17 Oct Fri - Departure
This is start of our kenting lungpan adventure. Quite a large group this trip, many are going there for fun-fly and get a feel of the fantastic slope at lungpan. We first transit at hongkong to kaoshuing and pick up our rental cars.
Along the way we pick up VinTan from HSR station. After a long day of travelling we reach hengchun, our stay for the next 10 days.
We had a nice steam boat dinner at the local store. Winds was already howling , we fixed up our models ready for next day.
18 Oct Sat - Practice
Practice day with good wind 15-23ms. After nice breakfast, we headed for the slope. Some of Hongkong pilots were already there. We took turns with the Hongkong team to fly, weather was good.
Many of us were not used to such strong winds and had some crashes. Weiyao flew too close to the left lip , hit turbulance and crashed his crossover. Frank lost his pace during landing. Rest damaged their models on landing.
We had nice seafood dinner at the port to make up for the loses.
19 Oct Sun
Winds slowed down slightly, and started to rain for awhile. No problem, party in the Van!
Many other pilots started to arrive.Long Q for flying started, Sherwin unfortunately got lost while he went down to retrive his crossover. He went down the wrong way and went too far away , almost reaching the coast line. A rescue operation started and he was eventually rescued just before lights went out.
20 Oct Mon
We did some flying and went for ATV in the afternoon.
At night after dinner ,we went to light fireworks at nearby chuhuo tourist attraction.
21 Oct Tues
Wind dropped to very light, making the day very hot. We only had 1 flight each when the heat became unbearable. We decided to take a break and went back. Along the way we went for a round of exciting drift Go-cart.
22 Oct Wed
Weather was not looking good. We had late breakfast and went to hot springs nearby for rest and relax.
23 Oct
Wind was blowing crazy, more than 30m/s in the morning. We work up early at 5am go slope to beat the Q. Flying in the crazy wind was exciting. Bases were setup and time practices started. Lukas crashed his model hard and fast on Base A during one of the time flights. Rest clocked pretty good times, many sub 30s.
We completed model checking and registration in the evening.
24 Oct Thurs
Comp day 1 . Typhoon race started with wind speed of 10-15ms. Good constant wind with few thermal influence made this contest a real test of skills. Lukas crashed his model in Rd 1 after a cut at base B, he recovered very well with a 30.46 in Rd 3, thats the fastest speed of the day as well as Best speed for the whole competition. Times range from 30s to 40s.
25 Oct
Comp day 2
Wind started similar to as day 1 before dropping to around 8-10ms. A very close contest for the top pilots. Pressure was mounting and Mr O crashed his needle into Base B in Rd 6. CD decided to have a split round in round 9. The long waiting time in between rounds means we had lots of time to mingle with the other pilots. It was great catching up with old friends and meeting new ones.
26 Oct
Comp day3. Wind dropped and speed slowed down. In the end of 13 rounds, Mr O won the Typhoon race with Lukas coming in 2nd, Gordon Tseng of Taiwan came in third.
Full results http://www.f3f.url.tw/tr2014/tr2014_3.pdf
or http://f3xvault.com/?action=event&function=event_view&event_id=405
27 Oct
We left early in the morning with fond memories of the good days we had in kenting. It was one of the best trips we had. It was a fantastic experience having world class pilots at the longpan. Seeing them fly serves as good inspiration for many. Planes, besides the usual stingers, pike precisions, freestylers, lots of pitbulls, crossovers were flown by the pilots.
