Trip Barber
Active Member
I recently sent the report below to the NAR Board (and to the other members of the 31-person US Team) with my thoughts about our recent adventure in Russia at the 16th World Spacemodeling Championships.
There is a team-selection flyoff to pick the 2008 US Team on the
first weekend of NARAM-49. It would be good (and it is the NAR's
desire) to get a strong turnout for this flyoff, including for the
Junior team, so that we can send an even better team overseas next time. I'd be happy to work with anyone who would like to try their hand at FAI modeling, and I am sure that most of my teammates would as well.
We have a long way to go in most events to reach the level of
competition modeling skill and consistency that the best of the
European fliers have reached, so that we can do better in the medals in future WSMC. It is not just about FAI flying, I learned things in the last year of doing this that will make me a better modeler in NAR flying as well. This is an experience worth trying if you're a contest flier looking for an extreme modeling challenge.
Trip Barber
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The US/NAR Spacemodeling Team is back from Russia. John Langford
did a superb job as Team Manger, Bill Stine did a great job as a
coach for the Juniors, and Ed Pearson was great as the first US
member of the 3-person FAI contest jury in many years. Our team
worked together very well and made a very favorable impression as
representatives of the US and the NAR. However except in R/C RG,
where our fliers are really world-class, we were totally outflown by
the Europeans and Chinese and a team Bronze in S8 (R/C RG) was our
only medal. Our lack of access to European motors over here to
regularly practice with (for PD, SD, B/G, Helo, and Altitude) and
our inability to get our own specialty motors for Scale, Scale
Altitude, and R/C RG shipped overseas to compete with this time were
real killers to team performance. The fact that we are the only
country that does not routinely fly local competition with models
using FAI designs and rules is also a major factor inhibiting
success. I'll leave it to John to lay out a plan for how to make
all this better, he has one.
Our kids were our best ambassadors, and Vern and Gleda Estes were
real "rock stars". The President of the Japan Association of
Rocketry broke down in tears of joy when he met Vern, and Vern and
Gleda received special recognition at every ceremonial event. We
did not have any incidents of personal behavior of any kind
embarassing to the US, and every member of the team was a great and
supportive teammate to every other and representative of the US. In
a country where alcoholism is out of control and there is no minimum
drinking age, and at an event where there were teams buying and
drinking beer from the launch site concession by 9 AM, we were the
most sober team there. We were also the friendliest team; I think
we (especially the kids) made a great impression on many people who
literally never see Americans. The Aurora employee/interpreter,
Grigoriy Vislobidov, who John brought with us was probably the best
ambassador of the US among us. He is a naturalized US citizen, wore
the US/NAR Team uniform, and quickly became the interpreter of
choice for the Russian organizers for all their major events --
imagine a US Team member, in our uniform, standing in front of a
stadium full of 10,000 Russians translating for the mayor of
Baikonur and a Russian general from their Space Center! English is
not widely spoken in Russia and we would have had a nightmare of a
time dealing with routine minor issues every day without Grigoriy.
The whole trip was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, truly
spectacular. The Russians, especially the city of Baikonur and the
Russian Federal Space Agency (their NASA equivalent), pulled out all
the stops and spared no expense in terms of on-site logistic
arrangements, hospitality, etc. The WSMC was the biggest event in a
long time in that unique walled-off limited-access Russian city of
65,000 people sitting out in the middle of the Kazakhstan desert.
The opening and closing ceremonies involved Olympic-style march-ins
by all 25 national teams in front of an audience of 10,000 locals in
their soccer stadium, followed by choreographed dance performances
by hundreds of local school students in elaborate costumes. Russian
and Kazakh kids mobbed us all two weeks for autographs. We traveled
the 20 or so miles from town to the launch site each day (departing
before dawn, returning after dark, you're on the bus or you miss the
day) in a convoy of 20+ busses with police escort vehicles and with
police on every bus. The Russian police and Army provided extensive
launch site crowd control and security. This was very much a
government-sponsored/funded event intended to one-up every country
that has ever previously held a WSMC. There is no way we could ever
do something on this scale in the US. Even holding a basic WSMC to
current standards here would probably take $500K of corporate
sponsorship funds at a minimum.
The WSMC launch site was built in the middle of the desert by paving
a large area with concrete that became a "city" with a double row of
elaborate furnished and wood-floored "tents" for each team,
concessions stands, a dining hall, a row of 25 flagpoles,
etc. "Main Street" down the middle of the team row was constantly
thronged with fliers of all nations, hundreds of locals out to look
at the foreigners, etc. It was like that scene on the planet
Tatoowinie in Star Wars, with aliens of every type mingling and
bartering. There were two 25-position launch ranges (one position
for each country's Seniors, another for its Juniors) with separate
staffs. The launch site extended for several hundred miles in each
direction of barren Kazakh desert, populated with wild camels. From
the range you could see the huge antennas of a Russian space launch
tracking station, the tops of a Soyuz launch complex, a Kazakh
Muslim cemetery, and nothing else -- forever. The weather was
perfect, deep blue clear skies, warm (once the sun came up), minimal
wind.
