Finally, i get to do the report for Lünen F3B 2024. Work keept me really busy since. Even the training for 2025 did not start yet. 😉 Sorry for the long delay.

Lünen is always a special date in the F3B calendar. It is the oldest still active F3B competition that we have and that is reflected in every aspect. The perfect organization of the competition is only one small aspect of this. It starts well before that. The get-together with the other pilots on Friday evening, drinking a beer, is a perfect start into a great weekend of F3B. For the following days you can also be sure to be perfectly catered and cared for. Especially with the famous Currywurst for lunch.

A little atypical for Lünen was the morning on both days: only very little fog that was basically gone when the competition started.
We had a little wind from north-eastern direction. The forecasts predicted a little bit more.
But they were not wrong: The wind was just a bit higher up. This resulted in most teams having too small diameter lines on their winches and the line breaks started immediately with the first launch. The first group needed two new start attempts because of lots of line crossings. After some hints from the competition director, most realized to better use a thicker line next time and finally we were able to start the competition.
Duration was not easy but most of the pilots managed to stay up long enough. A small increase in difficulty came from the new flight restriction zone to the east where the emergency helicopter flies. A good addition and well executed with a helper that gives feedback to the CD and pilots to stay out of that area.

The wind decreased during the day and the launch altitudes with the following speed task were far from what they are on every training day. Steffen made a great 14.57s as the second pilot with almost a second distance to the second Jürgen Pölzl. I was not happy with my 18s flight, but it was still mid-tier since a lot of pilots were in the 18s-20s range. The bad launch altitudes just did not allow for much more. Thermals also became stronger making it a bit of a lottery when it was your time to fly.

Distance was quite normal with usually 20-26 legs for the winner. Just the thermals were again well visible with only small stripes of good air and immediate sinking next to it.

After the lunch break we continued with distance of round 2. And we were immediately in for a tread! Björn Schlotmann and Theo Weberschock opened with a win with 11 legs!  Not every day that you see this.
And it was not even the worst conditions for a group. Group 5 was won by Josef Singer with just 10 legs, directly after Markus Becker showed 27 legs in group 4. So you can clearly see that there were some strong and big thermals moving around. Conditions changed very quickly and made tactics quite difficult.

Speed became even slower on average. The median was almost 19s. Just 21 pilots under 18s.
And the wind keeps getting less. 16s and 17s were really good results.

The final duration was again quite uninteresting. Just the first group got an incredible thermal with all aircraft very high up in the air. And with this big boom, the thermals decided to just fade away. The last groups had to fight a bit, but all with good results.
In the end we completed 2 entire rounds on the first day.

Sunday began with the election of the German “Aktivensprecher”. We had four suggested names. Probably something that had never happened before. In the end, Reinhold Krischke got elected with the most votes. This clearly shows the high interest of the pilots in F3B and their willingness to participate and engage for our sport.

Wind conditions did not change much. Almost no wind on the ground with a bit more from 50m onward. Thermals were not really present yet, just areas wit a little less sink speed. Every mistake was immediately penalized and show up in the scoring sheets with multiple 8 and 9 minute flights.

Distance was quite average with mostly around 20 legs for the winner out of still quite bad launch altitudes. We had several problems in team Foo with no clear wins and several lost legs. We might have to do more regular training to reduce the mistakes…

Speed very similar to Saturday. Just this time it was Andreas Böhlen wo did an amazing flight, almost a second fast than Andreas Herrig. Even he admitted that this flight was quite risky, but after a bad speed result in round 2 he had not a lot to lose.

After lunch we continued with a final speed in opposite order of the ranking. Andreas Böhlen apparently memorized the last flight and was just a little slower with 15.23s. I was finally able to not do major mistakes during the flight and wound up third with 15.91s behind Jan Stonavsky (15.77s). What a great way to end the season.

The final score was won by Jürgen Pölzl with all distance flights won and speed always in the top 7. Jens Buchert with 98.85% and Steffen Besemer with 98,58%. Andreas Böhlen just missed the podium, but a great recovery!

