Hi again.  Then the semi-final is over.  We have had a nice day, some low clouds and light rain in the morning, but best of all, very low wind.  It is a fact that there are a lot of good pilots around these days, all semi-finalists flew good schedules with no big mistakes made by anyone. My initial target was to at least keep my 16th from the preliminaries, this proved to be a little bit too tough today. I dropped down to 17th, which still is a respectable results.  My flights of today was of the quality that I am capable of these days, and the fact that others did better is nothing I can do anything about.  Now... bring on the beer

New model sold by Delro, developed by Hajime Hatta	The new Plettenberg motor used by Gerhard Mayr	Sem-final results

Since I made it to the semi-finals the day has been spent on the practice-field trying to hone the skills flying the F-schedule. I made 4 flights and felt better on the last 2 than on the first 2. Also present was Italians, Liechtensteinians, the Spanish pilots, the dutch that is to fly warmup for judges etc.  Quite a few of those that did not progress to the semi-final also showed up, I guess they had nothing better to do.  The weather today was better, still some light showers, but mostly overcast and some sun with low wind. In the evening there was a team-manager meeting for the semi-finalists were the starting order and general schedule for tomorrow was defined. The random starting-order draw ended OK for me, start # 17 in the first round (app. 9:30), and #5 in the second (app. 12:30).
Some pictures from today :

Two WindS pros with blender-propulsion	Seba has pulled out the biplane for the finals	The Osmose of Angus, and my Gaudius
Team kermit from ireland	The locals cooked and sold us lunch

Wednesday is the last day for the preliminary rounds.  When we completed today it was just a matter of verification and calculations before the list of pilots reaching the semi-finals was ready. But before that, a little about my day today. We was up early as usual, Andreas was to fly at around 08:00 and as a team-manager I was there to help.  He made a respectable flight also today.  As for the last days the weather was not very like summer, 9deg. C in the morning and I felt cold.  To try to heat up I went back to the hotel in Kapfenberg town and went for a hike up to the castle on a hill overlooking the town.  Boy .. did I stop beeing cold ! Then a quick shower and dry clothes before going back to help Knut for his last flight. During the stay here,  I have struggled to make my Gaudius dive straigh at 45 deg.  I have been thinking about this and the fact that I changed from APC to Mejzlik propeller (30g + lighter) to get a better margin to the weight limit before leaving from home stroke me.  This has moved the CG a little to the rear and messed up my trim of the model.  Since I now have verified that the model is within the weight-limit with the APC 21x14 I put it back on and went to the practice field for a couple of flights to retrim and verify my theory, gladly it seemed to help. After lunch the wind had picket up and I had some turbulence and general wind during my last flight.  The score was good, but one of the judges had turned into Santa, so after TBL this round became my throw-away.  So then I manged again to reach the semi-final, 16th after the preliminaries is a good result so far.  The result for the other norwegians are; Andreas 27th and Knut 57th.
BTW; the best 23 moves forward to the semi-final.  Not too many pictures taken today, here are a few:

The models of Robin Trumpp and Knut, in ready-box	Danish models; Twister, Addiction and Axiome	All the rain the last days has made the rivers grow
The castle from below	The entrance to the castle	The castle is quite old
View from the castle, the flying field is marked	Hot wheels, my Grandis and a Merc. SLR Mclaren

This has been another day with rain, but flying continues almost without interruption. In the morning it was just rain, later the wind picked up and some pilots got rough conditions. Later the wind lower again improving the conditions and the scores. I flew in the morning with heavy rain, but low wind. Knut got a bit of both, actually more wind than rain. Andreas flew in strong rain with a manageable breeze, he did wery well.  It is with mixed feelings one flies in the rain(and low wind), the flying conditions are actually quite good, but the overall feeling is not the best. We were all interrested to se how Mayr coped with his 'slow-flier' in the strong an turbulent wind that he had to fly in.  From the beginning it was quite clear that he struggled, even though he was going faster (or less slow) than usual, the airplane jumped around a lot nore than other ones. Then one the top of the loop with 8-point roll, all forward speed dissapeared and he landed. There was someting wrong with his propulsion system, if the issue is with the motor, the regulator or the batteries is not known. I have a few pictures from today, even though it is not so fun to bring the camera out when that water is pouring down.
BTW : There are quite a few pilots that are using the Hacker Q80, among them Gunter Ulsamer.  The preformance and sound is good while the consumption from the battery is unanswered.

Bernt Olsson is ready for a flight in the rain	Marcus Zeiners RedBull sponsored Amethyst	Rain soon becomes mud.
Hacker C50, Q60 and Q80	Result service terminal	Wall with all score-sheets

Today was a wet day, most of the pilots in the morning group flew in rain. Thankfully the wind was not a factor today, just the wet stuff. Knut improved his score from yesterday, while Andreas was not so smooth and dropped a few points. I almost copied the score from yesterday (444.4 against 444.0), and are happy with my performance so far. CPLR made a good flight, as did Silvestri and also Mayr. BTW he has one of the new (is it available yet) Plettenberg direct drive innrunner motors in his Toxylen, he use a carbon 22x12 prop on it and it seems to be performing well when he bothers to use more than half throttle. Benoit Diericx of Belgium ran out of time before finishing the last maneouvre, and lost quite a lot of points for that. For more details with respect to scores, visit the official WEB at : http://www.f3a-ec.at/index.html
Some pictures from today :

CPLR has got Hanno Prettners signature on his Axiome	Different solution ?	Rain and low clouds delayed todays progress
Toxylen with Plettenberg Advance	Butuzov from Russia can move his battery to change the CG	Ulsamers new drug
Team Norway