DAY .. 21. February - 2004 - Arnborg winter F3J
Wow - It was great. Too meet a lot of new F3J pilots in competition makes a big difference compared to flying only in your own country. Me, Erik Morgan Villadsen and Aril Røsvik went on the ferry from Oslo to Hirtshals and showed us as Norwegian on a ferry (read long night with sparkling water). The next day we arrived on the flying field in "good shape" and got many flights in super conditions in February/Denmark. The night was spent with Germans and Danish pilots nice smiling faces and strong pizza (I dont think this was typical Danish pizza :-). We got a nice small cottage and went early to bed.
Saturday morning and official Danish breakfast. Food and friendship is one of the key factors here. The organizers have done a good job on this event and when the German wife's prepared lunch and comes around serving coffee the picture becomes complete. If you want to have a good time among smilling faces you should go to Arnberg also next year.
Today's competition should have been 10 rounds but after a long day and late start we ended up with 6 rounds flying 10 pilots in each round (30 competitors all in all). The winner and the only one flying full time / full landing was Marc Wiegmann from Germany. he showed that he could fly 6 good rounds without loosing "anything". Myself ? Well if it would have been one throw out I would be all the way up top. I did a huge mistake coming in for landing. The field we flew on were huge but our landing spot had some treeline just 75m away. I flew along the line and became stuck in the rotor of one of the trees. Sadly it was outside 75m and therefore 0 points in that round. All the other rounds I had full flights with good landings. OK I can conclude that I am happy with the flying and a very useful training before this years season. So what about the other Norwegians ? Well Erik had lots of problems with glitches on his X21 and he also liked the tree-elephants at one point. Aril had very good flying untill he lost one elevator on launch. We continued to fly and he flew out the whole 10 min (see pictures) to offcourse 0 points for lost parts in the air. Tomorrow there will be another competition with separate winners.

Results day 1:
Arnborg Winter F3J, day 1 - 02.21.2004 - Arnborg, Denmark
6 rounds - no discard
1. Marc Wiegmann 5972
2. Jesper Jensen 5850
3. Erik Dahl Christensen 5848
14. Jo Grini 4978
18. Aril Røsvik 4743
21. Erik M. Villadsen 4031

Complete results with details for day 1 should be found at http://www.f3j.dk and new event and possibillities tomorrow :-)

   DAY .. 22. February - 2004 - Arnborg winter F3J
New day and new possibillities. The last of us were in bed at 01:00 but up and strong for breakfast at 08:00. Briefing were at 09:00 and we started much quicker today. There was snow in the air but soon the sky was almost blue and the conditions were cold but fine. We flew 3 rounds before lunch and mostly we flew on waves of wind but I did find thermals in both round two and three. After lunch the wind had picked up and on the ground there were 5-6m/s steady. The direction had also changed and the good air had moved to the opposite side of the field. Higher the wind was much more and after 4th round the competition was ended because of this (they meassured 15m/s at the most). There went a few models and even the Danish guys thought it was enough wind. I (Jojo) changed from my Pike Superior and over to the Pike Brio with 600g of lead (total weight 2650g). We flew 10 pilots in each group and I went up against Jesper Jensen that were in a good lead after first three rounds (atleast I had seen him make full flights). He flew his Estrella with extremely good starting height but not enough against me. I had the rounds longest flight with 7:22 and won against Jesper's 4:37 (with Claus Peter Siebers at 7:13). And the winner is: Jo Grini... with Claus Peter Siebers at second and Peter Mikkelsen in third. BTW Most rounds in Arnborg were won by full time but only by a few pilots. See the details when they arrive.
Erik Morgan Villadsen flew his X21 to a good 8th place and Aril Røsvik flew his Tsunami and Big Sting to a 9th. We were a bit concerned when Aril's Tsunami SL fluttered in the super starts but it hold up to it. Maybe the most exciting thing that happened was Jan Hansen hooking his X21 in the start. Jesper Jensen runned forward and catched the plane while still in the air... As you can see of the pictures...

Results day two:
Arnborg Winter F3J, day 2 - 02.22.2004 - Arnborg, Denmark
4 rounds - no discard
1. Jo Grini 3920
2. Klaus-Peter Siebers 3802
3. Peter Mikkelsen 3796
8. Erik M. Villadsen 3597
9. Aril Røsvik 3594

Complete results with details for day 2 should be found at www.f3j.dk

   DAY .. 23. February - 2004 - Arnborg winter F3J
Back home and the results and details are popping in at www.f3j.dk
Thanks guys. It was well done and very fun to fly in both dead freezing air with fog in the morning and 15m/s on Sunday. We got to fly in all the conditions possible and there even thermals in almost all rounds. I havent studied all the details yet but there were not many rounds that was not flown out 10min.
And to all you Germans: Hope we meet again next year ;-)
We came well home but the storm stopped our ferry and we had a rough time over the North sea when it finally went...
Pictures from the event is now on Eurofoto (32 of them). More photos also from Aril Røsvik will be there soon.

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