[LASS Soaring] World Soaring Masters: Wrap-up

[Ben Wilson]

Yes, I know it's 3 or so weeks late! 

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World Soaring Masters: Wrap-up

The initial announcement of the World Soaring Masters generated much 
excitement in the RC Soaring world.  An LSF-exclusive, sponsored, 
for-pay contest with rules and a format tweaked to intensify the level 
of competition.  A veritable honey-pot to lure the best of the best from 
around the world to compete for cash and the title of "World Soaring 
Master". Capped at 150 pilots!  All of this to raise the level of RC 
Soaring competition in this country and to hopefully raise the awareness 
of the soaring discipline within the RC world and beyond.  Who wouldn't 
show up for that?!  It was right in my back yard, so I had to be there.

The initial response to the WSMs was good.  Nearly 100 pilots signed up 
for the WSMs, with 90% of those attending.  While there were no pilots 
from outside of North America (bringing the "World" moniker into a bit 
of question), there were pilots from the East Coast, West Coast, North, 
South and even a few from Canada.  The majority of our US F3J and F3B 
teams were there.  As evidenced by the stacked pilot roster, the 
competition was intense with weather conditions that only served to 
ratchet up that intensity.  The flying that I saw that weekend was of a 
level of skill and of excitement that I have never experienced.

The soaring was definitely world-class, However, I can't say that the 
event itself was all that I had imagined it might be.  The expectations 
in the soaring community for the WSMs indicated that it /would/ be an 
event beyond compare.  The flying site would have been packed with 
pilots, sponsors, vendors with banners waving, etc.  That wasn't the 
case, though -- the event surrounding the world-class competition was 
somewhere in between a club contest and the Soaring NATS.  Rest assured 
that my intent in saying so is not to detract from the support that JR, 
Horizon and the other sponsors of the World Soaring Masters have given 
to this event (not to mention the OVSS and other soaring events).  The 
success of this event benefits all parties, and thus should be of major 
concern by the soaring community at large.

Even if the event for the nearly 100 pilots wasn't as flashy as it could 
have been, at least the news of it could be, and that's where I had the 
idea to do live on-the-field reports.  I had planned on making my 
day-to-day reports as I've done for other events, though I hadn't really 
planned on making my round-by-round finals reports like I did.  After 
packing my planes away after the preliminaries, and watching my fellow 
un-finalists make a "grandstand" out of patio chairs out on the flying 
site turf, it clicked.  This was the WORLD Soaring Masters, and there 
had to be an audience for live reports.  I was inspired by the recent 
F3J Worlds in Martin, Slovakia and their excellent website with some 
really exciting reports that kept me off-task at work.  Thanks to the 
AMA's flying-site-wide Wifi network access across I was able to post my 
daily and up-to-the-minute reports to the RC Soaring Exchange.  The 
up-to-the-minute reports were an absolute blast!  Pencil clenched in 
teeth and notepad in hand, I kept notes on every launch, every flight 
and for those things I missed I had my operatives in the field (you know 
who you are).  I didn't know if anyone would read the reports - and to 
tell you the truth I was having so much fun, I didn't care!

I was elated to see the emails that came in from all over the nation 
from people glued to their email awaiting the final round reports.  I 
couldn't help but to imagine the WSMs a few years from now, wherein 
we'll have streaming audio and video and an audience not of dozens but 
perhaps hundreds or thousands around the world.  Call it daydreaming if 
you will, but I don't think it's that bad of a goal.

The World Soaring Masters aren't to the level of my daydream yet, but I 
feel fortunate to have been present at the inception of something that 
could be historic for our hobby.  I was glad to help in whatever way I 
did, and I'll be back the next time, press credentials tucked firmly 
under my I BEAT GORDY button.

See ya next time!

ben wilson
louisville area soaring society
http://www.louisvillesoaring.org