The racing was great, the weather fine and wining / dining was excellent, so what more can one wish for?
The racing circle is just about perfect. The small problems taken care of very rapidly. One round was done on manual lap counting. But that was handled expertly by the timekeepers. The only protest against the timekeeping was in fact from when it was working and was unfounded (Video).
In general the flying standard has improved greatly in the last few years, only two models going down on power. Two landing incidents with catching lines was all, most people taking great care to be inside the flying circle when landing. In general the only problem seems to be people pitting inside the circle. From the tower it is very difficult to be fair with the warnings on this. We must change it so that the timekeepers will indicate with a flag, wether it is done in- or outside the circle. The practice of lying down inside the circle to retrieve a model, should also be disallowed. It is to dangerous, even if the mechanic sees the model coming, what can he do ? Try to run! The only thing which really causes problems is the pilots walking on the back of the circle. This is OK for them, but the ones behind really has to run fast, losing sight of their models. That and the pilots with their arms around the neck of the pilot in front really make life hard for the others. So this was warned as often as whipping. Whipping is normally not as dangerous for the flying as walking behind or taking the centre. I have included an Excel file with the heats, warnings and times for reference. [This is converted to HTML below./G.O.]
See you around in the circle.
Best regards
Luis Petersen