2005 European Control Line Championships

The 2005 European Control Line Championships were held in Gyula, Hungary over the period 16^th to 23^rd July. I had qualified, with my pitman Mike North, for the F2C Team Race. We travelled out on Friday the 15^th opting to fly, and then get a hire car for the onward journey. We flew into Budapest and picked up the hire car with no delays at all. The drive down to Gyula, a trip of 230km went without a hitch. It was quite interesting to see the young ladies at the side of the road advertising underwear (Or something) at 10:30 in the morning! The road part took about 3 hours, we weren’t rushing and the last 30km had extensive road works. A quick stop en route to view the flying site then onward to the hotel. We had booked into the Hotel Agro. There is a large scruffy looking warehouse building on the way into the town centre with “Hotel Agro” painted in large letters on it. It was not in the location given on the map so Mike and I realised quickly that it was probably and old advertisement for the hotel and ignored it, another group arriving much later and in darkness were not quite so astute and stopped wondering what they had let themselves in for! They were very relieved to discover their error. The hotel was, in fact very nice and in a good location directly opposite the Thermal Baths spa for which Gyula is famous.

For the evening meal we chose to eat in the hotel restaurant. It was then we found out how expensive the week was going to be. A meal with starter, main course and washed down with several beers came to just under £7 per head! There were some strange combinations of food but generally it was quite good. The language is practically impossible to use, but the never been known to fail pointing method saw us through. The only time this failed was on the Thursday evening when the waiter brought goose livers instead of tenderloin!

Saturday was free practice day with the circle open for everyone on a turn up and fly basis. The site itself is situated at the side of the main road into Gyula and is fairly new with signs that the aerobatics circle is the latest addition. One of the first things that strikes you about the team race cage is that from the inside, the background is very indistinct, making locating your pitman quite difficult. This was to prove to be the downfall of a number of teams during the heats. Mike and I had a good session with all three models doing around the 18.2 seconds for 10 laps speed, the new model being slightly quicker.

Official practice was on Sunday morning as was our processing slot. All the models passed scrutineering albeit one needed a small piece of balsa strategically glued on to satisfy the minimum fuselage depth measurement. It was the no 3 model and we didn’t intend to use it anyway.

The flow of information was quite restricted at times and it wasn’t until late on the Sunday evening that we found out the flying order for the heats on Monday. Mike and I were in the first heat. A tricky position to be in as the timekeepers and jury are all new and they are either red-hot giving out warnings or the opposite and quite lax while they find their feet. As it happened the Ukrainian team were disqualified at their first stop because the pilot put a foot out on landing. I think he feigned non-understanding because he didn’t land when called upon to do so by the jury and as a result held the rest of us up a bit. He was spoken to severely by the chairman of the jury. Our model performed reasonably well but hot restarts were again disappointing. Our time was 3:37.3. We had a time on the board and now we could start trying to improve for tomorrow. The most notable performance in this round was by the top Ukrainian pairing of Kramarenko/Chayka who recorded a time of 3:04.3! It was a two-up race that turned into a solo run after about 52 laps, so not spectacular as it first seems but still extremely fast. It turned out to be the only time that this team recorded, as they were either DQ’d or failed to finish every other race.

There was supposed to be a practise area where we could spend as much time fiddling as we wanted but the factory whose grounds that had been earmarked for this purpose had closed down and the gates locked with no-one having access. We had to make do with 10-minute slots in the flying circle and due to the close proximity of houses an 18:30 curfew was imposed.

Examination of the engine that we used in round 1 showed that the piston was very black and no discernable contact band on it. Because of this we swapped it with the other mono-head that we had brought. Test flights showed this motor in the new model was a good combination and we elected to use that for round 2.

First heat again for Barker/North! It was another relatively easy race with 3:33.5 the 

recorded time. Analyses of the split times showed that we had good airspeed (18.3secs/10) in traffic but lost a couple of seconds due to a slow start and second pit stop. Still the lead British team! We received our new Mazniak whilst there and early test flights show that it has potential, so we took the gamble to use it in round 3.

