We have revised and updated the report on the first World Aerobatic Championships in 1960 / Dübendorf. Our photos have been “colorized”. Take a look for yourself, some of the photos are very nice. Our grandfathers had great airplanes too…
At the first world championship for radio-controlled model aerobatics (RCMM) on July 23 and 24 at the Dübendorf airfield near Zurich, the American team gave a friendly lesson to all those interested in radio-controlled flight in front of an international audience of almost 10,000 people.
The Americans proved, as many had expected, that in remote-controlled aerobatics it is first and foremost personal flying skills that make the difference.
Years of intensive practice, brilliant control of the model in the air, instinctive lightning-fast reactions that have become second nature, like the penmanship of handwriting, and are the result of endless training, cannot be compensated for by any technical sophistication of the system or the model.
Ed Kazmirski`s Orion
It was surprising, however, that the Europeans were able to keep up with these performances. However, while the Americans completed their flights with ease, even during the judging, with a visible enjoyment of the flight itself, the Europeans had to fight hard.
Gustav Sämann already emphasized that his model could not be flown for three seconds without control correction; the Americans, however, chased their low-wing aircraft, which are certainly not more stable in flight, along the runway at speeds of 100 km/h in inverted low-level flight, which simply made anyone who saw it for the first time salivate.
That, in a nutshell, is the overall result of the first world championships for radio aerobatics ever held.
Bob Dunham
With consistently outstanding performances in both rounds, the first on Saturday, July 23, and the second on Sunday, July 24, Edward J. Kasmirski from Illinois (USA) took first place.
The tree-tall American is thus the first in an international competition of the top experts in remote control model flying from Belgium, Germany, England, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia and the USA. England, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia and the USA.
Erwin Bickel
Gustav Sämann (Germany) came in more than 100 points behind him with an equally balanced performance and was thus awarded the well-deserved prize as the world’s second-best pilot for his really hard efforts to work his way up into the elite of long-range pilots.
This is the result of systematic, consistent training, as Sämann does not have the years of experience that Karl Heinz Stegmaier can look back on, who finished third with only a small points difference.
The even scores of the first six with the small differences in the individual rounds indicate that the performances here were practically equal and that only small subtleties in the execution of the flight figures were decisive for the individual placings, subtleties that were in no way recognizable to the unbiased observer of the individual flights, with the exception of Kasmirski’s flights.
We can safely conclude that the holders of 2nd to 6th place are equally excellent R/C pilots and that their safe flight performances, on the other hand, still made a single grading possible.
The scores in the ranking list are by no means random results, as can always happen, but rather objectively reflect the actual skill level of the top six.
Gustav Sämann
But there are actually a few more in this top class of the elite that came together in Dübendorf.
But Dunham’s engine died on the first pass shortly after take-off, so he only scored 385 points for this flight. In addition, the spirited Dunham does not seem to be particularly inclined to submit to the discipline required to fly out each figure cleanly; he obviously enjoys hussar tricks more, as he showed in his display flights after his unsuccessful second round.
Even last year’s winner (still the European champion), the Swiss Alfred Bickel, who had prepared very carefully for the competition, had to be satisfied with 610 points in the first round due to his engine failing; otherwise we would have found him higher up the list.
Several factors have to come together for a good competitive position, including the fact that there is no technical failure at the crucial moment.
Spectators and judging observers, who are allowed to overlook such incidents, which happen to everyone from time to time, therefore often come to completely different conclusions than the judges, who have to judge strictly according to their standard. The American Harold de Bolt made a mess of his low-wing glider in the first round and therefore had to use his well-known “Live Wire” biplane the next day, and its flight stability is not exactly what you need in such a competition. Nevertheless, de Bolt flew so elegantly that he was already applauded during the flight.
Gustav Sämann
It would be extremely interesting to see what would come out of such an event if the public could vote on the individual flight performances separately from the official scoring.
As a suggestion for future events of this kind: the program paid for with the entrance fee could be put to good use if it were given an appropriate form.
The technical data show that, with the exception of Stegmaier’s model, the total surface loads of the models in the first rankings are still below the 50 g/dm2 limit and have not been taken to extremes. The different speeds are primarily due to the model designs and the motor efficiencies. The world champion Kasmirski flew the low-wing “Orion”, which was published in Model Airplane News in June 1960, while Bob Dunham flew a very similar new design, to which various modifications are still to be made. Sämann’s model resembles Stegmaier’s well-known design in many respects, and the lower weight is probably due in part to the lightweight audio circuit receiver system.
Bob Dunham`s “Astro Hog”
It would certainly be very effective advertising if we did it, but it would certainly not make much sense. When it comes right down to it, there are perhaps 5 people in Germany and Switzerland who could fly a model like Sämann’s at the first attempt. And we completely agree with Sämann when he personally refuses to simply pass on plans for such models. It would be a downright disaster for model flying if people who have acquired a taste for remote control flying were now to try to jump straight into full aerobatics with both feet without any transition. As their own ability is almost always completely overestimated, there would only be disappointment.
Sämann has already been criticized for this attitude; he was accused of not wanting to let the next generation come up. That’s not the point at all. Anyone who has really earned their laurels in remote control flying can also have their plans for further training through personal contact with the aces. However, we cannot warn you enough against underestimating the difficulties of multi-channel aerobatics and embarking on a costly venture without systematic experience, which could only be detrimental to your enjoyment of model flying.
