Airships over Ingria, First competition flight

Airships over Ingria, First Competition Flight

[SATURDAY] [SUNDAY] [SUNDAY EVENING FLIGHT] [TUESDAY] [WEDNESDAY] [ORANIENBAUM] [FLIGHT 2] [FLIGHT 3] [PRIZE GIVING] [COMPETITORS] [DOCUMENTS] [STAFF] [FIRST PAGE] [COMPETING WITH AIRSHIPS]

First Competition Flight; Monday June 23

Task sheet gives two tasks: first a Point to Point Race from Tuutari to Korpi airfield, a distance of 10½ km, and then a Precision Task with four targets at Korpi.

POINT TO POINT RACE WITH DECLARED TIME. The race has two parts, Fastest Time and Declared Time. Fastest time brings 500 points, achieved time closest to declared time another 500 points. Clearing launch area, start gate and finish gate give100 points each.

Eckardt Körner gets to Korpi in 30 minutes, which means average speed of 23 km/h. Ludmila Ushakova is the slowest with 1 hour 21 minutes; she must have had some trouble. Nikolai Galkin is also very slow (1 hour 5 minutes) but the difference of his declared and real time is only 2 seconds. Points of the three best: Körner 1100, Galkin 975, Contegiacomo 925.

MONDAY MORNING AT 6:09. BESNARD AND CONTEGIACOMO START FROM TUUTARI TOWARDS KORPI AIRDROME. AIM: TO BE FAST AND EXACTLY AS FAST AS ONE HAS DECLARED TO BE. THE POLE WITH YELLOW AND GREEN TOP IS PART OF THE START GATE.

TWO OF THE TARGETS AT KORPI AIRDROME ARE SHOWN ON THIS TASK SHEET APPENDIX, TWO OTHER ARE DEFINED BY COORDINATES.

TWO CIRCULAR AND TWO CROSS TARGETS. Best marker drop at cross target gives 500 points; no points for markers more than 2 meters from center.

Bull's eye target is a 2.8 meter diameter circle with 4 graduated scoring rings. 300 points for dropping on red, 270 for yellow, 180 for blue, 90 for white, and no score for markers outside target.

LEONID TYUKHTYAEV DROPS HIS RED MARKER ON A CROSS TARGET AT KORPI AIRDROME TARMAC.

Nikolai Galkin wins the Precision Task by dropping on red in both bull's eyes and with 4 cm and 13 cm results at cross targets. Points of the three best: Galkin 1350, Bamberski 1300, Besnard 1155. Galkin leads the pack of 11 competitors after first flight with total of 2325 points.

links
Tuutari launch field in Wikimapia
Korpi airdrome in Wikimapia

FINNISH PLACE-NAMES ON TASK SHEET. Being a Finn I was glad to see that the only place-names on the task sheet, Tuutari and Korpi, were in Finnish language. How come? Has Finland reached so far at some time in history? No, but Sweden has.

INGRIA WAS PART OF SWEDEN FROM 1617 TO 1702, WHEN PETER I CONQUERED IT. DURING THE SWEDISH RULE THOUSANDS OF FARMERS MOVED TO INGRIA FROM FINLAND THAT WAS THEN PART OF SWEDEN. ABOUT 90% OF THE POPULATION SPOKE FINNISH AS LATE AS THE END OF 19TH CENTURY.

My title "Airships over Ingria" reflects history and nostalgia, not the realities of present day. The geographic and cultural entity called Inkeri, Ingermanland and Ingria exists only in the past. The descendants of the Ingrian people live now in Finland, Estonia and Russia, but very few in area of former Ingria. The fate of the Ingrians in Soviet Union makes for grim reading.

JURY BRIEFED ON PROCEDURES. Jury paid visit to Event Director's office during afternoon and the procedures of the scoring staff were explained to us. We also nosed around in the weather office where no less than six people were studying satellite images etc. After seeing the preliminary scores of the morning flight Jury decided to give advice to Event Director on how to interpret rule 11.2, Ground Contact.

BUSY STAFF IN EVENT DIRECTOR'S OFFICE. FROM LEFT: PIT THIBO, JERZY CZERNIAWSKI, PIT'S ASSISTANT COLETTE MANHES, CHIEF SCORER DOMINIQUE PETITPERE.

EVERYBODY GETS BRIEFED ON WEATHER. Task briefing turns out to be weather briefing in three acts. The official championship weather briefer, Senior Forecaster Dr. Olga Bojko, tells in detail and lenght how things are, without saying if we can fly in the evening or not - but we could draw our conclusions. To Pit's straight question she answers, after a long pause, that the probability for a flight is quite low. Pit poses the same question to Martin, his weather advisor, and gets a succint answer: "It is too windy."

Safety officer Markus Haggeney has collected forecasts from the web and shares all of it with us. Driving to launch field would be useless. Weather gets flyable on Thursday. Tuesday morning's task briefing is also cancelled. It is as bad as that.

SAFETY OFFICER MARKUS HAGGENEY GIVES AT TASK BRIEFING HIS FIRST "MARKUS SHOW", A COMPILATION OF ALL WEATHER DATA PERTINENT TO OUR SITUATION. THIS TIME IT INDICATES THAT WE CAN EXPECT FLYABLE WEATHER ON THURSDAY, BUT NOT EARLIER.

[CONTINUE TO TUESDAY]

[CONTINUE TO SECOND COMPETITION FLIGHT]