Early start, breakfast at 06:30, buses to the mine arrive at 07:30
Today is a day of free practice allowing competitors to finalise model set up for main and reserve models, not a great deal happening except get flights in, check and confirm trim, speculate on the drift for the competition days and get around a bit to meet others and look at the new trends for models.
The day ended at 3:30 at which time all the fliers and tables relocated to a pits area at the end of the hall, this opens up the main hall for access floorspace and reduces turbulence from body heat, we expect the competition days to be noticeably calmer than has been the case to date.
Back to hotel at 5PM and advised the opening ceremony is at 6:30 precisely, this was a short affair with flags of competing nations and playing of the Romanian National anthem and the FAI anthem, in all that took 5 mins and was over, dinner now set for 8PM.
Tomorrow the World Championships F1D finally begins, flying is two rounds per day, each team member has two flights in each round, flights are times from release until ground contact is made, all flights that are timed are recorded, if for whatever reason a competitor terminates a flight for a valid reason within 60 seconds from launch the flight can be re flown, mid-air collisions if significant can be re-flown.
At the end of the 3rd round the two highest for each competitor are times are added together, the individual champion is the person with the highest number of seconds scored.
Terry Adams, Team GBR – F1D