Today marked Day #2 of the World largest and most prestigious 3D R/C Helicopter competition in the world. Global 3D! The weather was Sunny with near perfect conditions! A bit of wind in the afternoon but nothing that the professional caliper of pilots of this event couldn’t handle. Also there was an amazing turn out of spectators this year!
If you didn’t yet read about Day #1 of the competition make sure you check out the previous article HERE
Day 2 is always one of the most busy days of the contest as there are 3 x Preliminary contest rounds flown + The Speed Cup Finals + Sponsor Demos. Commentator Nik Johnson was LIVE streaming the event to RC Heli hangout most of the day so make sure you check out those videos if your curious to see about the day! Also there is Pascal Richter who is acting as a dedicated camera man filming every flight and will be posting and uploading them ASAP!
The day started with the Experts Class 3 Minute Freestyle Flights followed by the Masters Class 3 Minute Freestyle. The freestyle flight is where the pilots are given free reign to fly and create their very own and unique freestyle flights where they can showcase their new maneuvers as well as how precisely, entertainingly and aggressively they can fly their models!
Since pilots are always pushing their models to the absolute limits, this round is one which is known for LOTs of carnage! In fact for the Expert Round there was probably around 7 Crashes out of 23 pilots , and in the Masters Class about 4 out of 12 pilots. Needless to say, this round is one the crowd loves to watch! Be sure to check out these videos once they’ll get posted!
Luckily there is what is called a “Yellow Card” system in place. The yellow card is essentially a “do over” card and each pilot is given just one for the entire contest. If a pilot crashes or has a mechanical or electronic failure during his flight he is allowed to play his yellow card once which allows him to start his flight over again at the end of the round.
After these 2 rounds then we rolled into the “Speed Cup” Finals. The Speed Measuring Camera System was provided by Georges van Gansen, the owner of Scorpion. Pilots ran a 200 meter course where they came in full speed from a dive, and then leveled out just before the start of the course. Pilots have to run the course both from the left and the right, and then their 2 speeds are averaged together. Top Average speed was 282 km/h (176mph) by Marc Rodewald!!!
After the Speed Cup then there were the Sponsor Demos which as always never ceased to amaze the huge crowd! The sponsoring companies sent their best pilots up to demonstrate their skills and their products. In these demos we saw everything to helicopters with smoke/ pyrotechnics, mid airs, tandem flights, crashes and much more!!
To give you a flavor of the intensity of the demos, here are 2 x Scorpion Pilots Sakkarin Kongthron and Marik Wiehenstroth from the Scorpion Power System Demo!!
After the demos then we went straight into the Preliminary Masters Music Routines. The music flights are by far one of the most amazing rounds to watch because watching the pilots choreograph their models to the beats of the music is really neat. This year the judges said that they were really going to be focusing on looking for “new and innovative” maneuvers. So this really motivated the pilots to incorporate never before seen maneuvers into their routines, which certainly proved to be exciting and intriguing to watch.
So out of all the pilots competing only the Top 5 from each class will progress. Since Experts didn’t yet fly their Preliminary Music Round, we don’t know which of them yet will progress but since Master Class has flown all preliminary rounds the scores we have show which pilots have advanced to the Finals! Here they are!
Master Class – Preliminary Results
1. Sakkarin Kongthron (Team Scorpion)
2. Kan Poonnoi
3. Kenny Ko
4. Marik Wiehenstroth (Team Scorpion)
5. Kyle Stacy
So these 5 pilots will be the Final competitors for the Master class of Global 3D 2019! Finals Start tomorrow early afternoon
For Experts going into their Preliminary Music round tomorrow morning the top 5 so far score is as follows.
Expert Class – Day 2 results
1. Vava Boonmalla (Team Scorpion)
2. Henrik Clausen
3. Thanawin Kiatgungwalg
4. Heng Kitchana (Team Scorpion)
5. Aaron Cole
However 6th place, Jason Lin, is just 3 points behind 5th and 7th place, Marius Gehle, is only 12 points further behind, out of 1000 points! So its still anybody’s game to see who will advance to the finals! After they fly their preliminary music round tomorrow morning then we will know who will advance and compete in the Finals round tomorrow afternoon.
But after day 2, the 1st place position of both classes, Sakkarin Kongthron and Vava Boonala, are using Scorpion power system, as well as the 4th place of both classes, Marik Wiehenstroth and Heng Kitchana. Congratulations team Scorpion Pilots!
There was A LOT that happened today during the event but this is just a brief overview of the events of today! Hope you enjoy the read and check back again tomorrow for the Finals Blog Post!
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