On the 26th and 27th of may Marin Kordic and the Aeroclub Osijek held the 2007 F3J-Osijek-Cup on behalf of the CONTEST F3J Eurotour. Once more they provided a virtuously run competition for 69 competitors from Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey. Thanks to Marin and his crew for organizing this event, you did a great job!
The weather was like we knew it from the 2005 European Championship very varying and anything else but easy to fly. From pure floating over very weak soft thermals at overcast skies to tough crosswind launches and heavy thermals in intermediate windy conditions - nearly everything out of the flyable weather-range and for sure nearly everything the F3J-pilots heart could desire. Thus there were groups launching fast, hitting the spotted thermals and maxing out the group with times in high 55Žs. Other groups saw their "keepers of the 1000 points" by pilots floating out 8 minutes and landing last or being the only one managing to find a little lift and circling it away to the limits of sight.
Others than in the Prelims the weatherconditions during the flyoffs were very good. Lots of thermals in reach and therefore again a "launching and landing final" especially when three storks marked a thermal in the hookoff-zone by soaring up just a minute prior to the workingtime signal of the second fly off! The recorded flying times were amazingly high. Philip Kolb (GER) managed to fly 14:57.1 (100P) and 14:56.9 (100P) to win the competition ahead of Sebastian Feigl (GER) and Jan Ivancik (SVK). Both were flying the same times but hitting the 95 once.
Very nice to record some very consistant performance of the leading pilots in the Eurotour and to see the whole "Pike perfect - Istanbul-Testcrew" in the Flyoff. Mustafa Koc and Murat Esibatir finishing at 9th and 10th place. Mustafa was very happy flying his third final in a row this year and thereby underlining his and the planes abilities.
Philip Kolb