The tour of the Russian Space Center at Baikonur was unbelievable,
they held nothing back. We saw and walked directly on the launch
pad where Yuri Gagarin began manned spaceflight -- and which was
used the day before we arrived in Baikonur to fly the 120th or so
manned flight out of there. We walked down the production line
where Soyuz launch vehicles are assembled, a vast building with
several dozen launch vehicle sections lined up in flight readiness.
We went in the building where the Soyuz capsules are checked out and
certified for flight and were given a tour by the no-nonsense
Russian engineer who runs it today and has the final go/no-go on
each manned Soyuz or unmanned Progress flight. We saw the ruins of
the Energia/Buran assembly and launch complex and saw a Buran
shuttle. We saw the memorial and mass grave of 70 Soviets who died
in a launch vehicle on-pad accident in 1960. We saw the little
house where Yuri Gagarin and the early cosmonauts spent the night
before launch and some of us got to see the hotel and conference
facility where the cosmonauts stay today. It goes on and on --
things tourists and Russian citizens have never seen. We also saw
the Kremlin and Red Square in a tour on the way into the country
through Moscow. This was truly a great personal experience!
The Russian organizers produced a DVD with video coverage of every
aspect of the whole event, and a CD with 3000 professionally-done
photos from throughout the event. This was made available to each
team on the day of departure; the Russian Federal Space Agency put
it all together and produced it within 24 hours of the closing
ceremony. John has our team copy. In addition James Duffy will be
putting together a CD with the best 1000 or so of the pictures than
any of us on the US team took.
The level of skill, craftsmanship, and advance-preparation at a WSMC
is extraordinarily far above anything we have in the US, much more
so than when I last competed internationally 20 years ago. Except
in Scale, DQ's are rare and any team that has any member DQ in any
duration-event flight is not a team medal contender. In a duration
event, anyone who cannot achieve a "max" in all three rounds, even
in near-zero thermal conditions, is not an individual medal
contender. In an altitude event, anyone who does not have a
European-style piston launcher (far beyond US technology levels) is
not a medal contender. The optimum designs for the flight vehicles
in most FAI events bear little resemblance to the designs that are
optimal for similarly-named events under the much-different US Pink
Book rules. Even in the couple of events where FAI rules do not
drive major design differences, the intense level of model rocket
competition in Europe has advanced the state of the art in
competition rocket and launcher design (except in R/C RG) far beyond
anything in the US. We are far behind the power curve in
competition model rocket design and reliability and it will take a
very focused long-term effort to regain competitive status for a US
Team in most events. Our current process of picking a new team a
year in advance with little competition in the selection process,
and having them start from near-scratch with each person doing a
different design will not work. Having team members show up at a
WSMC with unfinished rockets and no advance flight testing (which
happened in a few cases this year) will not work. Having a team
show up and try to fly with engines not available to them in the US
that they have never seen before, and not be able to get delivery of
the special US engines they tried to ship over (which happened this
year) will not work. No amount of great on-scene teamwork and
mutual support (which we had this year) can compensate for these
disadvantages given the level of competition we face. Rebuilding
the US program is going to take a number of dedicated long-term
volunteers and fliers several years to achieve.
The next WSMC is in Spain in 2008. The site is Liepada, about 100
miles north of Barcelona. The hotels and food (which were
distinctly NOT the highlight of the Russian WSMC) will certainly be
much better, the duration of the event will be less, and access to
the event will be easier. I doubt much of the rest of the
organization will be nearly as good as the 2006 or other recent
WSMC; the Spanish organization is quite small. They plan to hold
the 2008 WSMC in late August, so not as many Junior team members of
all nations will have to miss school to attend. The FAI CIAM has
decreed for whatever reason that future WSMC, starting with the one
in 2008, may have only 5 events rather than the customary 8, leaving
the choice of which 5 of the 8 up to the organizer each time. There
is a CIAM meeting in December (in Muncie) where this issue of 5
events may be appealed (no one in the world spacemodeling community
likes it), but I suspect it will stand due to pressure from the
model aircraft people. The Spanish WSMC organizers will pick which
5 of the events they will hold after this CIAM meeting, but maybe
not before next summer. This will complicate our getting a head
start on flight vehicle design and coaching of new fliers to compete
for team slots, since we do not know which events to focus our
efforts on.
I'm glad I went and glad I flew. Our team represented the US and
the NAR very well, and I am proud to have been part of it.
