30/06/2003 | Posted by Thierry at 04:25 PM
The XXII. World Aerobatic Championships is now underway in Lakeland, Florida!
The Opening Ceremonies were held during the evening on Wednesday, 25 June, at Lakeland airport, site of the World Aerobatic Championships. After a general briefing for all team managers by Phil Knight, Contest Director, in the mid-afternoon, a reception was held at the Sun ‘N Fun museum pavilion and then the parade of nations took place in front of the FAA building on the site which serves as registration, headquarters, and the briefing area.
Speeches were made by Sun ‘N Fun President John Burton, Contest Director Phil Knight, and local officials. The keynote address was given by Clint McHenry, a former member of the U. S. Aerobatic Team. His remarks recounted the long trip of the Team into the Soviet Union in 1976 when the WAC was held in Kiev. Finally, the WAC was officially opened by CIVA President Mike Heuer and then the evening airshow began. Spectators and participants were treated to beautiful night aerobatic displays and a spectacular fireworks show which followed.
Programme Q began on Thursday, 26 June. The normal “start up” delays associated with any major contest resulted in the first competition flight taking place at 14.00 that day as the huge contest organization machine began running smoothly. Warm up pilots flew that morning and Yoshihide Muroya of Japan was the first competition pilot to fly in the WAC. He is flying a Sukhoi SU-31, N24SU. As the evening came to a close, Nicolas Ivanoff of France was the last pilot. As with all of the French Team, Nicolas flies the beautiful CAP 232. He was number 29 in the order of flight.
Flying continued on Friday, 27 June, in Programme Q and the flights were finished in the early evening. Results are included here. While Programme Q’s scores do not count in the Championships results, most competitors still work hard to achieve high scores as their order of flight will be determined by the rank order in which they finish. The top ten pilots, however, participate in a special random drawing for order of flight and this was done on Friday evening as well.
Teams also submitted their figures for the composition of the First Unknown, Programme 2. After the figures were approved by the International Jury, teams are permitted to submit sequence proposals to the Jury. Altogether, seven of the ten teams represented at the 2003 WAC submitted Unknown proposals to the Jury and ultimately the British proposal was accepted. The protest period for objection to the Unknown expired at 14.00 on 28 June, so it was officially adopted and will be flown as Programme 3.
The contest has been relatively trouble-free though there have been a few technical problems with aircraft. Spanish pilot Castor Fantoba suffered a loose oil cap on his Sukhoi which was not properly secured and broke off his flight before completion of Programme Q. In accordance with the rules, the Jury decided there would be no re-fly by Castor, however, he was permitted a training flight in the box that did not count for scores for safety reasons. This is why his name does not appear on the results for this programme.
The Italian pilots are also flying American Bob Freeman’s G-200 here at WAC and a landing gear bolt failed and hopefully will be fixed before the conclusion of the Free Programme. After the programme is concluded, “make up” flights are not allowed.
As this report is being written, we are now on the morning of 30 June … flying is about to be concluded on Programme 2.
Links:
Programme Q Results (PDF, 12K)
Championship Photo Gallery
Sergey Rakhmanin of Russia has won the gold in Programme 1 of the World Aerobatic Championships currently underway in Lakeland, Florida, USA. Sergey flies the Sukhoi SU-31. Following him in the overall results were Svetlana Kapanina in second place and Mikhail Mamistov in third -- both from Russia. 