Daily winners 28.6.

Club Class
Rasmus Ørskov 1F, Denmark
Standard Class
Sebastian Kawa I, Poland
20 m  Multi-Seat Class
Steve Jones & Howard Jones CUS, Great Britain

Tasks and results:
www.wgc2014.fi/results

IGC-files

Upload IGC-file to scoring »

Tracking

1.7. Tracking
Club class, Standard class and 20 m Multi-seat class

Outlandings

Weather

• EFRY weather station
• RASPtable
• Helsinki Testbed
• Aviation Weather
• ilmanet.fi
  user: efrymet
  pw: mmkisa2014

Partners

PIK-20, the Finnish Star of the 1976 Worlds

by Jyri Raivio

The 15th World Gliding Championships at Räyskälä in June 1976 was a huge event for Finnish gliding.  We put in a major effort and we sincerely hoped for good results from the Finnish team, as well.

That was not to be.  The Finnish team was a mixture of rugged experience and youthful enthusiasm.  The experienced guys were Juhani Horma and Matias Viitanen in the Open Class, the youngsters Markku Kuittinen and Raimo Nurminen in the Standard Class.  Kuittinen, who was later twice crowned World Champion,  showed his mettle winning the first day of his first-ever World Championships but the rest of the contest was difficult for him and the whole Finnish team.  His final standing was 32nd.  Nurminen was the best Finn with his 20th place.  Horma was number 27 and Viitanen 34.  ”The first week of Räyskälä worlds was my worst ever in international competitions”, Viitanen said later.

There was, however, one clear Finnish winner in the Räyskälä Worlds.  The contest meant a real breakthrough for a Finnish Standard Class glider, PIK-20.  All the pilots on the podium, Champion Ingo Renner (Australia), silver medalist Gunnar Karlsson (Sweden) and bronze medal winner George Burton (UK) flew PIK-20Bs.

The three letters PIK come from the Finnish words Polyteknikkojen Ilmailukerho.  It is a flying club of the students of the Helsinki University of Technology, which nowadays is a part of Aalto University at Otaniemi, a suburb of Helsinki.  Thus, the club PIK is a kind of a Finnish Akaflieg.

The history of the club dates back to year 1931 and the design and construction of various flying machines has over the years been in the forefront of the club’s activities.  The first glider, PIK-1, flew as early as 1938. The first international success was the PIK-16 Vasama.  In 1963 it was awarded the Ostiv Prize as the best Standard Class glider of the world.  Fifty Vasamas were built and quite a few of them are still flying in various parts of the world.

The origins of PIK-20 were in the major rules changes decided by the FAI for the Standard Class in 1969.  From then on flaps combined with ailerons would be allowed.  A small but very dedicated group started developing a competition glider that was supposed to fly in the 1974 World Championships at Waikerie, Australia.  The main designer was Pekka Tammi.  They made it in time for Waikerie, with considerable effort.  In Australia the somewhat astonished gliding world saw a yellow (!) Finnish newcomer, flown by Raimo Nurminen, who was very much involved with the construction of the prototype.  He was also the chief test pilot flying the redline speed tests amid snow flurries at Jämijarvi before the glider was shipped to the hot Australia.

Nurminen flew well but did not win.  His glider was, however, a hit.  Industrial production of PIK-20 was soon started by a small company called Molino.  Later the production was taken over by Eiri Avion, a subsidiary of a major Finnish company which made its money in photography business.  The demand was robust, especially after the rules allowed the coupling of flaps and ailerons.  The second version, PIK-20B gained considerable success both in the marketplace and competitions.  PIK-20D or ”diesel-PIK” as it was called here, featured both flaps and Schempp-Hirth-type airbrakes.

The last development version was PIK-20E, a true motorglider with a 43 hp retractable Rotax engine.  The 15 meter span was, however, too short for the purpose.  Developing a new, longer wing was too costly for the small manufacturer.  Appeals for public assistance did not bear fruit.  Eiri threw in the towel and sold the production rights to France, where the project faltered.

A total of 425 PIK-20 gliders were built, which makes this type the most successful export product of the diminutive Finnish aviation industry.  One of those 425 was Ingo Renner’s.  He won the Räyskälä World Championships in a PIK-20 in 1976 and the manufacturer gave him a glider as a special price.  This is probably something that has not been surpassed before the Räyskälä worlds nor after.

And the winner of the Open Class, what was his special price?  ”I received a colour TV which was much appreciated but I couldn’t believe it when I heard that Ingo was going to receive a brand-new glider!” writes George Lee, a great British champion and gentleman in his recent book Hold Fast to Your Dreams.