Hashimoto's great flight today
Hashimoto's great flight today
Me and my team members arrived at the first airfield at around 6:00am this morning to prepare for radio impound, all wearing the panda's eyes. It must be a hard night for all of them.
The weather was fine today with just mild breeze. In the fields, ring tones of cell phones continued. After today's competition the finalists would be decided, so the mood of competition was intense. After today round finished the normalized score and the 14 finalists were as follows:
| Rank | Name | Country | Normalized Score |
| 1 | Curtis Youngblood | USA |
1,000 |
| 2 | Manabu Hashimoto | Japan |
989.2335 |
| 3 | Yukihiro Dobashi | Japan |
978.0641 |
| 4 | Minoru Kobayashi | Japan |
977.4128 |
| 5 | Scott Gray | Canada |
971.7124 |
| 6 | Johann Hoenle | Germany |
967.4882 |
| 7 | Cliff Hiatt | USA |
938.2261 |
| 8 | Katsuyuki Sensui | Japan |
933.5898 |
| 9 | Wolfgang Worgas | Austria |
917.9501 |
| 10 | Wayne Mann | USA |
903.7908 |
| 11 | Mark Christy | United Kingdom |
894.5878 |
| 12 | Pascal Brianchon | France |
866.9154 |
| 13 | Laurent Lombard | France |
858.3802 |
| 14 | Stefano Lucchi | Italy |
852.3802 |
On today's flight, Hashimoto did a marvelous flight that scored 293.5 that catapult his position from fourth to second overall, but he could not top Curtis' score of 295.5, who remained top after the preliminary. Later, Curtis' score today was beaten by Scott Gray, who did an almost perfect flight to gain 299.5, that moved Scott from sixth place to fifth overall. Cliff Hiatt did two great flights and put him in the seventh place from fourteenth.
Also after finishing today's competition, the team results were finalized as follows:
| Rank | Country | Score |
| 1 | Japan |
8609.322 |
| 2 | USA |
8469.115 |
| 3 | United Kingdom |
7540.165 |
| 4 | Austria |
7426.986 |
| 5 | France |
7385.585 |
| 6 | Italy |
7333.668 |
| 7 | Switzerland |
7116.315 |
| 8 | Sweden |
6853 |
| 9 | Korea |
6808.264 |
| 10 | Isreal |
6760.331 |
My team finished at the position of fifteen in team standing, which was a record in our history. I was very happy with my team's result, and wished next World Championship in 2003 would be even better for the Hong Kong team. Even though as I see the Hong Kong team would not be a heavy contender to other teams for years to come, I saw improvements in my team, and hoped that in the coming World Championship I could lead my team to higher grades and results.
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Hashimoto's great flight today |
Hashimoto's great flight today |
Interesting machine of the day
Barron Guss, who did not participated in the competition, brought along a machine that attracted lots of attention in the field. Barron's machine was a turbine powered helicopter, with parts mainly based on the JR Ergo 60 FAI. Barron designed and made the main frame mechanics, and put in a Sophia turbine jet engine. Rotor head, tail parts and mixing were from JR. Starting of the turbine engine would be from the pressure tube that was fixed to the tail. Lately I had developed interest in turbine powered aircrafts, and Barron's machine was a dream come true to me!
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Barron's turbine powered helicopter |
Sophia turbine power |
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Rotor head of JR Ergo |
ECCPM control |
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¡@ |
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Self made and design mechanics by Barron |
¡@ |