Opening Ceremonies

Well the opening ceremonies are now over!

We woke up early this morning for our official practice at the competition site on line A. We got there early enough to see CPLR, BLPR and Carrier practice ahead of us. CPLR and Carrier flew good flights in the fairly stiff in blowing crosswind, but nothing to blow you away. BPLR's flight had some serious flaws in it which I am sure he will not make tomorrow during the competition rounds.

We each got in a flight and I managed to squeeze in a second flight during our 45 minute time frame for practice. We also noise tested the models with each of us registering around 93dB which is just under the 94dB limit.

After practice we got the models processed and took some team pictures.

I get my models ready for processing at the hanger.

The Canadians getting models processed in the hangar. My planes are in the front with Dez's Prestige's next in line at the back.

After processing we quickly got on the road and went for a flight at Galvez field. Once again we met up with the Italian team who were also practicing. Silvestri got a flight on his Shadow with the counter-rotating props, which I was looking forward to seeing. You could definitely hear the cavitation noise from the props during flight at times. The plane had extremely slow downlines and flight speed relative to his other model. I am not sure if this is simply setup or a function of the two props, either way in the severe crosswind it made for some high crab angles to maintain track.

One of the Italians gives Silvestri a hand launch of the counter-rotating prop Shadow. It seems they did not like taking off from the grass as hand launches were commonplace.

After our practice we hit the opening ceremonies. We were treated to some spectacular kite flying, as well as full size fly-bys, and parachutists. Here is a shot of us just before the ceremonies began.

Some of the kites performing their acrobatics, these were very impressive.

The full size planes doing their overhead fly-by's. I did not catch the make of the planes as most announcements were made in Spanish.

One of the parachutists coming in for a landing, they happen to train right at the Esperenza practice field that so many pilots were flying at during the week.

Well, thats it for tonite. The big show is tomorrow, all of us are up in the morning. I am #5 on line A in the morning, with Dez about an hour after me and Dave should be finished up just before lunch. Then we will probably hit the practice field and make any adjustments that are required.

I want to thank everyone who has sent wishes via email or comments, I hope that tomorrow is a good day!

Chad