Belgrade F1D WC: It is finished

I am happy that tomorrow we don't have to return to the dome...or sauna, depending what your point of view is. I am sorry I didn't get to post yesterday but when we got back to our room, all I could do was to take a cold shower and crash into a ball on my bed. So today I have some great news to report. The photos below will give you some clues.

Yep there you have it, Parker took third in the Junior category, John took second in the Senior, and your US

seniors took top honors in the team category. It was an unbelievable couple of days. Parker finally got on the board with a 24:17 and then Curtis topped it with a 25:53 in round 4. Curtis had a 25+ in round round 3 but Parker had a wing tuck in a steer. Due to the high humidity, his all wood spars had softened and were flexing a lot so steering this plane was difficult. He will admit though that he took off a little fast after he caught it. In round 5 Parker put up a 24:56 and Curtis's prop went into a higher pitch and didn't climb high enough so he got a 23+. Going into the final round, we knew it was going to be tough but a couple last minute adjustments and a las ditch effort flight, Parker posted the highest Junior time of 26:44, well not counting Gabriela, she is in a league all her own and she put up another 30+. So it all came down to Eduard Moraru of Romania. He had the last plane in the air and needed a 27:18 to bump Parker out of third place. He managed a 26:10 which wasn't enough but it did secure the Romanian Juniors the top place in the Team event. It was exciting with Parker finishing 3rd and Curtis finishing 4th with only 16 seconds separating them.

In the Senior event we got to witness an incredible flight by Ivan Tregar in round three. He set a new world record for CAT III of 39:27. He steered into a thermal and just seemed to hang in the air. It was a perfect storm flight and everything fell into place. John did some heroics and almost caught Ivan when he posted a 36:33 in round 4. ( a new National Record by the way) Steve had a 30:36 in round 4, and Brett had a 34:54 which seemed to lock up the team event for them. Brett finished 5th in individual and Steve finished 14th. It was something to watch!

As promised, I am adding a couple photos of things I found interesting. Reiner Lotz, and Dieter Siebenmann of SUI, are testing a new design that is very short coupled with a quite small stab that has no airfoil but is completely flat. Here are a couple photos:

Reiner

They were having some issues with only being able to launch at about .25 torque. They intend to continue developing the design. I did notice that it recovers from trouble real well and looks very stable in the air. I also asked Dieter about his old blue winder with the internal counter and he was nice enough to actually open it for me so I could take a photo. This is a cool winder. And there is evidence that it is Swiss made byDieter:)