The draw for round 3 showed that we were in heat number 5 up against a Dutch team and a Russian giant. This bloke is a good 6-8 inches taller than me with a model that is a lot quicker. This was going to be a hard race. For the first tank all was going well but my motor cooked and needed a compression adjustment early on. At the second stop, the Dutch pilot had cut his motor and was well back from us when Mike released our model. I think what happened next is that the Dutch lad panicked and climbed rapidly which didn’t give the Russian time to react and he flew through the lines causing both models to retire. A bit of nifty hand swapping saved my model as the line draped across me and I continued. With hindsight I would have been better off cutting and going for a re-fly but we pressed on. The engine now cooled dramatically and needed the comp put back on. Appeals and counter appeals got both the other teams a re-fly but not us because we had recorded a time and were not to blame for the incident.

So that was our Euro Champs. 3:33.5 is nowhere near fast enough to get into the semis! The cut-off time for the semi finals was 3:19.0 and at this level of competition, 14.5 seconds is an eternity. We have taken a number of positive points away from the event. The last time I flew at the Euros, my best time was 3:56.6 so a 23 second improvement is good.

The semi finals saw some of the best racing of the whole competition, as you would expect. After semi final round 1 the whole field was separated by just11 seconds with the top 3 within 1.5 seconds of each other. In the second round 2^nd heat, the Austrian team of Fischer/Straniak were disqualified because the pitman released their model under a landing model, which caused a crash. This meant that the other two teams were granted a re-fly and because all semi finals have to be flown 3-up, the tenth place team of Bondarenko/Lerner were promoted into the semis. These guys are a class act and went on to produce the fastest time of the semis thus gaining a place in the final.

Due a delay in completing the combat final, the T/R was also delayed but when it did take place it was a very special race. The flying and pitting was superb. There were very few warnings issued and it was a fine example of the noble art of team racing. The Ukrainian pairing of Bondarenko/Lerner emerged as winners in a time of 6:33.4, just 3.4 seconds ahead of the Russian team Andreev/Vorobiev who in turn were 32 seconds in front of the Italian team of Martini/Menozzi.

Away from team race the British contingent did extremely well. We now have two European Champions in Combat with Mike Willance and Speed in the form of Peter Halman. In both of these classes we also got bronze medals and the Team Gold medals. This is the eleventh year in succession that the Speed team have won Team Gold in major championships!

The prize giving followed at the speed circle so we found out later! Unfortunately there was a breakdown in communications and we missed the ceremony, expecting that it would take place later in the evening at the banquet, so we were unable to clap and shout and generally make suitable cheering sounds. But by all accounts it went off pretty good.

The banquet was an outdoor affair at the Thermal Baths. It was a beautiful evening at a very good venue. The only down side was the nasty flying, biting beasties that were obviously out for a meal too! Luckily the bugs turned in early and left us to eat drink and be merry into the night. The food consisted of a cold buffet and you had to be quick to get in before the Russians and the French!! A very competent group played music all evening. I enjoyed the occasion; all they needed was a few barrels of real ale instead of gassy lager.

Mike and I had a day to kill on the Saturday, which we used to do a bit of touristy stuff. 

The weather was poor with rain for most of the morning. A visit to the castle took up a few hours, as did a walk round the town. Then all that was left was to eat, have a last beer or two then sleep. Our flight wasn’t until 18:20 so a leisurely drive back to Budapest and a wait around the airport was how we spent Sunday. The flight was late of course and the onward bus journey also didn’t go to plan so we ended up getting my daughter, Hannah to come and fetch us. Needless to say we were very tired when we got back to Alton.

We had had an excellent time and learnt loads. The whole experience has fired our enthusiasm to compete in more international competitions and ultimately qualify for the British Team again. It’s the World Championships in Spain next year…….

Chris Barker