I have just returned home from the F3A World Championships, an event that I will long remember. I was proud to represent Canada for the second time, and I hold great memories of my team mates and of all the team supporters that traveled down to support our efforts in Pensacola Florida. Hopefully we all had a little fun in the sun. I know that I had fun. Navarre, a small town about 25 miles east of Pensacola was Team Canada's home for close to two weeks. The Best Western was home to us as well as several other teams including the Italians, and the Koreans. The schedule was just about the same most every day. Get up in the morning, fly, eat, and then hit the pool or ocean. The pool can be a good place to discuss team strategy.

The team trickled in on Tuesday the 7th of Sept. starting with me. 2500 kms are not that fun to drive alone. The next morning Ivan and I drove to the World's site to check things out and to get some flights in. To my surprise, the field was busy with three established lines flying steady throughout the day. Since no one was on our frequency, we moved to our own corner of the field and I went up first. After an interesting partial mess of a flight, a range check, and then a reflight we discovered with confirmation from the contest director that there was interference on our main frequency (20). It turned out that there was a pager tower in the near vicinity transmitting on a frequency between channels 19 and 20. I experienced 2 "holds" in the short time I was up. So we changed to our alternate frequency (18) and did some practicing at Bronson Field instead.

As you can see, the world was well represented. 37 countries sent a total of about 94 contestants to compete in these World Championships. At the top of the page is a shot of some of the teams as we paraded into a stadium as part of the opening ceremonies. Just above is a shot of Team Canada just before we had to parade onto the field ourselves, and below is a shot of us on the field.