Practice Day #4 Friday

A quick shower, upload some pictures, breakfast and off we go for another practice session. Our conga line of white vehicles is becoming common place in the area:-)

Patio outside our living room and manager's suite.

The new neighbors are from Canada!

Korea,  Finland and Chinese Taipei beat us to the field today and Canada quickly joined in. Wolfgang Matt came out and put in a round before heading off to processing.  Numerous other teams flew at the field just behind us with Great Britain, Switzerland and China flying.

BTW I forgot to mention this yesterday but Yang Oxai inspected Michi's Axiome + repair. He gave two thumbs up to Jon Harwood's workmanship. A feather in Jon's cap no doubt.

Line up of Oxai Axiomes.

Kelly and I headed over to the main competition site to get our team's registration completed. On arrival we met up with Mark Atwood, Andrew and Tim Jesky and Kevin Young of the USA team. Mark was hungry for an Internet connection as their accommodation has limited capability. I think he said "none". We had a good visit before meeting the officials to complete our registration.

Our team account was balanced and then FAI licenses, anti doping  paperwork,  pilot equipment documents and two Canadian flags were delivered to the officials. This took under 10 minutes.

We received a bag of goodies for each team member plus a foamy kit for each pilot.  I also checked on the location and access for processing and the time of the Manager's meeting this evening. It will take place at the main competition site ar Midvaal Raceway at 18:30.  This is very convenient as its 13 minutes from our accommodations :-)

The teams cleared out and we owned the flight line :-) This is the byproduct of processing day... even though we flew with other teams we still got lots of flights and in this case, had the place to our selves. We took the opportunity to practice with a bib on for our new guys. This helps acclimatize the pilot to official flight garb as you never fly with a bib normally.

Ethan wears the bib in practice. One less "new" thing for him. Michi also donned my old Muncie bib.

As a team we also practiced start up and sound check procedures along with plane swaps due to simulated mechanical/electrical issues.  It's important to have a backup plan in case things go south with your primary airframe... a quick transition to the backup airframe is essential. It went well.

The Colombian, Venezuelan and Spanish teams all arrived and joined us at the south flight line.  Korea and Lichtenstein also returned shortly thereafter.

Spain's Juan Rombaut was nearing the end of his flight when a large gust hit the pit area. Unfortunately the Xurama bipe of Colombia's Frederico Hinestrosa caught the gust and was flipped over, narrowly missing Wolfgang's Oxai Citrin.  The plane suffered some damage with a broken motor mount, minor vertical fin damage and unknown fuse damage. We believe it is repairable and the Colombian team quickly packed up and headed for a hobby store for supplies to make repairs. As we knew Bob's Hobbies had good stock and were very close by, we gave them directions and they sped off.  "Tell them Canada sent you!" were our last words. We wish them every success!

Frederico's Xurama just before it was flpped by a gust.

Carlo Silva's Xurama

Pretty much everyone left so we finished off our flights and then had the opportunity to see Gerhard Mayr fly his Trigantic Tri-winged plane. This is one deep fused plane and the tri-wing is definitely an eye catcher. In traditional Gerhard style he was very slow paced but the plane seemed to handle the light winds without much difficulty. The plane presents ok but the snaps are a departure from the norm for sure. I can see the age old questions returning already :-)

The Trigantic fits in a van with wings on! This save a ton of assembly time I am sure.

That is one deep fuse on this plane.

23 inch prop needs lots of clearance.

We packed up and headed back to the Village Manor House in Henley-on-Klip... a whopping seven minute drive:-) I asked Will to join me at the Event Center as the manager's meeting was on tonight.
We drove down to the site and quickly discovered that I didn't get the message.... the date and time was printed in error :-( it was now planned to be after the opening ceremonies on Saturday. ARGHH Ok back towards Henley and a stop at the local Henley Arms for dinner. The rest of the team soon arrived and we enjoyed a great meal while meeting some of the "locals". A very friendly bunch I might add.

Back at the Manor House we did some surfing and blogging then headed to bed.  Processing day tomorrow at 08:30 so it's an early up for us.