But the competition was not over! The best 8 pilots get to fly a speed Flyoff. Flying 1 vs 1 in a Knockout race for the fastest speed time within 5 minutes. This is always a great spectacle and a lot of fun. I was so happy to be a part of it as flight helper of Steffen and getting some lines back for Matthias and Andreas. I completely forgot the time and how the Lünen price giving works. And this was my biggest mistake of the weekend. I only had a few minutes left of the Flyoff until the pricegiving ceremony and when I had to announce the overall winner of the CONTEST eurotour. Unfortunately, I made a big mistake in that rush.
Steffen Besemer wins the CONTEST Eurotour F3B 2024 with 299.09 points! Second, and where I made the mistake, is Jürgen Pölzl with 298.14%. Third is Jens Buchert with 297.53%.
I want to again apologize to Jürgen for this mistake. It should not have happened. I even prepared his certificate before the competition, but just did not realize that there was one decimal comma instead of a point in the spreadsheet.
However, this is something I can fix during the winter break. My goal is to have this point calculation done automatically by a program next year.

So you can see there is already some things going on for next year.

The official registration of the competitions with Fai is in a few days and you can already see the preliminary dates on fooblog.de and on https://www.f3g.info/competitions.

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Liveblog:
Nette Leute, F3B, Currywurst, Freibier, wir kommen😎

ergebnisse/results:

https://f3xvault.com/?action=event&function=event_view&event_id=3358

12:30

sorry for the late first post. we started with little wind on the ground and only minimal fog. perfect weather for Lünen!

Duration started with conplete reglights twice because of linecrossings at launch. The wind 50m up is a lot stronger…

Duration was not easy, but usually doable with only a few people not making the 10 minutes.

Launch altitutes are not the best.

Afterward we continued with speed. wind got slower again, the resulting altitudes even worse. depending on the infrequent thermals, the speed times differentiated quite a lot. Steffen with a wonderful 14,4s, i was not happy with my 18s flight.

Now we continued with Distance. Usually, we have around 22 legs for the best pilot.

12:50

just a quick info:

the plannings for the f3b year 2025 are already running.

Sebastian Haase, Harald Vieweger and me are in contact to give all of you an early information about the competitions. The potential organizers will get mail from us soon as well.  (registration with FAI is until 11. November latest)

This is a link to the current planning: be aware that these dates might change quite a bit in the next 1-2 months. I will make an update after Lünen with this link and an update what dates are already fixed.

We try to not have f3b and f3g at the same date. But we also agreed that we want to keep the single class competitions  going while having some organizers that want to do both f3b and f3g simultaneously.

A big thanks to Harald and Sebastian for their work and the great communication.

14:20

we had a small lunch break. currywurst, yummy…

now distance round 2. björn opened with 1000p and 11legs^^

steffen 1000p par with hoppe and 19 legs.

14:45

Markus 1000p wit 27 legs. thermals are rapidly changing the flying conditions.

17:15

speed round 2 with very slow times. Launches are getting a bit better now, but best is around 16, 17 and 18 are really good times.

19:00

finished with duration. two rounds completed!

first group with an incredible thermal, afterwards much less upwind. the flighttime was sometimes not easy, but mostly doable.

Sunday

9:00

the getman pilots elected a new Aktivensprecher. We had 4 (!) suggestions. The vote was won by Reinhold Krischke. Congratulations!

duration started with almost no ground winds. but 50m up, it was already stronger. thermals were not present, just areas with less sinking. every mistake was quickly penalised.

distance with around 20legs average. we had mixed results. more training is definitely needed.

12:45

speed is almost done. Böhlen with an incredible 14,xs . most others over 17/18s.

13:15

short lunch break. next speed in opposite order of the ranking.

21:15

I had some stress during the final speed with a reflight and then the Lünen „special“ Fly-off. So no live feed then.

Unfortunately that also let to a very unfortunate error in the calculation of the CONTEST results.
Jürgen Pölzls win today was eaten by the spreadsheet and i did not recognize it in time. I am very sorry Jürgen, the corrected complete Ranking will be up in a few minutes. You made second place in the year ranking after Steffen Besemer and ahead of Jens Buchert.

23:45

some more pictures uploaded. Thanks to Martin for taking some during both days.

Link to the Contest Eurotour results of 2024: