F5D World Championships Day 1

Team Canada pilots with Ed Smith of Brampton, ON (Starter)

The day started out with light drizzle or rain.  Those who had to test fly their energy limiters did so with rain and low cloud.  Not much fun for sure.   Team Canada slept in and some did laundry ....   We got to the field in good time to set up and prepare.  Racing began at 12:30 sharp as scheduled.  The rain quit right on time.  Roy and I and Delbert were in heats 2, 3, and 4 of the opening day of competition.  Due to the late start we only flew three rounds today.

We generally had a good day of competition.  Roy found the pylons and achieved good motor run time to finish the race.  Roy posted a 63, 64, and 65.  No cuts.   Delbert posted a 61 with one cut, then two 63's.  I posted two 62's in the first two rounds.  Then in round three, after six laps, my elevator servo decided to stop racing.  My model crashed outside of pylon #3. It just sank slowly into the ground with no response from elevator control.  Normally, this would cost me a 200 score for not finishing the race.  However, the one piece of good luck was that there was a problem with the light signalling system on the course so the whole race was declared void and we all were given a re-fly.  I quickly pulled out one of my back-up models and prepared for the re-fly.  In the re-fly, I was MAD from the crash and I flew hard.  I posted a 60 second time but cut pylon #1 by only 10 feet.  One cut is a 10% time penalty.  So I ended up with a 66 second time.  Not bad actually.

There was only one other crash incident today.  Marcel from Switzerland and a fellow from Russia had a whopping mid-air collision between pylons #2 and #3.

Gunther Mayr of Austria with his VERY sleek bird 

The Austrians are going fast.  The two young brothers, Gunther Mayr and Daniel Mayr are hard to beat.  Gunther broke the world record this morning with a 59 second time.  This looked like the time to beat.  However, Marcel Schlage of Switzerland, the fellow with the saw tooth propellor, posted a fast time and new world record of 59.60 .

From a team perspective, we are doing well.   It is early yet - only three rounds of 14 to be flown but things are looking good.  We just need to keep flying clean and stay out of trouble.  After day 1, Team Canada is in second place behind Austria and in front of Switzerland.

From and individual perspective, I am sitting in 5th.   Delbert is 7th and Roy is 8th.   This is without any throw-away races.

Team USA is working hard.  Their team is right behind Switzerland in fourth.  Danny Kane is sitting 6th individually, while Troy Peterson is 10th and Travis Flynn is 19th.  It's way too early to draw any conclusions so no one is out of the running yet.

Roy was checked for energy limiter compliance and his Neu limiter just passed the test.  Delbert submitted his spare limiter from his tool box for a voluntary check and it failed !    One of the members from Belgium team was checked for limiter compliance and he failed.  This resulted in a 200 score for him.

Team Standings after Day 1 (three rounds)

That's the highlights for today.  We should put in five rounds of close racing action tomorrow.  Stay tuned for Day 2 results tomorrow.  Ciao.



Randy

Individual standings after Day 1 (three rounds)