05/09/2001 Arrival Day

Me and my team members took a total of over 20 hours from Hong Kong till we reach our hotel in Muncie on 05/09/01.  All through the trip I hand carried my Sceadu in separate pieces, and stored parts, tools and supplies together with my clothing in a suitcase.  To my surprise, the customs at the US border did not hassle me with questions and searches of my luggage, which was rare.  However, the Sceadu took some batter during the trip while it was resting inside the overhead storage bins of the planes, and the suitcase held everything together until it reached my room then it broke loose.  Seems that the baggage handler had a ball "3D" my suitcase, cause my suitcase's hard shell had cracks all around after the flight, and the "priority" tag on my suitcase seems to trigger more 3D flipping.....  When I checked into my room, I accessed damage to my luggage: The Sceadu seems ok after putting it back together, any bents and wraps would surface tomorrow when I take it to the field.  The damage on my suitcase rendered it unusable, and I have to buy one in Muncie for replacement.  Bummer!  After unpacking, I was so exhausted that I felt asleep immediately.

06/09/2001 Practice Day

Although I was dead tired, I did not sleep well.  Me and my team met at the hotel lobby early in the morning for breakfast, then headed for the AMA headquarter to pick up our fuel.  The AMA headquarter was in fact a very large flight strip.  The kind AMA staffs assisted us very well.  There were actually three different practice fields available to all flyers for practice, one inside the AMA air field, and the other two were private air fields.  After we picked up the fuel, we headed for the primary practice field, which was inside the AMA air field.  It was a piece glass land a the very back of the whole airfield.  This practice field was big enough for real airplane to land, and all my team members commented that we would die for such a field in Hong Kong.  Later I learned that this piece of grass land would host the Heli Jamboree after the World Championship.  Although I arrived at the field pretty early in the morning, there were already more than ten teams on the field practicing.  Frequency control was a co-effort by all flyers, and all of the flyers there observed it.  The flight line was set so that all pilots were facing the same direction when they fly.  

Practice field	Practice field
Hong Kong Team settlement	Hong Kong Team settlement

After settling my team members on the field, I drove around to greet other teams and see old friends.   The Israeli team, Korean team and Hirobo team practiced together in one corner.  Mr. Hashimoto was seen practicing with a Freya EX, covered with a Black Shark body, with his Caller Mr. Tanaka and his coach Mr. Kurogawa on his back to give advice.  Of notice is that Hashimoto's machine had a prototype SSR-VI rotor head installed.

Hashimoto	Hashimoto's Freya EX with Black Shark fuselage
SSR-VI rotor head	SSR-VI rotor head
SSR-VI rotor head	SSR-VI rotor head

Next to the Hirobo team was the Japanese national team, who had Mr. Sensui, Mr. Kobayashi, and Mr. Dobashi as contestants.  Both Sensui and Kobayashi were seen flying JR Superios with JR IMZ engines, prototype JR G6000T gyro and Galaxy fuselage with prototype retracts.  Dobashi was flying Kyosho Caliber, with prototype rotor head and modified Swift fuselage with retract system.  According to Dobashi, the retract system on his Caliber was design and made by a professional car racer friend of his that should enhance the aerodynamics of his Caliber. 

Sensui	Dobashi

Not far away from the Japanese team was the USA team, with Curtis Youngblood, Wayne Mann and Cliff Hiatt as contestants.  Curtis fly with JR Vigor CS and his signature style single stick JR PCM 10X radio.  Wayne Mann was flying Kyosho Caliber, and Cliff Hiatt with XCell Pro2K.  

USA team tent	Curtis Youngblood

Aside from the Japanese and USA team, other teams were also practicing in the field.  All teams were practice in a very intense and professional way.  However, I could not find the Germany and Italy teams in the field.  They should already arrived, where were they?  Maybe they were in the other fields.

All through the day, the weather was warm, with ample sunshine.  Moderate winds were coming from the back, from right to left, of the pilots.  My team members kept practicing very hard all through the day.  At first, all my team member suffer from small problems with their machines.  However, my friends in Futaba, Hirobo, JR and other teams were very helpful and finally got all problems solved and fixed.  My team members had burnt a total of over 5 gallons of fuel in one day, which was a record for each of them.  I even had some fun time flying my Sceadu around the field.  The only complain that I had about the field was that it had a lot of insects that bites.....  It's a pretty usual scene for a pilot to land his helicopter just to brush off insects or scratch itches.  Anyway, we practiced until complete darkness, then dragged our tired body back to the hotel to prepare for another practice day tomorrow.

07/09/2001 Team Check-In and Practice Day

Early up in the morning me and my team members went to AMA headquarter for official check-in.  At a first come first serve basis, our team and the Japanese team were the first teams to check-in.  At the check-in each team member received a packet with information pamphlet and souvenir.  According to the information pamphlet, there were a total of about 71 pilots from all over the world competing in this event.

After the check-in, our team immediately went to the practice field inside the AMA facility for more practice.  As we arrived at the practice field today, we found that winds were much stronger today compared to yesterday.  Later in the morning as more and more pilots began their practice in the field, the field traffic became really hectic.  As a result, I left my pilots to continue their practice at the AMA field, while I drove to find the other two practice fields.  Even with directions provided by AMA, I found the second practice field the hard way, and if I could not see Great Britain's Dave Wilshire's X-Cell in the sky I could not find it at all.  The second practice field was in fact someone's backyard that was big enough to let his Pitts biplane take to the sky.  According to Mark Christy, also from Great Britain, the Great Britain team had been practicing in that field for several days already, and they were the only pilots that practiced there.  Mark also said the owner of that field was a very kind person, offering a lot of help to them, even offered to take them up to the sky with his Pitts biplane for some aerobatics.  Since this airfield was too small to fit in both teams, I left to look for the third practice field.

The third practice field was a private parachute club, that was very easy to find.  This field was much bigger than the second field, and a portion of it was the backyard of three homes.  When I found it there was no body practicing there, so I decided to move my team here to practice.  It took me about half an hour's drive from the third practice field back to the AMA field to pick up my team members.  Back to the AMA field I saw several teams including the Japan and USA team began to pack up and leave because of strong winds and hectic traffic.  After lunch, the whole Hong Kong team arrived at the third practice field, and I met with the New Zealand team and one Korea team member who was practicing there.  The field had more than enough place to accommodate all of us.  Our team had a ball practicing in this field until about 6:00pm when a thunder storm came.  When I drove back to the hotel there was very heavy rain with thunder storm.

3rd practice field	3rd practice field

At the same evening all pilots and team managers had a meeting in the AMA headquarter.  Both AMA and FAI officials prep us as to the schedule for official practice tomorrow, cleared out some issues, and answered questions from pilots.  Most questions asked were for this year's arrangement of two flight line, their concern about frequency controlling, and about tomorrow's weather.  All these questions were addressed properly by AMA and FAI officials.  The Hong Kong team was scheduled for official practice as the first team in the main flight line, so we took a quick dinner and head back to the hotel to prepare for tomorrow.

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