Jet World Masters Report - Friday August 28

Hello from Leutkirch on this fine and sunny day.

Today was a big day with all pilots flying their final (3rd) round of flights.
Rod and Chad kicked off the festivities for Jet Team USA and laid down a great flight so both of them were pleased.

Jason was up next with Scott calling and the mighty F-15 took to the sky. Once again, Jason did a touch and go and this was a real crowd pleaser (not many people do them in competition) and he received cheers from the crowd as the Eagle climbed out.

After the judges break, Andy was up next with Scott calling. There was a problem starting the engine as the ECU battery had not been reconnected. They were on the clock and the connector was buried below the instrument panel so Scott wisely told Andy to break the panel free and plug in the battery. The engine started right up and the L-39 took to the air.

Scott was next (with David calling) and I thought this flight was likely their best. David was our closer and he did a fine job driving the MiG around the sky.
The 3rd round flight results won’t be published until the awards ceremony tomorrow night.

During the judges break, I made time to watch a couple of demo flights. I had been trying all week to see the huge Rafale with the twin BF300 turbines but somehow I was always busy tending to the pilots when the bird flew.
Today was my last chance, and I can tell you that the big bird looks great in the air.
One of the European Horizon Hobby reps was flying an Me163 Komet model. This was quite an interesting subject as the model, like its full scale brother, takes of using a dolly which is then dropped. The model is also quite fast man must be well over 250 mph.

There were spectators walking through the tents a lot today so crowd control was a bit challenging when were were trying to get the planes in and out of our pit area and fly. I found the Greene Girls sitting in the VIP section which is a bit east of our pit. The organizers opened the side panels of the tent which allowed the girls to watch the flying while remaining out of the sun. The open side and cross breeze created was a real lifesaver as things were really starting to get warm. Lots of spectators wanted to buy hats and T-shirts so I must remember to order extra next time as these could provide ~$1000+ in potential fund raising.

After today’s scheduled flights, we were allowed to take the planes out on the runway. Stephan Eich was our official prototgrapher who shot a variety of pics for us and our sponsors.
After posing for the “normal” shots for our sponsors, each of us had the choice of composing there own picture. I chose to place the pilots behind their planes while each pilot was facing as different direction with me calling the to walk towards me. I call it my Herding Cats photo as that’s what this job seems like sometimes.

At 7pm, after the photos, we were all invited out to dinner to a fabulous place that Sabine arranged. I had my 7pm managers meeting so I hung back and would try to catch up. The managers meeting was pretty straightforward, but the all-important after-meeting meeting (where everything real cmes out) didn’t break up until 8:30 which so catching up with the team for dinner wasn’t going to be possible.

One of the major items of discussion is the perceived inconsistency of the judging. It was suggested that the document used to train the judges wasn’t straightforward with setting a standard. Through my Dutch underground contacts, I managed to obtain a copy of the training video and training document cover sheet (attached). Looking through the material, it appears that the standards could be better defined. Here is a link to the video; make up your own mind. Judges Comments

Having missed dinner, I dropped by the Dutch tent to relax for a few minutes. I was warmly welcomed and the polite Dutch were nice enough to relieve me of the heavy load had I carried over to New Amsterdam. They fed me some BBQ chicken and a good old fashioned American cheeseburger. I was delicious. We had a few laughs and then I headed back to the hotel to write this blog and hit the rack as I was quite exhausted after a full day of managerial stuff.

Regards,

Jim