Trip Barber
NAR VP and 2006 US Team Member
There is a team-selection flyoff to pick the 2008 US Team on the
first weekend of NARAM-49. It would be good (and it is the NAR's
desire) to get a strong turnout for this flyoff, including for the
Junior team, so that we can send an even better team overseas next time. I'd be happy to work with anyone who would like to try their hand at FAI modeling, and I am sure that most of my teammates would as well.
We have a long way to go in most events to reach the level of
competition modeling skill and consistency that the best of the
European fliers have reached, so that we can do better in the medals in future WSMC. It is not just about FAI flying, I learned things in the last year of doing this that will make me a better modeler in NAR flying as well. This is an experience worth trying if you're a contest flier looking for an extreme modeling challenge.
Trip Barber
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The US/NAR Spacemodeling Team is back from Russia. John Langford
did a superb job as Team Manger, Bill Stine did a great job as a
coach for the Juniors, and Ed Pearson was great as the first US
member of the 3-person FAI contest jury in many years. Our team
worked together very well and made a very favorable impression as
representatives of the US and the NAR. However except in R/C RG,
where our fliers are really world-class, we were totally outflown by
the Europeans and Chinese and a team Bronze in S8 (R/C RG) was our
only medal. Our lack of access to European motors over here to
regularly practice with (for PD, SD, B/G, Helo, and Altitude) and
our inability to get our own specialty motors for Scale, Scale
Altitude, and R/C RG shipped overseas to compete with this time were
real killers to team performance. The fact that we are the only
country that does not routinely fly local competition with models
using FAI designs and rules is also a major factor inhibiting
success. I'll leave it to John to lay out a plan for how to make
all this better, he has one.
Our kids were our best ambassadors, and Vern and Gleda Estes were
real "rock stars". The President of the Japan Association of
Rocketry broke down in tears of joy when he met Vern, and Vern and
Gleda received special recognition at every ceremonial event. We
did not have any incidents of personal behavior of any kind
embarassing to the US, and every member of the team was a great and
supportive teammate to every other and representative of the US. In
a country where alcoholism is out of control and there is no minimum
drinking age, and at an event where there were teams buying and
drinking beer from the launch site concession by 9 AM, we were the
most sober team there. We were also the friendliest team; I think
we (especially the kids) made a great impression on many people who
literally never see Americans. The Aurora employee/interpreter,
Grigoriy Vislobidov, who John brought with us was probably the best
ambassador of the US among us. He is a naturalized US citizen, wore
the US/NAR Team uniform, and quickly became the interpreter of
choice for the Russian organizers for all their major events --
imagine a US Team member, in our uniform, standing in front of a
stadium full of 10,000 Russians translating for the mayor of
Baikonur and a Russian general from their Space Center! English is
not widely spoken in Russia and we would have had a nightmare of a
time dealing with routine minor issues every day without Grigoriy.
The whole trip was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, truly
spectacular. The Russians, especially the city of Baikonur and the
Russian Federal Space Agency (their NASA equivalent), pulled out all
the stops and spared no expense in terms of on-site logistic
arrangements, hospitality, etc. The WSMC was the biggest event in a
long time in that unique walled-off limited-access Russian city of
65,000 people sitting out in the middle of the Kazakhstan desert.
The opening and closing ceremonies involved Olympic-style march-ins
by all 25 national teams in front of an audience of 10,000 locals in
their soccer stadium, followed by choreographed dance performances
by hundreds of local school students in elaborate costumes. Russian
and Kazakh kids mobbed us all two weeks for autographs. We traveled
the 20 or so miles from town to the launch site each day (departing
before dawn, returning after dark, you're on the bus or you miss the
day) in a convoy of 20+ busses with police escort vehicles and with
police on every bus. The Russian police and Army provided extensive
launch site crowd control and security. This was very much a
government-sponsored/funded event intended to one-up every country
that has ever previously held a WSMC. There is no way we could ever
do something on this scale in the US. Even holding a basic WSMC to
current standards here would probably take $500K of corporate
sponsorship funds at a minimum.
The WSMC launch site was built in the middle of the desert by paving
a large area with concrete that became a "city" with a double row of
elaborate furnished and wood-floored "tents" for each team,
concessions stands, a dining hall, a row of 25 flagpoles,
etc. "Main Street" down the middle of the team row was constantly
thronged with fliers of all nations, hundreds of locals out to look
at the foreigners, etc. It was like that scene on the planet
Tatoowinie in Star Wars, with aliens of every type mingling and
bartering. There were two 25-position launch ranges (one position
for each country's Seniors, another for its Juniors) with separate
staffs. The launch site extended for several hundred miles in each
direction of barren Kazakh desert, populated with wild camels. From
the range you could see the huge antennas of a Russian space launch
tracking station, the tops of a Soyuz launch complex, a Kazakh
Muslim cemetery, and nothing else -- forever. The weather was
perfect, deep blue clear skies, warm (once the sun came up), minimal
wind.
