it happened many times that the caller gave the start sign for an inverted hover or inverted flyby, while the heli was still in the upright position. That's too early
I don't think it affected the results (we didn't listen too carefully to the callers) but it caused some confusion to the pilots.
At least I found that being a caller in F3N is surprisingly difficult. Maybe we could arrange a common caller / co-pilot for the next Pop-type competition.
What is important that the judges know when "it's for real". As mentioned earlier, we don't give second chances. Sorry
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Next time, we should call the pilot to the flight line and the next pilot into the "ready box" à la 3d masters, to keep breaks short.
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Now looking back to earlier Kopterileiris, I think the overall level of flying has improved quite a bit. I can only recommend to everybody who is a little bit ambitious about his flying to participate.
Don't take it too seriously. In the end, it's about fun.
Sure, "better" pilots will score higher, but the outcome is highly subjective in any case: did I practise? do I have good equipment? do the judges like my style? etc etc.
In my opinion, even "losing" the competition is lots more fun than not competing at all, I'm speaking from long experience here