With both planes loaded, we arrived early to the AMA building and set them up for inspection. Chad and Dez also arrived and we were met by some familiar faces in Dave & Ron Lockhart, Andre Bouchard, Ron Van Putte and Joe Lachowski who work the various plane stations.
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| Adding a last minute decal. |
First the paperwork was separated for each of the competitors planes and I drew the pilot numbers out of a bucket. This will determine the flight line position and order that pilots will eventually fly. Once all the teams have been completed they will create a roster that will be given to us Monday night at the Managers meeting.
Chad is #49, Mark #41 and Dez #24 for rostering purposes. Next I was issued the Pilot and Team Manager bibs that must be worn during the competition. They are white with black trim and will match our uniforms perfectly.
Our FAI licenses were checked by Colleen Pierce and then taken for the duration of the contest... not sure when I will see them again :-) and I also delivered a Canadian Flag. We were all issued new AMA Licenses as well.
Each plane was subsequently checked for maximum wingspan & length, radio gear (no gyros!) and then each removable piece of the plane was affixed with a round decal with the competitors number on it. The official FAI sticker was also attached at this time.
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| Dave Lockhart takes a good look as Joe chats with Mark |
The planes were weighed with batteries to ensure a maximum all up weight not exceeding 5 Kilograms (with an additional 1% margin for equipment error) and finally checked for failsafe function should TX power be lost during flight. Should the plane lose transmitter signal the throttle goes to off for safety. This is a simple test and is accomplished with the throttle up and the radio then turned to the off position. The motor should quit altogether.
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| Xavier holds Dez's plane as Joe affixes stickers. |
We needed to tweak Dez’s failsafe but once that was accomplished with the help of Chad, the team successfully completed registration and processing. We had both Hartley and Ian snapping pictures and with the main AMA building as a backdrop we took several team pictures. I’ll post them ASAP.
I have to commend the folks at processing as they did a great job getting us through. Very thorough, helpful and best of all friendly!
We grabbed a quick bite and headed to the practice field for more of the same :-) On arrival we could see that the weather was closing in so Mark put in a nice round followed by Chad but he bailed as the rains and winds hit again... he has bad luck with this! We packed up everything as Team Lichtenstein arrived to a huge downpour and gusty winds. We rode out the weather in our vehicles and in 30 minutes the system passed and we hit the skies again. The Irish team arrived and we quickly got in flights in our usual team manner.
An hour later it was time to head home as I was hosting a BBQ Social at Camp Canada for the team. Hartley and Pat graciously offered up their rig and with the help of Robyn, Pat, Kelly, Hartley and chef Marco we served up a steak dinner to the team, it’s supporters and our good friend Derek Koopowitz who just happened to stop by. I also took the liberty of inviting the Irish Team as well but they arrived a tad late due to various reasons. None the less we enjoyed the great company and everyone seemed to have a good evening listening to Ian crack jokes. As per normal we had a rain storm in the middle of it all just to cool us down a bit.
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| Post dinner social in full swing. |
My “crew” get a big THANK YOU for making this happen... so good in fact that we will have to do it again... soon!
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