World Aerobatic Championships, Burgos Spain 6/22/05 - 7/2/05

US Aerobatic Team Website ^ | 6/21/05 | Dasher

[Dashing Dasher]

Tomorrow marks the beginning of a little known international sporting competition.

The US Aerobatic Team takes on the world at Burgos, Spain. I would like to share my interest in this sport with my FReeper FRiends. I hope you find this interesting.

I am getting updates from three of the team members on a regular basis - plus there is a website that will have scores, updates, pictures, etc. keeping all of us FANS involved in the day to day competition going on in Spain.

This competition is held somewhere in the world every other year. Last time (2003), it was in Lakeland, Florida, USA. Trophies are given out for individuals and for teams. In 2003, the Russians placed 1, 2, 3, with the highest ranking USA Pilot, Robert Armstrong, coming in fourth place. The team results were Russia, France, USA.

These are the best (competition) aerobatic pilots in the world. The United States has a team of ten - six men and four women - who will be representing us.

Other countries we know will be bringing teams include Russia, Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, plus - who knows who else will show up... There is word we will see pilots - but maybe not whole teams from Finland, South Africa, Australia, Sweden, and Czech Republic. A minimum of three pilots is necessary to form an actual team.

The US Team will be flying several different airplanes. The American Made Zivko Edge 540 will be flown by Vicki Cruse, Janet Fitzke, and Kirby Chambliss. Also American Made is the Panzl S-330 which will be flown by Allyson Parker Lauck. Debby Rihn-Harvey has competed in the Worlds three times and David Martin, another WAC Veteran, will be flying the French made CAP-232. Robert Armstrong will be flying a CAP-231. Hubie Tolson, Michael Racy and Zach Heffley (our youngest team member at 24) will be flying the Russian Sukhoi 26.

Each competition starts with a Known also known as a Compulsory or Q program. Each pilot will fly the same sequence of maneuvers and will be judged by an international panel. The next program is the Freestyle. This allows each pilot to put together a sequence of maneuvers of their own creation.

Once the first two programs are flown, the first of the two Unknowns begin. These are a set of flight sequences designed by committee and given to the competitors 24 hours before they need to fly them. This is very difficult and is really separates the wheat from the shaft, if you know what I mean.

I will continue to update this thread to keep everyone up to date on what is happening in Spain. Please feel free to visit these websites for additional information – or if you have specific questions – let me know. I’ll try to answer them for you.

http://www.usaerobaticteam.com/htmlfile/index.php

http://www.iac.org

http://events.fai.org/aerobatics/calendar.asp

[Dashing Dasher]

Rank

Country	Country point	Pilot	Pilot point
1	RUS	22972.1433
			Sergei RAKHMANIN	7872.5998
			Oleg SHPOLYANSKI	7758.6659
			Mikhail MAMISTOV	7340.8776
2	FRA	22107.8159
			Renaud ECALLE	7773.7815
			Jean-Michel DELORME	7263.0326
			Francois LEVOT	7071.0018
3	USA	21244.5341
			Kirby CHAMBLISS	7440.4638
			Robert ARMSTRONG	7100.1885
			Zach HEFLEY	6703.8818
4	GBR	18637.4872
			Tom CASSELS	6877.3973
			Gerald COOPER	6598.4036
			Nick ONN	5161.6863
5	ESP	18342.7069
			Castor FANTOBA	7266.7174
			Juan VELARDE	6207.5500
			Juan SOCIAS	4868.4395
6	ITA	17931.1479
			Maurizio COSTA	6586.4611
			Renzo VOCERI	5828.1126
			Paolo ZOPPI	5516.5742

[Steelerfan]

Thanks for the information. I appologize if you answered this in an earlier post but what does the pp% stand for? And are the russians always this good?

[jaydubya2]

[Dashing Dasher]

If you look in post #80 - for the sequence example.

Each figure in a sequence has a K value, basically a difficulty number - like in diving for example. A judge gives a score (1- 10 based on a specific judging criteria) and the K value x Score for each figure is totaled.

The Percentage is the competitors score vs. a perfect score.

However - the Freestyle scores get a percent bonus if the competitor uses less than 10 figures.

A Freestyle must contain certain figures and the lowest number of figures would be 6 - which gives you a 15% bonus in the Unlimited category. 7 figures = 10.5% bonus, etc.


About the Russians - yes, they have always been this good. This is their "Job" whereas the US team actually have real jobs and do this as a hobby.

Hobbyists vs. Professionals - makes a big difference.


More soon... Unknown 2 is underway.

[Dashing Dasher]

Report from Burgos..........



The day has finally come - with the exception of the 4-minute Free and
closing ceremonies, the 2005 World Aerobatic Championships are
finished.

Team USA ran into a few hurdles along the way, but in the end, we all
did our best and are proud of our efforts.

Russian Sergei Rahkmanin is again the World Aerobatic Champion and
men's overall champion. In second place was another Russian, Oleg
Shpolyansky. In third place was French phenom Renaud Ecale. Renaud
came to Spain intending to fly "Bubbles", the Cap that had the run in
with Tiger Tom, but the unfortunate head on collision (on the ground
thank goodness) could have kept him out of the competition. But
thanks to the Italians Maurizio Costa and Elena Corte, Renaud flew a
borrowed plane and lead the competition until the final flight.
Simply amazing.

The US Men finished in the men's division in the following order:

Kirby Chambliss - 7th
Robert Armstrong - 11th
Zach Heffley - 13th
Hubie Tolson - 15th
David Martin - 21st
Michael Racy - 33rd

The women's overall was swept by the Russians with Svetlana Kapanina
in first, Elena Klimovitch in 2nd, and Svetlana Fedorenko in third.

The US Women finished in the women's division in the following order:

Debby Rihn-Harvey - 5th
Vicki Cruse - 8th
Allyson Paker-Lauck - 10th
Janet Fitzke - 11th

The 4-minute Freestyle whose winners will not only be awarded trophies
and titles, but also prize money, will be flown tomorrow.

The general awards and closing ceremonies will also be held tomorrow.

Tonight, Team USA hosted a wine and cheese party for all the
contestants. It was a great time, and was really the first time since
the contest began that a social event was held for all participants.
Also, the Teams are split between 3 or 4 different hotels, so we
rarely see each other outside the contest/flying environment. So
needless to say, a great party was needed so that we could all cut
loose a little and enjoy our time with our international friends, old
and new. A great time was had by all.

[Dashing Dasher]

Friend of his?

[Steelerfan]

Just caught the post. Thanks for posting the results and keeping us all informed. Sounds like it was a heck of an event.

[Dashing Dasher]

Lots of Vino Tinto!

The gang had a blast and we ended up in Third again - which was expected.

The Russian Pilots are amazing.
The French are awesome and we are really, really good - but not good enough - yet.

[GoldCountryRedneck]

Thanks for the update and this whole thread...

...and CONGRATULATIONS to the USA Team!!!