Official Flights, Practice Day 6 & Opening Ceremonies

Alarm 06:30, shower, breakfast and on the road... repeat!

I checked my email and received the following pdf from the organizing committee. It shows the official flight order for each of the four groups of pilots. It’s color coded for easy reference.  Yellow is Henry and Michi’s Group and Chad’s is blue. All pilots fly at different times so there will be no issues with manpower although we did prepare for that possibility.  Also we fly together either in the morning or afternoon. 

Today we headed up to Field B at the Worlds Site for our official flights. We have not flown here but have been following the reports of Marcelo Velez and Mark Atwood. 

Judges Station Line B

 We are the very first team to fly this morning and the conditions were near perfect with the exception of the sun. It infringed on the right side of the box. With the use of the sun evader it will work.

Plane Assembly

Michi preps his Excess Bip

Henry gets his primary ready.

Planes assembled and at 08:30 Chad took to the sky followed by Michi and finally Henry. All flew well under sunny skies and realatively calm conditions.

Agnes calls the P-19 manouvers for Chad.

John calls for Henry.

 With the flights complete, Kelly, Agnes and I headed over to local hotel that will host the managers meeting tonight. I wanted to check it out in the daylight 😄

We returned to the Airbnb and then left the gals (they are shopping today 😱) as we went to our practice field.  It is not the largest field by any stretch but it will certainly help with practice between official flights. There was only two teams there when we arrived, the Ukraine team was there along with the Czech’s who camped out overnight in a caravan.

 Frantisek Pokomy prepares for a flight.

We were soon joined by Gernot Bruckman and then the Japanese team. Looks like only one more flight today as time will be a factor.  Gernot's Pandora was popular with the fliers as this is the first time most non European competitors have had a chance to see it up close.

The Pandora is huge.

 And yes... Henry has one on order :-)

 We ate a lunch of sandwiches supplied by John Bently... best helper ever! 

We watched Chad, Gernot and Onda fly there F-19 sequences. All solid flying by each pilot. 

Front row seating for us.

With time winding down, we loaded up and headed back to the airbnb to prepare for the opening ceremonies this afternoon.  Of course we left Michi to practice another flight.

At Casa Bianca, the teams all gathered and then paraded around the field led by a flag waving band. It was followed by some speeches by dignitaries and a helicopter flight with flags flying and neat smoke show. The "Flag Band" then got going with a lengthy demonstration of various flag waving skills. It was interesting to see but seemed to stretch a tad long. All good though!

We then all went into the beautiful grounds and enjoyed a drink and a buffet appetizer while meeting up with old friends and making new ones as well.

Chad signs the new book on the history of F3A.

We then headed back and spent some time at the Airbnb. The open area at our place is very inviting and relaxing! I headed over to the Hotel Della Torre for the managers meeting.

Mario covered all the usual points and reviewed the procedures to follow at the two flight lines. Team Managers only need their ID to access the flight line. 

Back home... and into bed!

Practice Day 5

06:30 Alarm, shower, breakfast then off to the practice site. 

We chose a closer field that was only a 20 minute drive from our place on more rural roads... very pleasant after the A4! 

John was already there waiting for us... hey he is keen! We parked alongside the field and started flying. Unfortunately Henry cracked his right gear on his first landing and was out of commission for the time being. I tried to use my contacts to get a hold of Andrea Stockwell but no joy at this point. 

Henry prepped the gear leg while Chad put in several rounds. The Japanese team arrived and after the usual introductions they joined the flight order.  I was busy trying to contact Andrea Stockwell of the South Africa Team 🇿🇦  Once again Mark Atwood came through and after a bit of time we got chatting on WhatsApp. 

Another repair coming up.

The Japanese offered their advice on the gear repair.

 It was good to see these guys fly the P & F schedules as we had a front row seat to the action. 

The Czech team of Milan Valenta and Frantisek Pokomy also arrived and joined in the flying order. They had a super paint job on the Ultron. 

We had several flights and then the gals arrived and brought out a lunch for us. We had huge fresh made sandwiches stuffed with meat and cheese... all very good! 

Awesome service as lunch was delivered to the field! Thanks Kelly & Agnes.

More flights ensured and we had front row seats to the Japanese team members.  They all flew well under wind conditions. We even had a close look at the 32MZ.

