Report: Alpine F3F cup, Briancon

1 weeks after the FAI of col de Tende (eurotour/worldcup), most of the pilots met again in the french alps in Briançon for a contest of the Eurotour. the specificity of this contet is that we reach the slope using 4x4 cars therefore the number of participants is limited to 30. This year, I have been honored by the organisers to be responsible to drive one of the 4X4 cars. This is my first experience ever, and I really enjoyed it, with my copilot Mickael Krebs. The first day os the competition we went to the south slope, waited a bit for the breeze to install, then started some rounds. Conditions were very variables from one flight to another. At the end of the day, we had 4 rounds in the pocket. Matthieu Mervelet was in first position, followed by Frédéric Hours and Stephane Riccobono. On Saturday, we changed to the North slope located at 2400m of altitude. The wind was blowing strongly so we could expect lots of additional rounds and a change in the ranking. This slope is very technical and challenging. Gain of altitude during the 30 second was very important so pilots were flying along the rocks and cliff on the right and wait until the maximum before to start. Then the best strategy was to do bank and yank turns and manage some diving, keeping in mind the antidiving rule of 5 seconds. At this game, Stephane Riccobono has been the best, well served by his Stinger that was flying great and super fast, like all stingers this day. The landing area was fine, but needed some attention, some some plane has been damaged. We saw also 3 spectacular crashes on the slope with 2 plane totally destroyed. Saturday evening, the counter was at 11 rounds, Matthieu dropped down in the ranking, Stephane was now first followed by Sébastien Lanes and Fréderic Hours. Monday, despite very encouraging forecasts, has been very disapointing as we got no wind so didn't do any round, and the ranking became the final ranking.

Overall a super competition, very friendly, in a superb place with a nice ride in 4x4. A great thanks to Alain Gallinet and Frederic Hours for organising it !

I have made the following video to capture the atmosphere of this contest. I think it tells a lot about it: