By Gordon Buckland
([email protected])
As seen in the June 2025 issue of Model Aviation
Two amazing things occurred during the 2025 Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) F5J World Championships for Electric Powered Thermal Duration Gliders, which was held in Argentina in March during the Southern Hemisphere’s late summer.
Most significant was the commanding performance put in by legendary maestro Joe Wurts at 64 years old. What makes this really significant is that it was his fourth Worlds title—his first was 34 years ago, in 1991.
The second thing was the awesome performance of USA Junior John Bradley, who came through to win the F5J Junior World Championships. Great job, John!
Joe put his stamp on this year’s Worlds right from the start by winning the pre-contest. It has often been said that winning the pre-contest is bad karma for the main event, but Joe put that myth to rest.
I had the opportunity to get Joe’s perspective with a few questions. The following are his responses.
Gordon Buckland: First, congratulations on winning both the pre-contest and the F5J Worlds in Argentina.
Joe Wurts: Thank you! This was my third trip to Argentina, and the third Tango Cup in which I have taken first place! Argentina has been a very good to me!
GB: Would you rate this as one of your best triumphs?
JW: I have been flying and competing such a long time that I have lost the basis for making an objective comparison. I will say that this was one of my most unexpected victories. My vision has deteriorated in recent years because of asteroid hyalosis in my good eye, and, more recently, macular degeneration. Because I require the need to fly closer, I had defined my odds of making it onto the podium as being rather low.
GB: What was your preparation in the months leading up to the Worlds?
JW: We had three weekend team training sessions in the six months prior to the World Championships. A bit of this training was focused on getting our newest team member, Pete McEvoy, prepared to fly at a world-class level. Kevin Botherway and I live only a half-hour apart, so we can practice together at short notice. Other than the team practices, I was getting out to fly once or twice a week. I did convert my fleet of Plus X to DualSky direct-drive because we have had too many gearbox-related motor failures in the past.
The last two weeks prior to departure had bad weather, so I did not do any flying from early February until the 26th. After we arrived in Argentina, Rodrigo Salvador offered his private flying site for practice. This was greatly appreciated because the competition site was closed until the official practice day just prior to the Tango Cup. I had flown at this site once before on my first visit to Argentina, which was also my first Tango Cup.
GB: What was your most memorable flight during the Worlds campaign?
JW: I will start with my most satisfying flights, which might coincide with the most memorable flights! I had almost identical flights in the first round of the Tango Cup flyoff and the first round of the World Championships flyoff. I picked out a strong thermal in front of the building and south of the tents prior to launch, in both cases. All of the other 13 pilots in both slots went downwind of the building, which was typically where the thermals kicked off because of the influence of the building and trees. I had the best air of the bunch in both cases and could stay in it at low level without risk of a midair because I had the thermals to myself.
The second flight of the Tango Cup had an interesting read. The wind had picked up a bit and a thermal clearly blew through maybe a minute prior to the start of the slot. I had a second read that was slightly upwind and to the left and went there first. That tested negative, so my obvious choice was to run downwind to tag the thermal that had passed a minute prior to launch.
While heading downwind under power, I passed a bunch of sailplanes that were sniffing air. My blind squirrel said to keep going downwind, and maybe 100 meters downwind of the gaggle, I contacted very good lift. Junior and I had the same launch height for the lowest of the group, 20 meters. I climbed out nicely but had to leave very good lift because I couldn’t see the airplane. I think I worked at least six thermals and was utterly shattered by the end of the flight.
The third round of flyoffs for the World Championships was a bit of a cliffhanger. I had a reasonable read upwind and to the left and went there initially. Three other pilots went to the same location but launched much higher than I did (I was the only sub-100-meter launch in the group). I did not contact anything worth stopping for and, again, went downwind to chase something that passed us by a minute prior to launch. This was where luck came into play; I contacted the thermal with, at most, 30 meters of altitude rather downwind with strong wind. Just a bit less altitude on launch, or a bit in error on thermal location, and I would have landed with a 2-minute flight.
That said, I hooked up and climbed quickly. Annoyingly, I also drifted downwind quickly. Within a few minutes, I was rather high, but, once again, I could not see my sailplane, so I had to leave the thermal.
As my caller, Kevin was extremely helpful, although I made him work very hard because I was nearly simultaneously asking him to help find my sailplane and to guide me to the next thermal. He was extremely patient and understanding, to say the least. Without him, I would have landed very far away on more than one flight!
The last flyoff round was once again an interesting slot. I went a bit less aggressive on my launch height than the third flyoff round with a 139-meter launch. That ended up being the lowest launch of the group, at least among the fliers who recorded a score. The majority of recorded launch heights were greater than 200 meters for this slot!
For this flyoff group, I started forward and left, did a bit of surfing, then shifted right (south) as others were showing a better corridor. I tried a couple of times to take lift downwind, but I was less than successful compared with the fliers who stayed upwind. Then there was some reasonably good lift and I saw that the upwind fliers were beginning to get punished, so I realized that this was the last train leaving the station and hopped aboard. It was amazing as to how quickly the forward fliers lost altitude. I had mild climb, although a rather fast downwind drift. Eventually, I shifted northward to work a different corridor.
