Friday 10.9.2010 :: Petr Jiránek
The 17th EAC 2010 continues
One week before the start of the championship a massive cyclone covered the Touzim airfield and the RWY was extremely soaked.
Thanks to the large effort made by the organizers, the north part of the runway was successfully prepared for use two days before the championship and all pilots were able to fly a training flight. For
the first day of the championship we had beautiful sunshine and the first 25 pilots flew though their Q program.
With excellent weather on day two we able to finish the Q program without any further delay. The winner of the Q program was French pilot Renaud Ecalle flying his Extra 330 SC, followed by
Russians Oleg Shpolyanskiy a Svetlana Kapanina and by the end of day two the first 9 pilots had flown their free program.
The third day began again with sunny weather, unfortunately due to a minor landing incident after the free program of Italian pilot Gianfranco Cilliario the flying had to come to a stop. Fortunately
there were no injuries and with the incident taken care of we continued the flying in the afternoon. Even with the delay we were able to fly 23 pilots in the free program. During the lunch break the
Free Unknown program was distributed and by the end of the day the pilots had to indicate which Free Unknown they would fly. All the pilots choose either program D, the French submission or
program G from the Russian's.
The fourth day the remaining 16 pilots were able to finish the free program. After the results were published in first place again was French pilot Renaud Ecalle followed by Svetlana Kapanina and
Mikhail Mamistov. In the afternoon of day four the first group of pilots flew the Free Unknown program.
The fifth day started with dense fog over the Touzim airfield and after the sun dissipated the fog we were left with low clouds due to the approaching warm front. Organizers and pilots were patiently
waiting for the cloud base to get to the required 800 meters and in the afternoon 9 pilots from the middle group flew the Free Unknown. The last pilot to attempt his flight was Czech competitor Peter
Kopstein and with a check of the cloud base during his warm up it was determined that the cloud base again had fallen below the minimum 800 meters so he landed and the rest of the day was
cancelled because of the low clouds. With the weather looking like there was going to be no flying the next day the evening program at the airfield was extended to the late hours.
As expected the on day 6 there would be no flying because of low clouds and rain due to the passing warm front crossing over all of the Czech Republic. The organizers adapted well to the weather
situation and had arranged alternate entertainment with a tour to the local Brewery so all the competitors and staff could see with their own eyes how the world's best known Czech beer is brewed.
Unfortunately we had the same weather for day seven and with flying canceled the competitors had a day of rest.
AK Toužim