Practice and Opening Ceremonies

Up early again as we met for breakfast and discussed the day's plans. We will head down to Hinwil and grab a flight and watch others to further gauge our style compared to the top pilots. We hope to see Japan fly as well.

A few teams are left to complete processing this morning at the Main flying site before the big opening of the event.  We needed some more practice so as planned, we all headed down to Hinwil and the flying site just by the road. Nice easy access and about 20-25 minutes from the main site. It is a nice field with good approaches and a wide, level landing field. It also has great hosts from the local club along with electricity at the pit location!

We arrived early and met up with the Isreali and British teams and very soon after the Japanese and Korean teams arrived. We put in a few rounds and watched the Japanese team fly. Very graceful and consistent flying from all three members.

Team Japan at Hinwil

Parking lot :-)

Akiba's Fantasista... note the huge ailerons.

Matt Hoyland's Citrin.

Hinwil pit action. Busy place but managed two flights.

Shlomi's CRS Contra powered Acuracy

Cooling system for Akiba's plane. 35˚ today so every bit helps.

Ethan and Colin talk with Sclomi about the Acuracy

Michi gets a one on one with Mr Naruke! He did the  happy dance later! 

Team Canada preparing for the opening.

We all gathered at the main flying site for the official opening and as each team introduced the National Anthem was played. We then marched along a short while before returning to the original start point. A few speeches in Swiss were made and then we all went in to mingle with the huge crowd (est 10,000) and watched a two hour airshow.

It feature RC planes from the very first contest held in Dubendorf in 1960 and progressed through the years featuring jet aircraft and high performance sailplanes. Strong gusty winds made it a challenge to landbut they did a great job. We also has a 9 member team flying full scale aerobatics as well as a Super Puma beating the skies silly with amazing agility for a helicopter this size.

All in all the best opening of a Worlds event that I have attended. My hats off to the organizers for this great show!

Will Gross, Mark Atwood and Dave Reaville following the opening ceremonies Those new US shirts are catching up to us:-)

Chad posted some pictures of the event at https://www.facebook.com/teamcanadaf3a2015/posts/966970146703575?notif_t=like

Once back at the hotel we decided on Mexican tonight and took another short walk down to the local restaurants. It was very good. Round one tomorrow.