Last tuesday i came back from EXFC (European Extreme Flight Championship). What suppose to be one of greatest weeks in my life turn out to be nightmare. I came to Czech Znojmo on Tuesday, with plans to practice with Gernot for team competition. I drive all the way alone (about 1200km), we did not find hotel to sleep on the way (it was to late) so we decide to drive all the way till airfield and sleep in car, as we find out later this was big mistake. After few hours of sleep we went to practice, we find one crack in wing rib, we fix it and double check everything (amost). My and my helper Danil went to runway start engine (that work perfect), and i take of and affter about 50m i lost signal. I made small and very stupid mistake i did not put antenna in my Duplex 2.4 module, normally i remove it from back of radio for easier transportation in case.... Normally i use Jeti Box in each new airfield where i fly, to check how system works, but results were always perfect (in Lithuania, France, Italy, Germany), that i stop doing this, i simply was 100% confident in Duplex system. Anyway plane was damaged very hard, but thanks god it did not hurt anyone and all equipment even tuned pipes were not damaged. I'm still in bad mood until now because of such stupid mistake, i was very happy with plane performance and engine/prop/pipes work. So sad it happen in first flight in Znojmo. This crash eliminate chances of flying in team competition.

This is short video from Alytus cup, flying Yak in between F3A rounds just for jun.  Sad but i have no better video, this was just 3 min of poor footage. In any case enjoy, i hope to rebuild this plane for next summer.

 Right affter crash Gernot offer me to fly his SU 29 from Krill, that was powered by DA85. It was VERY kind of him, and of course such behavior show what great person he is. I spend few days trying to setup plane in best way for me. Unfortunately plane was not working very well for me, snap rolls/blenders/point rolls were very different from EF Yak because of slightly too big/heavy wings (in my opinion).

Good thing about Sukhoy , it had little better weight to trust ratio and was more agile / faster than my EF yak, so this help in cross wind. But flying it like shockflyer show results imedeatly, from first day each flight gave us surprises. First we notice motormount crack, then wheelpant came loose in take off, affter that interesting part start, one aileron servo fail, we replace it and in next flight other aileron show that we have dead servo;) I was running powerbox on 7V, and Mr. Gerhard told Graupner servos are not made for high voltage. Last problem was quite funny and take most time to fix it. In practice flight i notice engine sound change, ok we thought we have problem with header, but affter landing we did not find header at all, it was gone;) So Mr. Gerhard took his welding tools, and affter few hours we had new flexible header that work in entire competition without problems.  

Wheelpant gone;)

Fixing servo;)

Ready steady go!

Semifinal pilots.

Semifinals scores. 

I expect good pilot level in this competition, and i was right, almost all finalist flew superb routines with risky maneuvers. Biggest surprise for me was Austrian pilot Wolfgang Krahofer, he flew his wooden Votec so hard that from time to time we saw wings bending very hard! And his routine had great balance of precise slow maneuvers and crazy 3D and both well flown to good music.  

 Wolfgang finals flight.