Openscale 2009, Brno-Medlánky, May 30-31 2009

This year Openscale should bring many foreign modellers and opening the scale of models for the contest. While the first expectation was not fullfilled, after passionate discussions all the models presented for static examination were accepted for the contest, regardless the scale.

Rapier Summit 2009

One week in advance it was clear that contrary to previous year the weather will simply be bad. And really, with Saturday afternoon exception it was raining all the time and arrival to Medlanky airfield was depressing. On the contrary the Saturday afternoon "window" was great. Rapier Summit (contest of models powered by Rapier rocket motors) was planned for the morning. When around noon the rain weakened for a moment, the only braves Adam Jeník and Martin Huk accompanied by Rapier motor producer Dr. Zikmund and several umbrella holders started their models Martin XB-51 and MiG-15. Adam's twin powered Martin, recovered from last year burnout, showed great first flight, unfortunatelly the only one. Further attempts were just short flights ending with crashes and sequential destruction of both models.

Winners of Schneider Cup fly-off

At the same time the static points awarding took place in U křivé vrtule restaurant in Medlanky Aeroclub building. When statics was done in the afternoon, the miracle happened - the clouds broke up, even the sun appeared and contest flight could start. At the beginning the fly-off contest of Schneider flying boats models took place. All modellers dusted off their old peanuts and after three rounds the winner was known - Lubomír Koutný followed by Petr Mikulášek and Pavel Vysočan. Two Saturday rounds of miniscale flights brought very good results. Similarly to the previous years the models with good static results also shown nice flying abilities, so the favouries role was approved by Antonín Alfery with twin F7F Tigercat, Lubomír Koutný with both P-63 Kingcobra and MiG DIS and Dušan Garba with Ta-152C. MiG I-224 by Pavel Stráník performed imposing flight, unfortunatelly the model kept the similarity with the real high ceiling fighter and in strong thermic it flew away and was lost on its first flight. Pavel Stráník's brand new Arado Ar-66 also showed good flight results. Nice flights were performed by Jiří Heřmánek with Arsenal VG-39 and Tomáš Heinl with his PAC-750XL. Others were not so succesfull, we expected more from Petr Mikulášek and his new Reggiane Re-2006, Adamu Jeník had problems with trimming flights of his new, beautiful and not fully finished Vought Vindicator. This holds for several other new models, Miles Magister by Jiří Merta and Arsenal VG-39 by Standa Černý deserve better trimming, same as beautiful Skyraider by Bernard Guest. Bernard at least amused the audience with the flight of his monstrous Northrop YB-49 flying wing, that showed wild air dances, however some of the flights were surprisingly good. In junior category the members of Salesian Model Junior Club led by Lubomír Koutný were flying five simple Dornier Komet models. One level up is Albert Stehlík from the same club, who was flying very well with nice Arsenal VG-39 and he also had new Bf-109C, that was not trimmed yet. The victory in the junior category slipped from him away by the smallest possible point difference, when Antonín Křižka jun. with Avia BH.1 Exp. model by his father scored just a bit more.

The winner of Openscale 2009

Awards

On Sunday morning there were still two contest rounds awaiting, but the weather was bad again – cold, wind and gray cloudy sky, with occasional rain. In these conditions the fight for the first place was performed between Antonín Alfery and Dušan Garba. They both improved Saturday's results, and finally the victory belongs to Tonda Alfery with Tigercat, Dušan Garba with Ta-152C took second place in front of Lubomír Koutný. Pavel Stráník had to "finish his cup of bitterness", when after Saturday loss of his MiG he lost on Sunday his Arado, that mid-air collided with Arsenal by Stanislav Černý. With respect to worsening weather there was no chance nor will for improving the results and modellers moved to U křivé vrtule restaurant, where results were announced and cups were awarded by the Brno - Medlánky city mayoress.

[Felda]

[Felda, Ruja]