New victories at the 2019 European Championships

From August 23 to August 31, 2019, Buzău, Romania, hosted the European Championship for Space Models with the participation of 17 European countries and a team from the U.S. It is the major competitions for space modelers in 2019.

Thanks to support of our partner NGO “Association Noosphere”, Ukraine was represented by the full-fledged delegation of 26 members, including 10 senior athletes and 8 junior athletes. This year, the geography of athletes has changed a little bit, and the national team consisted of the representatives from seven Regions: Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava, Ivano-Frankivsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Kherson.
It should be noted that this year we not only participated, but also co-organized the Championship. The Organizers decided to use our joint product with NGO “Association Noosphere” the online system CupNavigator to score the competition results. It is a unique system, which was developed for space modelling competitions and became the first step towards creation of eNavigator system as a multifunctional tool for all kinds of air sports competitions.

Unfortunately, the competitions of such level also have certain flaws. For the third year running, we have witnessed the organizers’ negligence in respect of timekeepers. An engagement of juniors with a low level of proficiency leads to a situation when the results, which they fix, are incorrect. Some teams demonstrated unsportsmanlike conduct, as their members told the time keepers what score to record for one or another flight.

Moreover, the timekeepers left the boxes with motors unattended, which, in its turn, left a room for the athletes to stealthily plant the motors with enormously high power value and have the advantage over the competitors. So, the random inspection of the motor in the first round of S5B model class revealed that the athlete from the Czech Republic had performed high-altitude flight using the suspicious motor without the required marking by timekeepers. It was not easy to find out whether it was a mistake of timekeepers, who forgot to mark the motor, or it was the “alien” motor. During the following two rounds, the athlete failed to demonstrate the same result, and then the panel of FAI judges allowed one more attempt upon completion of the rounds. However, the athlete failed to achieve the result, close to the one in the first round. Upon the FAI judges’ decision, the flight in the first round was disqualified. It is just one situation with motors that they have been able to detect by accident, as there was no full control over the motors.

The airfield and the area of takeoff zones were also surprising. A distance from the power transmission lines was less than 100 m. This put obstacle for piloting the radio-controlled rocket gliders. The soil of the whole airfield was cracked. The size of such cracks allowed placing your foot inside. Above all, the dangerous road, where the speed of the vehicles was very high, was located 15 meters away from the takeoff zones.

All this and many other factors led to multiple complaints and conflicts, arising during the competitions.

So, in S3A class, (seniors, parachute duration models) Maksym Lavrynenko, a trainee of Shostka school, demonstrated a top score for the second year running. Last year he became the world champion in this class. Now he confirmed the sportsmanship, having won a gold medal at the European Championship.

S5В class (juniors, scale altitude models) is the most successful for our national team. It is only the trainees of Nizhyn school, who competed in this class and demonstrated maximum possible score having won in the individual event: 1 place— Andrii Prymushko, 2 place — Bohdan Parkhomenko and 4 place — Oleksander Radchenko. The total score, won by the athletes, made our team a champion in this class of models. Such a result was a great surprise for our competitors!

The trainee of Dnipro school Veronika Melezhyk is a good example for all space modelers. It is the only girl in our national team, but everyone can envy her persistence. Exerting a great deal of efforts, Veronika improves her results internationally year by year. This year, she excelled in two classes at once, having taken the 2 place in S1А class juniors (altitude models), where she lacked just 5 points to the 1 place, and the 3 place in S9А class juniors (gyrocopter duration models).

Upon completion of the European Championship, our national team won 13 models, including 3 gold, 7 silver and 3 bronze medals.

In the individual event:
1 place in S5В class juniors (scale altitude models) – Andrii Prymushko (Nizhin, Chernihiv Region)
1 place in S3A class seniors (parachute duration models) – Maksym Lavrynenko (Shostka, Sumy Region.)
2 place in S1А class juniors (altitude models) – Veronika Melezhyk (Dnipro)
2 place in S5В class juniors (scale altitude models) – Bohdan Parkhomenko (Nizhyn, Chernihiv Region.)
3 place in S9А class juniors (gyrocopter duration models) – Veronika Melezhyk(Dnipro)

In the team event:
1 place in S5В class juniors (scale altitude models);
2 place in S1В class seniors (altitude models);
2 place in S1A class juniors (altitude models);
2 place in S8E/P class seniors (guided models of rocket gliders for the duration of the flight and the accuracy of landing;);
2 place in S8D class juniors (radio-controlled rocket gliders);
2 place in S9А class juniors (gyrocopter duration models);
3 place in S5С class seniors (scale altitude models);
3 place in S7 class juniors (scale models).

The official results of the European Championship can be found here.

Congratulations to all prizewinners and members of the national team of Ukraine on the successful participation in the 2019 European Championship!
We wish you even greater achievements during the next year’s World Championship!