Team Canada F3A 2013: Official Practice Day

Wake up alarm, shower, light breakfast and out the gate at 07:45. Well pretty much :-)

The Canadian armada headed out to the main competition site and quickly found parking. The guys started assembling planes while Kelly and I scoped out the processing order. Norway was all done so we started right away. Michi was the first one ready so he pulled his competitor number out of the bag and then we picked out the bib from the pile. His planes were then measured and weighed and sticker-ed accordingly. This process was repeated for each of the three remaining pilots.

Bob Skinner assists while Michi selects his numbered marble from the bag.

Bib numbers: Chad -19, Michi - 43, Colin - 58, Ethan - 47

The planes were measure by being placed in a 2 meter square box then weighed (max 5050 grams).

It fits!

Colin's Caelestia is weighed.


Ethan's turn.

Made it through!

The airframe weights with the heaviest batteries are as follows :
Mich A - 4905 B - 4770
Chad A - 4775 B - 4795
Colin A - 4950 B - 4890
Ethan A - 5025 B - 4850

Once the processing was completed we had a team picture taken for the local press.

Team Canada F3A 2013

We then packed up again and headed over to Site #1 for our official practice session. Due to the size of our team we were a bit late but the officials gave us a bit of a break... well a couple minutes anyway.

The primary planes were quickly assembled and Michi went up first. His plane's battery voltages were checked (max is 42.56 Volts). Voltages were as follows: Michi 41.9v, Chad 41.7v, Colin 41.8v, Ethan 41.8v

Noise test was next with the following recordings taken: Michi 90.3, Colin 89.5, Chad 91.8, Ethan 90.5 db (max is 94db)

The French team watch Chad fly his solid P-13 practice round.

Everyone put in their respective practice flights and it was a relief for me to get through the session. The guys did a great job getting ready and I look forward to the start of the contest. We loaded up and after checking out Henley airfield and a stop at home, headed back to the main building to see what was going on. We came across the Japanese team and quickly put our team Interpreter Michi Akimoto (also sometimes pilot) to work making introductions and answered questions for us. He was very happy to meet them!

Canadian and Japanese teams.

Don and Joseph Szczur and Ethan and Colin Chariandy

Team Australia

Opening Ceremonies

Brown out in Henley-on-Klip :-)

We had the chance to also meet Jim Eichenberg's son Dave who lives in Johannesburg. He came out to see the event and cheer on Canada. The support is greatly appreciated.

We had the opening ceremonies with the various teams marching into the flag square... short speeches, music and we were done! The Team managers had a meeting to have any questions answered and to be given a quick rundown on the field setup. It's a little different than what we would normally see but not a major deal. The landings may be the most entertaining part :-)

The flying schedule will pick up in the morning as it was not ready when we left the site. I will post it as soon as I see it. I do know that Chad goes late morning with Michi, Ethan early afternoon and then later Colin. I should be able to upload at the worlds site directly as they have a huge onsite wireless system bouncing off a satellite :-) That should make Don Atwood and the US fans happy!!!

We headed off for dinner at the Cafe Blue and then back home to prepare for another day tomorrow as our event really gets under way. Couple extra pics below...