RC Gliding, Category F3B, in Interlaken

After the gliders were inspected and marked, the first round began at 1:00 p.m. In summery weather with good thermals, many maximum scores were achieved in Discipline A and the subsequent cross-country flight. A total of six rounds were scheduled, each consisting of two disciplines—either A + B or A + C.

While competitors battled for points under good conditions on Saturday afternoon, Sunday turned into a veritable rain battle. The few minutes when it wasn’t pouring were rare. I don’t think there was a single competitor who managed to complete all their flights without getting wet. But even under these challenging conditions, there were many excellent flights in the three disciplines, and several thousand-meter flights were recorded.

Due to the lousy weather, two rounds were literally washed out, and the competition had to be called off after four rounds. The detailed standings, which include the results of each individual flight, provide sufficient insight into how the competition unfolded in terms of points, so I won’t go into further detail here. Worthy of special mention is the brilliant performance of the winner and the runner-up, who achieved an average of 900 points across the eight flights—and for the most part in cold, wet, and unpleasant weather—hats off to them!

If a competitor had the misfortune—and this was the case for many leading figures in F3B model aviation—to have a poor flight, their chances of victory were gone. There was simply no room for error this year. If things went downhill even once—if you couldn’t manage more than five or six laps in distance flying—you were automatically counted among the unlucky ones. But then again, gliding still requires a bit of luck, even if it sometimes seems like the same people are always at the top of the pack.

Even the winner said after a successful 1,000-meter race, “I got lucky.” That’s how it should be, and even if many people’s nerves are on edge and you have to make a quick trip to the restroom before the start, that’s all part of it: competition fever! But let’s remember, it’s supposed to stay fun—a leisure activity—even when medals are on the line. Only one person can be the winner; but everyone who was allowed to participate has won, because they gave it their all and, after all, were competitors in the Swiss Championship. Despite the rain and cold, it was a wonderful and interesting experience; yet when the regional chairman spoke in his closing remarks of a little more tolerance and camaraderie, he wasn’t entirely wrong.

As for the models, there was nothing new to see—except for the adventurous builders from Basel; but as long as Brillants and Cumulants are still competing in F3B championships, they’re fighting a losing battle.

Personally, I was most amazed by the winner’s large-scale model. While many thought it wouldn’t be able to achieve much in terms of speed, they were wrong: 13.0 seconds. But then again, it’s not just the model that counts in the end—everyone knows that by now.

It takes a lot of preparation and organization to host a Swiss championship. Thanks and recognition are due to the organizers, especially the chairman of MG Interlaken, Rudolf Augstburger, and his helpers. In addition to the extensive preparatory work, it took a lot of perseverance to operate the mirrors and time the runs for hours on end in that lousy weather, but everything went off without a hitch. Thank you very much!

Markus Burkhard