F3F Eurotour of Caussols

I just come back from the F3F Eurotour contest in Caussols near Cannes (French Riviera). We were 22 pilots from 5 countries. The competition was over 3 days. On Friday, after the registration, and the briefing, we started around midday, when the wind was steadily established. We completed 8 round with wind between 6 to 8 m/s. Conditions were relatively stable. We got some thermal, but without huge time difference. The second day was more promising, according to the weather forecast. Unfortunately, after another consistent round, the wind started to shift to the south west. The next round (10th) has been however completed but with some strong crosswind.







The organisation then decided to move to the south west slope. Everybody was very exited because the conditions would be much better. In fact the sea breeze and the weather wind were fighting giving crosswind from the left with time to time, when the thermal was poping, straight wind with killing conditions.

We did 3 more rounds in these lotery conditions, and to be honest it has been a true carnage in term of points. Some lucky pilots went through without damage, some others has good times and few bad times, and the rest got only bad times. This is my case. Despite no mistake, good flying stategy, I couldn't play with top pilots, getting systematically 10s to 20s less flights. What a shame. Yves Tirand, flying a Vampire, got the best time of the week-end with a blastering 35.77s in a huge thermal

Last day was forecasting some rain. Hopefully the rain came only around 3pm, giving plenty of time to do more rounds on the south west slope. The slaughter continued for me and some other pilots like Stefan Holbfer with again very changing conditions. I again got crosswind and poor air in each of these 3 rounds and couldn't fight to recover in the ranking.

This is probably the most fustrating competition I did since I fly F3F, and also my lowest score in such important competition. I cannot blame myself because except a cut at round 1, I didn't do any mistake. But this is F3F !

On the podium, in first place you find Matthieu who really flew great during all the competition, and fortunately for him was not affected by the poor air. This explain the point difference with the second pilot, Lukas Gaubatz at only 951 pts over 17 rounds !!! In Third position, Alexis Marechal who alternated the good and the bad, to finally placed not too bad with 950pts.

A very big thanks to the organizer (Paul Eytan, Allan and the rest of the team, small team but pretty efficient. Paul Eytan, Eric, Pascal, Gilles and Jean Marie) for this smoothly ran contest. Prize giving and drink happened at the Observatory Guardian Tower as the rain was falling, as announced. Then was the time to take the road and go back home.

You can also find some pictures from Tomas Winkler here: Picasa Album