Kev and I spotted a sailplane way south in very good air and I chased that. I contacted and worked it for a bit but decided that the climb versus drift was a losing proposition and left the white sailplane to work that lift without me. The ground signs then suggested another corridor north of the flightline and off I went to surf once again. I could see in my peripheral vision that other airplanes were landing and Kev eventually said that there was only one other sailplane in the air. He pushed me very hard and made me keep margin. Thanks, Kev!
When he said there was only one other sailplane in the air, I knew that I was on the podium somewhere. It was kinda fun at the landing. I was celebrating even before the sailplane stopped moving on the ground!
GB: The wind picked up in the later flyoff rounds. What specific lack in performance did you note or experience in Round Three?
JW: Well, choosing poorly in both launch altitude, as well as location, featured strongly here. I had 950 grams of ballast in the wing, which turned out to be a bit on the heavy side for the conditions at the time of the third slot. I was concerned as to how quickly the wind would be increasing and ballasted assuming that it would be much higher by the end of the slot. There was more than a bit of luck involved to get the amount of time that I flew in the third slot. Then again, if my eyes could have performed better, I would have likely flown out the slot.
GB: Specifically, how did being too heavy affect your flight, decisions, and score that third round?
JW: Isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing? Being a bit heavy reduced my climb rate once I contacted a thermal. Fortunately, the thermal that I eventually contacted was extremely powerful, and I am uncertain as to whether being a bit too heavy for the slot would have made a difference. It might have even been a benefit being very heavy, and it was quite clear that the light lift found on the initial read location was rather insufficient to keep my heavy sailplane aloft.
Talking to the pilots who were in that location, they said that the lift dissipated within a couple of minutes. This aligns with my lack of contact when searching underneath them.
GB: What was your actual model weight for that round?
JW: The sailplane was 1,380 grams, with 493 grams times two wing ballasts for the last two flyoffs, so 2,365 grams in the last two groups.
GB: In three out of the four flyoff rounds, you had the lowest launching model that scored. How much attention do you generally pay to the altitude of other pilots during launch?
W: The comparative altitude is a difficult thing to assess, particularly when going alone. I pushed Kev to give me comparative launch heights at times but then asked him to instead be my second pair of eyes on the sailplane because I lost sight of it.
For the World Championships flyoffs, I mostly flew to what I thought was appropriate for the conditions. In preliminary rounds, the goal is to hit the altitude where you are almost certain that you can make the time. In flyoff rounds, the goal is to hit the altitude where you are almost confident that you can make the flight time. One is a “team score,” while the other is the individual score. There is a consistent challenge to evaluate what the “team score” should be, as opposed to flying as an individual at a world championships.
GB: If you had to name one thing that gives you an advantage in Soaring contests, what would that be?
JW: You have to ask? Well, c’mon!
Okay, there are several things that are in play here. One is my ability to read air. This air reading occurs in several phases. One is the ability to get a read as to where the air might be. Another is to adjust this read while watching the sailplane interact with the atmosphere. Another is to see other signs and evaluate these disparate signals to integrate where the best air should be.
Then there is my ability to do competitive evaluation and assessment. What are the appropriate tactical and strategic needs involved to get the best possible result? I used to be really good at this; now I am merely good.
The final one is to refuse to get flustered while flying. Until the sailplane stops moving, you have to continue to sort out what the current optimal action is to get the best possible result with everything that has already occurred. It is easy to sort out what you should have done. It is harder to sort out what you should do at the current point in time.
GB: With the many choices available in competitive F5J models, do you see a lot of differences in performance between the various brands?
JW: The current popular choices (and many less-popular choices) are all great sailplanes. Some designs are optimized for flying aspects, while some are optimized for other aspects. And some are more broadly optimized. What matters most is to be very comfortable with whatever sailplane you have chosen. The low thermal-optimized sailplanes tend to need a bit more ballast in wind and vice versa. Fly the airplane you brought and you will be successful.
GB: How would you rate your eyesight today compared with when it was at its best?
JW: Optimistically, my eyesight is around 50% of what it used to be. In my good eye, I had increasing asteroid hyalosis that was first diagnosed in 2007. I had resisted vitrectomy surgery to rectify this until October 2024 because of the attendant risks of it. It turns out that I was correct to delay the surgery because I suffered from very high interocular pressure after it, which has affected the optic nerve negatively.
There you have it from the best RC Soaring pilot in history. Joe continues to show us his amazing skills every time he flies in a contest. If you get the opportunity to join him in a contest somewhere, you will learn so much from watching this master at work. Thank you, Joe, for taking the time to give us your perspective.
Until next time, go downwind and soar.
SOURCES:
League of Silent Flight (LSF)
www.silentflight.org
2025 FAI F5J World Championships for Electric Powered Thermal Duration Gliders
www.f5jargentina.com/
Results: 2025 FAU F5J World Championships for Electric Powered Thermal Duration Gliders
FAI
www.fai.org/news/results-2025-fai-f5j-world-champions-electric-powered-…
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