This competition is a different formate to most our other comps. It is a match race, two pilots start at the same time and then race each other. Either to fly exactly the same time and land on the spot (30 minutes yesterday), or to fly around as many turnpoints as possible and land on the spot.
In the first round, I had a really high profile competitor with Konrad Heilmann. He is not just a local Rio tandem pilot who flies here every day four times, but he is also a top guy from the Brazilian national team and just won the Wings over Wellington competition in Australia. I thought my chances of going past the first round are limited, and I just wanted to enjoy as much airtime as possible, so I went for the turnpoint option, as that allowed me to fly for 50 minutes.
It was difficult in the beginning of the flight. We didn´t really get much height and had to glide out to Hotel National on the beach as the first turnpoint, but then back to the take off for the second one. I got back very low and had to scratch up from way below take off, but eventually made it, went back out to the last turnpoint which was the same as the first, and then raced to the goal line to finish my flight at 49minutes 45 seconds ;)
Konrad went for flying the exact time, but apparently the turnpoints count more, so I think I might have got into the 2nd round.
Zippy pulled off the landing of the day with lots of spectators cheering him, and he also got to the next round, as well as Betinho. Christian Ciech only just arrived the day before the comp and wasn´t aware that the turnpoint radius is only 100m (normally 400m), so he didn´t get the task score, but only time points, and isn´t quite sure if he is in the next round or not. We will see today!
Homepage of the event and results here!
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