Thursday evening looked certainly promising. Sky cleared up almost the same time as day´s last competition flight was flown. There was even some delightful looking slope gliding action among the F3A-pros flying Zagis and HLGs.Well it was not to be though, as frontal system made morning weather to look almost the same as Thrusday morning. Bad weather unexpectancies most certainly belong to aviation! So basically, if it rains, then you´ll do it in the rain!
Day 2 was opened up by a round of F3A-Nordic. This class is our Scandinavian version meant to lower the difficulty levels somewhat with new pilots in mind. Nordic maneuvers are decided every second year during Nordic Championships, and it happened to be Friday evening here in Jämijärvi that the Nordic routine for the next two years was decided. F3A-FAI gets harder and harder every year, so Nordic might be doing the same…
Material side of the things manifested itself today in form of a few zeros in the scoreboard. There was an inflight engine stoppage and three technical problems in the readybox. High workload associated with retractable landing gear systems is well known to all, and it did claim one of the cancellations today, another one being engine vibration mount failure.
Speaking of retracts, about half of the competitors still used them. With today´s high-powered engines and even decidedly large-diameter, drag-inducing fuselages the need for retracts it not so obvious anymore. But still, they are used so they probably fit to the flying styles of several people.
During yesterdays registration, details of all models were written down, and thus we can offer you a full listing of equipment used by each team, which surely is of interest to everyone. Some statistical analysis will show where we are heading in this class.
Results after Day 2: Fremming leads the way in FAI (did anybody expect anything less?) and Urban Forslöf (SWE) in Nordic. Norwegian team is very strong in Nordic, whereas Swedes have the best team effort in FAI.