Real radio aerobatics is no longer a Sunday pastime, it is a top sporting achievement just like pole vaulting, ski jumping from the Olympic ski jump or aerobatics from the 10-meter tower. In addition to tough, hard training, which requires an irrepressible interest in the subject itself, it also requires a sensible, well-founded, constructive approach.
Harald De Bolt`s “Stits Playboy”
R/C model flying can never have enough new blood. But disappointed people are of no use to it. And the gods have put sweat before excellence. How much? The Americans fly almost regularly 4 to 5 times a week, often at wind speeds of up to 50 km/h. Sämann has a journey of 60 kilometers from Hamburg to his training site in the Heide … When evaluating the results of a championship, one must not forget such circumstances. Nor should we forget that some teams compete under completely different technical conditions. In this context, the Czechoslovaks, for example, also deserve recognition for their achievements. If you only study the performance of their engines, you will see that they could not expect to achieve conspicuous placings right from the start. We did not ask what difficulties they had in building their own engines. But they came anyway. And for that alone, they deserve our thanks and recognition.
Harald De Bolt`s Live-Wire
According to the results in Zurich, the technical sophistication of the R/C systems is far less important than the flying performance. All but one of the participants still flew with reed relays, albeit with a great deal of technical effort in the transmitter modulators to keep the modulation frequencies constant. (However, practice in precise tuning probably also played a role in the fact that there were no “channel failures” among the top performers). You can’t fly any better with tone circles, but the systems are technically more elegant and easier to set up and maintain. Even the Americans don’t even have transistor commuters, the Orbit multichannel receiver still uses a subminiature tube up front. Bob Dunham, the manufacturer of the Orbit, said that the lower bandwidth means that tubes are still used in the receiver. In the USA, the approved RC frequency at 27 MHz is split into several individual narrow channels, which can only be detected individually on the receiver side with a “narrow” commuter. This design consideration has no significance for the European frequency regulation.
The Swiss competition management took the trouble to broadcast the experts’ control signals over the loudspeaker system several times during the flight so that the signaling could be compared with the flight movements. It seems very questionable whether the sophistication with which continuous rudder corrections were given by the shortest signals with sensitive finger work can be replaced by a proportional control system in practice. The proportional rudder deflection is very pleasant for those who fly for pleasure; the expert does not need it and replaces it with sequences of rapidly given signal impulses, which then also produce completely “round” figures.
The Swiss Aeroclub, or rather its model flying section under the leadership of its chief expert Arnold Degen, can claim to have organized not only the most important, but also the most interesting and popular model flying event we have ever seen, at least as far as remote control flying is concerned.
This is not an assessment of “model”, but the unanimous opinion of everyone who commented on it. The organization went like clockwork. It was not only a competition, but also a great showcase.
By wisely limiting the World Championship to just one class, the most demanding of the multi-channel models, not only did each participant have enough time to fly their rounds in peace, but there was also enough scope for special demonstrations and pure display flights out of competition for the freestyle.
The spectators also got their money’s worth, with at least as many thrills to savor as at an air show with manned aircraft. It was all there, the whole thing had a kick. It was exactly the opposite of what you often find at model flying events, which are more of a cramming through of rounds without a recognizable sequence that is uninteresting for spectators and only really interesting for the direct participants as a whole.
Harold De Bolt
The first R/C World Championship was concluded with a grand banquet hosted by the Swiss Aeroclub in the festive baroque hall of the Zunfthaus Meise on the banks of the Limmat for all participants, officials, press and newsreel and their ladies.
Award ceremonies, speeches, silver trophies and bowls are perhaps not particularly interesting in the context of scoring a technical competition.
The interesting point of view from which this final banquet is to be viewed by us lies in the fact of the dignified setting that was given to the whole event in official circles, and the importance that was attached to the technical sport of model aircraft control.
Not only the president of the FAI, Hillmann, from Paris, the president of the Swiss Aeroclub, the commander of the Dübendorf airfield and the inspector of the Swiss military airfields were present, but also the mayor of Zurich, Dr. Landolt, took the time to lend his personal significance to the event throughout the evening and into the night.
Anyone who knows from decades of experience the time constraints of busy city mayors and their usual appearance at evening events knows how to assess this correctly. In which German city will the mayor attach so much importance to model flying and radio control that he sits down with model pilots all evening? This is not a polemic, just a question.
But the question has a very special justification. Mayors and other officials often like to attend major sporting events and often even hand over cheques from public funds. We have nothing against soccer, boxing, athletics or any other sporting activity. “30,000 engineers are missing” was the title of an interesting television program recently. Articles with similar titles can also be found more and more often in daily newspapers, because there really is a shortage of young people for complicated technical professions. You can’t find them in cycling clubs, gymnastics teams or singing societies.
This is not a polemic against any club, but a factual statement. We are therefore asking another question, and a very direct one: You mayors, presidents, members of the state parliament, city councillors and whatever other designations might apply, are you really so concerned about young technical talent that you should not only talk about it, but perhaps even look for it and try to encourage and promote it?
It can be found where technical things are used in leisure time, among people who want to fly models and control them remotely. It could even be promoted and encouraged there without checks, just with a little bureaucratic help and understanding for the interests.
There are starting points there: every individual who achieves even a little in this area draws a whole rat’s tail of other interested parties behind them.
Then we turn to the industry. They could award prizes of various kinds, for the best electronic control system, for the best technical model, etc., etc.
Not so that individuals can enrich themselves, but so that they are encouraged to deal with ever new technical problems. And in doing so, young people learn to think technically. Exactly what we all need so urgently today.
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Result list
