Typhoon Race 2015 F3F Jeju Korea

Typhoon Race 2015 was held again in the beautiful Island of Jeju in Korea. A total of 32 pilots participated in the contest including 8 from Hong Kong, 3 from Taiwan, 3 from Singapore, 1 from France. 3 pilots continued their trip from Kenting and arrived at Jeju on Wednesday night with warm reception by the local pilots, special thanks to Joon Lee for his car ride as well as welcome dinner at Korean BBQ.

 The practice day Unfortunately, very weak wind was expected, so we went straight to have some sightseeing, first to the EcoPark with mini-train ride. Then in the afternoon, we went to the slope to check out the wind condition, and found there was virtually no wind, so we went sightseeing again in Halla Park. Dinner was Korean Ginseng Chicken Soup at restaurant nearby hotel with Mr Park.

1st day contest Strong northerly wind was expected, so headed to a small slope for northerly wind at early morning, this is a new slope which has never been used for contest before. The hike up is relatively easy 15 minutes climb. A round zero was run for pilots to get accustom to this slope. Windspeed was 12 m/s and gusting to 16m/s. Strong wind coupled with this small slope made flying pretty challenging, there were many penalties as a result of crossing the safety line. There were a few crashes due to strong turbulence. Andreas Fricke of France got the fastest time in round zero but he crashed his model into the tree in the first round, too bad for him as he needed to fly his model repaired with three big holes for the rest of the contest! A total of 4 rounds plus a round zero were completed. We headed back to hotel after sun set, Happy time followed when we had dinner at a BBQ restaurant. To celebrate the success of today contest, we consumed many bottles of Korean liqueur that led to at least four pilots getting drunk!

2nd day contest Strong north-easterly wind was expected, so we headed back to Geumak Oreum. One big advantage of this slope is that it can be reached by car and is much bigger than the slope we used in previous day. Windspeed was at average 12m/s. This slope is much safer both for flying and landing, and therefore no major crashes happened, except perhaps, LiMan’s Stinger was lost during landing as it was sucked down by strong side wind. Fortunately, his model was finally spotted at the end of day when we walked downhill to search for it. It was hung on top of a tall tree with one wing fell off badly damaged. The organizer managed to complete 7 rounds in a day as the lady base judges were getting more experience on the buttons with very few base judge errors.

3rd day contest Weather forecast was weak north-easterly wind, so the organizer decided to push forward the contest by half an hour in order to get more rounds. So we got up very early and arrived at the slope at 8 am. Unfortunately, the wind was too weak to be able to start the contest, a waiting game and a perfect photo-taking session for everybody. After 4 hours of waiting, rain instead of wind did arrive, so the organizer called off the contest at 12:30pm.

TR2015 was officially over with 11 rounds flown.

The winners are: Champion: Stanley Chan (Hong Kong) 1st Runner-up: Joe Sung (Taiwan) 2nd Runner-up: Ho Kwok Wai (Hong Kong) Best Speed: Imkil Joen (Korea)
Team award Champion team: Chi-Sang Leung, Sunny Tse, Ho Kwok Wai 1st Runner-up team: Wing Wong, Andreas Fricke, Stanley Chan 2nd Runner-up team: Joe Sung, Rico Lee, Jeff Tan

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCa-fqMpZuV0ukW8dP5vouifhfowLaOPC jeju vids

https://goo.gl/photos/6V1Jd3K6HvLCY26JA photos longpan + jeju

Lungpan F3F 2015 Taiwan

 8 pilots from SG went over for this year's Lungpan F3F. Typhoon Koppu threatened to disrupt this year's Lungpan F3F 2015 in Taiwan. Luckily it managed to clear away and we managed to had 4 days of good flights. Over the 3 days of competition we had light wind on first day, medium wind on 2nd and strong conditions on the last, what a great finish. It was great to meet again friends from Hongkong, Taiwan and France at this magical slope. 

Special thanks to Taiwan R/C Slope Glider Association for well organised event. Thanks Steve Chang , Gordon Tseng and all helpers in the organising team! 特别感谢台湾遥控斜坡滑翔机协会举办这次龙盘F3F赛。谢谢再次让我们有机会来龙盘一起玩。我们都飞得很开心。大家明年再见!

Along the way we had good meals, great fun and many incidents to make this another memorable trip.

We arrived at Kaohsiung on Thursday morning and rushed down to the slope for some practice. Winds 20-25ms greeted us and we did a few test rounds.

Day 1 of the competition we had 8-9ms wind dropping to 3-6ms in the afternoon, we finished 8 rounds. Day 2 we finished 9 rds in slightly stronger wind before ending day 3 with 4 rounds. Many of the team achieved their personal best. An unexpected "bonus" of extra shopping day in Kaohsiung due to Scoot flight delay.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCa-fqMpZuV0F_O30oHbjw9bdR3cDR67- Vids Lungpan 2015

https://goo.gl/photos/6V1Jd3K6HvLCY26JA photos longpan + jeju