The tour of the Russian Space Center at Baikonur was unbelievable,
they held nothing back. We saw and walked directly on the launch
pad where Yuri Gagarin began manned spaceflight -- and which was
used the day before we arrived in Baikonur to fly the 120th or so
manned flight out of there. We walked down the production line
where Soyuz launch vehicles are assembled, a vast building with
several dozen launch vehicle sections lined up in flight readiness.
We went in the building where the Soyuz capsules are checked out and
certified for flight and were given a tour by the no-nonsense
Russian engineer who runs it today and has the final go/no-go on
each manned Soyuz or unmanned Progress flight. We saw the ruins of
the Energia/Buran assembly and launch complex and saw a Buran
shuttle. We saw the memorial and mass grave of 70 Soviets who died
in a launch vehicle on-pad accident in 1960. We saw the little
house where Yuri Gagarin and the early cosmonauts spent the night
before launch and some of us got to see the hotel and conference
facility where the cosmonauts stay today. It goes on and on --
things tourists and Russian citizens have never seen. We also saw
the Kremlin and Red Square in a tour on the way into the country
through Moscow. This was truly a great personal experience!
The Russian organizers produced a DVD with video coverage of every
aspect of the whole event, and a CD with 3000 professionally-done
photos from throughout the event. This was made available to each
team on the day of departure; the Russian Federal Space Agency put
it all together and produced it within 24 hours of the closing
ceremony. John has our team copy. In addition James Duffy will be
putting together a CD with the best 1000 or so of the pictures than
any of us on the US team took.
The level of skill, craftsmanship, and advance-preparation at a WSMC
is extraordinarily far above anything we have in the US, much more
so than when I last competed internationally 20 years ago. Except
in Scale, DQ's are rare and any team that has any member DQ in any
duration-event flight is not a team medal contender. In a duration
event, anyone who cannot achieve a "max" in all three rounds, even
in near-zero thermal conditions, is not an individual medal
contender. In an altitude event, anyone who does not have a
European-style piston launcher (far beyond US technology levels) is
not a medal contender. The optimum designs for the flight vehicles
in most FAI events bear little resemblance to the designs that are
optimal for similarly-named events under the much-different US Pink
Book rules. Even in the couple of events where FAI rules do not
drive major design differences, the intense level of model rocket
competition in Europe has advanced the state of the art in
competition rocket and launcher design (except in R/C RG) far beyond
anything in the US. We are far behind the power curve in
competition model rocket design and reliability and it will take a
very focused long-term effort to regain competitive status for a US
Team in most events. Our current process of picking a new team a
year in advance with little competition in the selection process,
and having them start from near-scratch with each person doing a
different design will not work. Having team members show up at a
WSMC with unfinished rockets and no advance flight testing (which
happened in a few cases this year) will not work. Having a team
show up and try to fly with engines not available to them in the US
that they have never seen before, and not be able to get delivery of
the special US engines they tried to ship over (which happened this
year) will not work. No amount of great on-scene teamwork and
mutual support (which we had this year) can compensate for these
disadvantages given the level of competition we face. Rebuilding
the US program is going to take a number of dedicated long-term
volunteers and fliers several years to achieve.
The next WSMC is in Spain in 2008. The site is Liepada, about 100
miles north of Barcelona. The hotels and food (which were
distinctly NOT the highlight of the Russian WSMC) will certainly be
much better, the duration of the event will be less, and access to
the event will be easier. I doubt much of the rest of the
organization will be nearly as good as the 2006 or other recent
WSMC; the Spanish organization is quite small. They plan to hold
the 2008 WSMC in late August, so not as many Junior team members of
all nations will have to miss school to attend. The FAI CIAM has
decreed for whatever reason that future WSMC, starting with the one
in 2008, may have only 5 events rather than the customary 8, leaving
the choice of which 5 of the 8 up to the organizer each time. There
is a CIAM meeting in December (in Muncie) where this issue of 5
events may be appealed (no one in the world spacemodeling community
likes it), but I suspect it will stand due to pressure from the
model aircraft people. The Spanish WSMC organizers will pick which
5 of the events they will hold after this CIAM meeting, but maybe
not before next summer. This will complicate our getting a head
start on flight vehicle design and coaching of new fliers to compete
for team slots, since we do not know which events to focus our
efforts on.
I'm glad I went and glad I flew. Our team represented the US and
the NAR very well, and I am proud to have been part of it.
Trip Barber
NAR VP and 2006 US Team Member