2008 Hong Kong F3F League

2008 Hong Kong F3F League - Match 4
Leung King, April 13, 2008

The forth match for the 2008 Hong Kong F3F league was successfully held on Sunday, 13 April 2008 in Leung King southeast-facing slope. The weather forecast for the day was easterly wind with fog and rain in the morning. We knew by the past experience that the highland areas are usually covered with fog this time of the year, therefore, we didn't have high expectation that the contest can be run, because we do not have a suitable east-facing slope for F3F in the lowland. Anyway, 12 diehard F3F pilots insisted on going to meet in Ma On Shan car park early in the morning to see whether the local weather is permissible for holding F3F race up in Ma On Shan plateau. Of course, they were disappointed when they arrived at the car park discovering that the mountain range was indeed covered with dense fog. Moreover, the rain started to getting more serious! After a brief discussion and a suggestion was made that, as the wind direction is most likely southeast-east, the slope near Leung King in Tuen Mun may be suitable. In addition, the slope is only 200 meter high and the western part of the territory is usually much dryer than the eastern part, so it has a higher chance that the slope is clear of fog without rain. With a consent by majority votes, they started the 40km journey and arrived there at 10:40am. The guess was proved to be bloody correct! The sky was clear, the climate was dry and most importantly, the wind was blowing constantly at 6m/s! So the happy guys quickly set up the course for the contest. One big problem with this slope, however, is that the landing area was no longer covered with vegetation after a hill fire few months ago! Barren rocks are exposed which is not friendly to our beautiful gliders. The only possible area still has grass cushion for landing is measured at about 3 meter by 3 meter! Wow! That means the contest will be an endurance one with skills required not only in F3F but also in spot landing!

The contest was finally started at about 12:00pm with 12 pilots. The wind was at an average of 6 m/s initially and dropped a bit to 4 m/s at about round 4, then picked up again at round 6. Ah Kin took the opportunity of stronger wind in the first round and obtained a 58.35s lead which ultimately granted him the title of speedy man despite of closed challenges by fellow pilots in the last three rounds. The most interesting run of the day was by Johnson, he flew his brand new Demo with a supper split-S turn in base B and hit the base pole with a loud sound. Luckily, the pole however gave way to his plane and allowed him to continue to finish the run! Stanley performed consistently well though out the day and took seven rounds of 1000 points which enabled him to grab the champion title by a big margin. Ah Mak also performed consistently to grab the 1st runner-up prize. Ah Kin has started to lose out in second round and he even got a disqualified run with a DNF after a wing cover of his Ceres fell off! However, he re-gained his feet and caught up the others by using his brand new Skorpion in the last four rounds. He finally succeeded to suppress Ah Wai who did badly in the last round to grab the 2nd runner-up prize. Congratulation to all winners and thank you all F3F diehards, see you next month! The summary of the score table is shown below, for details, please check the score sheet.