The gals headed to the lake while John drove up to the contest site to retrieve the carbon fiber tow that Henry needed to make repairs. 

Who says Z bends don't work!

Weather is going to turn!!

Chad was done flying so Michi put in one more flight before we packed up under threatening skies. On the way home the skies opened up and the winds increased dramatically.

The drive home featured some major weather with wind & rain.

We finally communicated with Andrea Stockwell and arranged for the CF tow to be picked up at the contest site. Henry went and grabbed it. 

Repair number 2 underway.... Michi assists.

While sitting around the table we received a Facebook post containing the flight order for Sunday's flying. It did not show times but listed the contestants... Henry is up #2 on Flight Line B, Michi is #14 on the same line and Chad is #20 on Flight Line A.... all on Sunday morning. 

Seems odd to see this post before the Team Managers have even seen it... such is life in the cyber age.

We drove into town and had a nice dinner in the main square then to the gelatto shop for a desert.

Processing Day & Practice Day 4

Alarm, shower & the usual fine Breakfast at 7am.

I had some paper work to complete then we loaded up and headed to the main site for a practice flight. I tried to get a hold of John to let him know the days plans but no joy via messenger. 

Michi is loaded and ready to go.

A relaxed morning as we waited for our chance to fly. Kelly and I headed over to the registration table and we are first in line... actually there was no line! Paola check over the team's submissions and we settled our account. Documents checked and copied, welcome items received and we were done. 

Kelly at the registration desk.

Back at the flight line the guys finally took to the sky. Michi was up first and flew his back up Accuracy in order to get it trimmed and ready should his primary have an issue. John arrived and was the best dressed guy on the field with his Team Canada 🇨🇦 uniform on! He rocked it.

John called for Henry who then put up a solid flight with a nice relaxed pace.  He looked rested and very comfortable on the flight line this morning. 

Chad was up next and had his best P-19 round since his arrival. Very solid flight all around and I have no trouble saying he is flying the best that I have witnessed.

Flightline A - Judges station

Looking West

Ready box/pit area.

 We then stayed and had a nice buffet lunch at the restaurant. Great selection of foods to try out. After that we relaxed and I took some pictures of various planes until it was our turn to process.

This thing is huge!!!

They started calling for Canada about 20 minutes ahead of our planed processing time. Even though most of the guys had the planes ready we pushed back on the demand. Chad was still assembling his B model as Michi’s was weighed and measured. 

Enrico measures Michi's back up.

Henry and John await their turn.

New stickers for Henry's Fantasista

 Our planes were all properly sticker for removable parts and the FAI Stickers attached but they had new stickers with competitors unique ID and either model A or B. This created a bit of a problem as Michi was flying Model "K" as his primary and Chad had his Model "C" as his primary.  “We have no K or C so you must change” was the instructions from the officials.  Ok so we did that but we were able to change Michi’s to a “K”....  but not Chad’s so it has double stickers.


M Akimoto
Weights          Plane "K"  4995gr     Plane "B" 4915gr

Sound             Plane "K" 88.5db with APC  Plane "B" 86.9 with Falcon

H Piorun

Weights         Plane "A"  4960gr      Plane "B" 4930gr

Sound = Plane A 92.2db with Falcon Contra  Plane B 89.1db with Falcon Contra

C Northeast
Weights        Plane "A" (also C) 4880gr    Plane "B" 4895gr
Sound           Plane "A" (also C) 82.3db with APC   Plane "B" 85.4db with APC


All planes met the measurement requirements except for the spinner dimensions. This is the first time they have checked this and the contras will all fail this test due to the hub design.  I suspect they are not enforcing this as they all “passed” 🤷‍♂️

Chad's voltage is checked.

Sound and voltage checks all passed with Henry’s Element hitting the hi mark at 92.2db  (max 94.0db) and Chad had the lowest with Model B only hitting 82.3 on the sound meter.

Once processing was completed we posed for a team photo before packing up and heading back to the Airbnb. Michi stayed behind to get another flight in and converse with the Japanese team. 

Team Canada

We walked up the street and ordered pizza then brought it back to our Airbnb. Michi arrived back but opted for sushi at the local establishment. 

The long day came to an end... off to bed.