This is a personal summary of my activities at the 1998 CL World Champs. I and my team mate, John McCollum, were members of the F2C (Team Race) team and brought home fifth place. The team earned a third place team trophy, the best done by the U.S. in several years. This is NOT a summary of the team activities, I invite the others to add their commentary. I relate how the team did, but cannot offer the meaningful insight for the others, just what I was able to observe.
If you want to see the official results, click here.
We arrived in Kiev on Friday evening, Aug 21 after a LOOOONG trip from home. I have yet to understand why our travel plans include ANY stops in the U.S. when there are so many good, western carriers that fly from all over the U.S. to sites in Europe, and most which have connecting flights into the destination city. This is certainly true this time, but the travel arrangements still took everyone through Atlanta with the corresponding delays and long extra flights. It makes no sense for someone like Paul Walker to fly from Seattle to Atlanta and then to Europe: that HAS to lengthen his trip by 50%!!!
Entry through the Kiev airport was chaotic. The Ukraines still don't really understand how to do it yet. Long lines, contentious desk agents, stuffy, un-airconditioned spaces, insufficient resources,.. The organizers were well prepared for our arrival and had busses and a van to transport the team to the hotel. The F2C team rented two cars from the local AVIS agent, and we followed the busses to the hotel to avoid getting lost on the way.
We stayed at the Prolisok, the same hotel where we stayed in 1988. Fortunately, there was not even a hint of "cottages" this time, and all of the rooms had been nicely remodeled since 1988. There was even hot water most of the time!
On Saturday, we found, to our dismay, that our fuel was being held by Ukraine customs expecting us to pay $1,250 duty. This for our OWN FUEL! Does the word "extortion" come to mind? We just said "Hell, no!" The organizers were unable to get the fuel for us, and it would have been Tuesday before they could have in any case since it was now the weekend and Monday was their Independence Day (with all gov't offices closed). So we decided that we would get fuel components from the organizers and brew our own fuel.
I had gone prepared to mix fuel, taking my own blend of oils, DII, etc. in a pint bottle, just as I had in Sweden. Bought kerosene and ether from the organizers. Mixed up three liters of fuel and went out to get settings on Sunday. The kerosene, as we finally determined, was junk. It was supposed to be lighting fuel but had a VERY strong, nasty odor, not what I would have expected from a product expected to be used in something in your home. The smell was so bad that a rag I had used to wipe up a bit of spill had to be banished to a plastic bag out on the balcony of the hotel room. The fuel required an IMMENSE compression adjustment, over 1/2 turn of the comp screw on one Mazniak. It seemed to run about as fast as I had expected, but the setting was very narrow. The Shabasov/Ivanov model was running very well, quite comfortable, so I thought, at 18.0. (Found out later how wrong that was!)
The others, Ballard/Lambert and Ascher/Ascher, had not come prepared to mix fuel, so they used the supplied castor oil, too. They had immediate problems. Initial flights showed about normal performance, which continued to degrade and degrade as more fuel was run through their engines. They felt that the castor oil was to blame, so they promptly started to see if they could get alternative supplies. Fortunately, they did, I think Yakov Mazniak was a big help to them. B/L had "spirited" some fuel from home for their Mazniak gear, but they were expecting to use their new Yugov model, and needed the blend for it. A/A also had a Yugov model (one they had built from a Yugov "kit"), so those two teams mixed one supply of fuel to Yugov's specifications and shared it. A/A could never get their model to perform well at all, so eventually switched back to their proven (but well-worn) Vorobiev models for the competition. B/L stayed with the Yugov model even though they never did get it performing up to their expectations (and certainly nothing like Yugov's own models). B/L did use their best Mazniak model in the second qualification, but the Yugov otherwise.
The first qualifying round was on Tuesday. A/A were in the fourth race and turned a 3:27 only to be disqualified for jettisoning parts when a section of the leading edge of the o/b wing fell off after a hard catch. We were in a later heat and found out quite quickly just how bad our fuel was. We had set the model in the practice session earlier at about 18.3 with John flying arm-out and holding back. We got into the race and went less than 20 laps and experienced a complete burn-down. I pitted the model, taking out some compression (too much) and we just finished the race putt-putting around the circle. B/L just could not make the Yugov model work, turning a slow 3:32. (One of their heats, the first, I think, was a two-up that they just didn't/couldn't take advantage of. Too bad.)
The second qualifying round on Wednesday saw A/A finally getting a really good run only to have the pit-stops go away totally. They turned a 3:31. They had good airspeed, but 10-15 flip restarts was their undoing. We were paired with (?) and the Polish Junior team. It looked like essentially a 2-up since the Polish kids couldn't keep anything in the air. We were off quickly and, again, 20 laps in, started to burn down. About that time the (?) model pitted, and then the Polish juniors came in and snagged their lines causing an accident. The Jury stopped the race and we were granted a refly. Ballard/Lambert put up their Mazniak model and were promptly disqualified for flying fouls by Ballard.
