Jet World Masters Report - Monday August 24

Hello from Leutkirch.

The 11th Jet World Masters is officially underway with both static and flight judging underway. This will be a short report as I am pretty bushed from a late night, early morning, and a full day.

The lead-off “batter” for Jet Team USA was Rod with Chad as his caller scheduled to fly just before noon.

These guys have put in many practice flights together and have honed their game to a fine edge. Engine startup was immediate, and Rod soon had the plane on the roll and into the air.
The flight went well (I thought the slow roll was particularly good), and it was a smooth landing and it felt great to be on the scoreboard.
Rod and Chad spent a few hours in final preparation for static judging in the afternoon. The static judging is being done in a small hanger next to the central restaurant. Extra lighting was brought in, and a white background was hung. The lighting made the Flite Metal finish of the MiG-15 look very realistic with the finish matching the reference chip perfectly.

David was next to fly with his scratch build MiG-15. The take-off was absolutely fantastic and it always feels great to be off to a good start. David really brought his A-game, and after each maneuver, the crowd rewarded his efforts with a round of applause and cheering. David will have static judging tomorrow morning.

Jason was the closer, and put on a good show with the F-15. The pilot flying previous to Jason had some sort of issue (I think he flew the maneuvers out of order) and there was a bit of a scene at the judges table as he insisted on discussing the issue with the judges while Jason was attempting to get on with his briefing.
David Tappin, the chief flight judge, successfully shut the offending pilot down, and Jason was able to get started. The Eagle didn’t rotate on take-off but Jason did a great job of aborting the take-off and coming to a stop on the runway, turned, taxied back, did flight control check, and tried again.
The F-15 took to the air, and Jason flew all the maneuvers well and kept his head although he knew he was running low on fuel due to the aborted take-off.
After the flight, we defueled the plane and there was only about 2 oz of fuel left in the tanks. Jason will be static judged tomorrow as well.

Scott had the day “off” since he was neither scheduled to fly his first round or be static judged. Those activities will be tomorrow.

Stephan Volker returned Andy’s repaired wing and helped install the landing gear. By the end of the day, the plane had been reassembled and rebalanced.

Andy had hoped to fly this afternoon after the competition flights, but the rain was closing in so the flight has been postponed until tomorrow morning.

Each of the pilots and me were interviewed by RCJI magazine for 30-40 second “blurbs” which will be added to their website and Facebook feeds.

Sorry, falling asleep at the computer so I shall call it a night.

Regards,

Jim