2011 Hong Kong F3F League - Match 4
Ma On Shan, April 10, 2011


The forth match for the 2011 Hong Kong F3F league was held successfully on Sunday, 10 April 2011 in Ma On Shan easterly slope. The weather forecast for the day was quite disappointing. The forecast wind speed is on the low side at about 3 to 4 m/s. Most pilots arrived at Ma On Shan car park before 8am, they soon found out that low level fog was covering the mountain top. Never give up they are! This is a waiting game. By the time at around 9:15am, the mountain top was cleared up a bit and they started the ascend to the flying site. When they arrived, they found out the sky was clear and wind was there, although it was only average at about 3 m/s. Anyway, after a quick site setup, the race was officially started at 10:00am. The first pilot to fly was Steve! Wow! we were a bit worrying for him, but  he finally made it a successful run. There were a few re-flies due to insufficient wind speed. After about 9 pilots have flown, the base judge reported that there was a misalignment of base pole, so CD decided to cancel the scores and started over the first round again. As a result, we lost about 25 minutes of time. Anyway, the race re-started with no major mishap. Most pilots didn't enjoy the light wind, however, with the possible exception that AC flew his Extreme with dashing speed and got 47.97s which not only grant him 1000 points for round one but also the speedy man title for the day. Most flying in the second round were actually quite painful to the pilots as they were struggling to maintain height and speed of their gliders. Fat Fai managed to win this round with a mid fifty. The wind condition in the third round was similar. Ah Wing (阿永) managed to gain sufficient height in the 30 seconds time, dived down with high speed and completed the course in 51.13s. This was the second fastest time of the day. In the forth round, Ken28 steered his Skorpion with speed to win this round. Chan Kwok Wai managed to win the fifth round with a 51.73s using a tight split-S style. Lee Man landed his model far below the mountain after he completed his fifth round. Oh! it would be a labor intensive recovery mission under the hot sun! The sixth round was started at about 4pm, however, after about 5 pilots have flown, the wind was finally dropped to virtually zero at 4:15pm, and the CD called off the race at 4:40pm. The champion of the day was Ken28, followed by AC Wai and Lee Man. AC Wai also won the speedy man title. Congratulation to all winners! The summary of the score table is shown below, for details, please check the score sheet.
 


 

 


Preparing the model for the race

What are you talking about, Allan?

Die hard pilots up on the mountain even the wind God is not that co-operative

Taking a rest during the tense competition

CM's beautiful Extreme is very well adapted to fly in this light wind condition

Well protected model

Another beautiful model

After a hard recovery mission, Lee Man was glad to know that he won the 2nd runner-up prize

AC won the 1st runner-up prize

Ken28 was the champion of the day, congratulation!

AC also won the speedy title with a 47.97s

A group photo for all the happy pilots