As we were waiting for the refly, A/A offered us some fuel they had been able to borrow from the French (Bruno Delor). John said "It's not working with what we're running, we have to change SOMETHING.". So we took the French fuel to the practice circle, got a setting on it (took out ALL of the extra compression required of the original fuel), and had the S/I model running just like home with easy settings and a lot of tolerance. We went into the refly and had a very fine run. Full three up, slow/soft pits stops from John, one flip starts from me, and good airspeed. Got us a 3:23.7, which was good for 9th place after Wednesday.
On Thursday, the third qualifying day, we decided that we needed to try for a better time since we were on the bubble. We had the same setting as the day before, and a good race. John tried to bring the model in quicker, only to have it too far in and not quite on the ground when I tried to catch it. I missed the catch and had to chase the model down. Got off and on to the second stop. This time I was expecting the model to be too far away, and ended up catching it right next to the fuselage, running my thumb down the cowl and crushing the fuselage right behind. Didn't notice it until later, and off we went only to have John gain his third foul for "improper handle position".
B/L went back to their Yugov model and improved slightly to 3:29 while A/A had a repeat of their second round with good airspeed and miserable pits for a slight improvement to 3:30
As it turned out, only one team beat our time, but that was enough to push us out of the semis into 10th place. We knew we would probably have to fly in any case, so I went back to the hotel and fixed the model with some CA, glass cloth and sand paper.
On Friday, we came to the field early since the semis started at 10am. Went to the practice circle and ran a single tank to verify the setting, and then put the equipment in the car waiting for the semis to begin. Didn't take long. In the first race, two models went out on the first pit stop and Shabasov/Moskelev were granted a refly. So we went and got the equipment out and got ready. The refly was at the end of the round and was us and a Ukraininan team in 11th. Unfortunately for them, their pilot had gone home, and the 12th team Perret/Maret of France, were called. We had a really good 3-up race. S/M were eventually disqualified, but that was well into the race and had little impact. We had a really good run, again with slow/soft pit stops and one-flip starts to run a really nice 3:21.8, good for fourth place at the end of the round.
The second round started in the afternoon. I had asked the TR Jury what the procedure would be if we flew in the first round as an alternate and then an alternate would be needed in the second. Their response was that the two rounds were independent and that they would start calling alternates at the 10th position again. So it looked like we would probably fly again, and we did. We decided that we were going for broke, and that the places where we would gain 4 seconds in the race was in the slow/soft pits from John and a little more aggressive flying. Well, the same thing happened as before: John just didn't get the model where it belonged and I missed the catch. Twice! After the second, we just pulled it out and watched Gilbert/Gilbert and Magli/Pirrazini finish without us.
As luck would have it, only Shabasov/Moskalev were able to beat our time and moved into fourth place, pushing us to 5th.
The final was a real treat to watch. Andreev/Sobko were running very well and had gained a two lap advantage on Titov/Yugov after the first pit. Magli/Pirrazini were not quite as fast and the two Russian teams continued to move ahead of them. After the second pit, A/S were just under 4 laps ahead of T/Y, but gave pack a lap on the third pit. Round and round they went until the jury finally gave a third foul to T/Y. All in all, a really good race to watch.
Weather during the meet varied from marginally o.k. to just down-right terrible. All week through Wednesday it was very windy. Early in the week it was partly sunny to overcast and windy with Tuesday being a steady rain added. Wednesday was dry but VERY windy, almost enough to warrant delaying the competition. Thursday and Friday were overcast but calm, nice to fly in but cold enough to warrant a coat all of the time. Marie, Doc Jackson's wife, finally went into town and bought some sweaters to help combat the cold.
Our trip home was uneventful in spite of all of the problems we were supposed to be having. Sunday greeted us with heavy rain which was with us all the way to the airport east of town. We went through passport control and customs with no real problems, checked our baggage and flew to Zurich. Stayed overnight there in a nice hotel, had a really good meal, and on home on Monday. Finally got back here at about 11pm local time.
My "take" on Kiev was that it wasn't as bad as the early stories would have you believe. We did just as I said we should: stay with our group, stay with planned activities, stay out of the wrong parts of town, .... and it all was just fine. We did find that McDonalds has built several stores in Kiev, and many of the team (not John or me) gave up on the supplied meals and made regular runs to the closest one for food. The food was mediocre, not as good as in 1988.
This WCs was personally very satisfying. "Fifth in the world" has a nice ring to it! And the third place team award was also particularly satisfying after just missing it in Sweden in 1996. The other two teams, Ballard/Lambert and Ascher/Ascher, had more then their share of bad luck. We ALL had more adversity to overcome than should reasonably be expected, and it was John's and my good fortune to solve them in a timely manner to take fifth place home with us.
And a BIG thanks goes to Bruno Delor of the French team who gave us some extra fuel that eventually solved our problems!
Regards,
Bill Lee