Saturday, November 17, 2007

Day 7 -Finals

Up late this morning as we all slept in a little. We spent the morning packing up the planes and getting ready for our departure tomorrow... seems like we got here yesterday!

We decided to head out around lunch time to the flying site. We will watch the last F-07 and Unknown rounds before attending the closing ceremonies at 16:30 this afternoon. We'll plan to head back to the hotel to prepare for the big "social" this evening. It starts at 21:00 at the Terminal building so one more trip to the airport.
We headed out at 11:45 and watched the F-07 round and then the Unknowns. It was blazing hot today as the temp in the car showed 38C (100.40 F). We melted in the sun as we watch the flights. Mark and I pose with the FAI flag when we arrived at the flying site. The pilots had all been up early as the first round started at 07:00.



Onda prepares for his final unknown sequence as they watch the warmup flight.





QQ puts in his final unknown round at the competition. He flew very well as did all the pilots at this level.





Team Canada had a large cheering section infront of USA. We had very high temperatures at 33F and the girls made a nice long trip back to the car for an "air conditioning check".




You can't get much closer to the action than this!









QQ gets a helping hand as he heads towards the van.






We all huddled in the shade as we awaited the closing ceremonies to begin. We managed to find a nice cold water tap to help cool us off.






Team Canada poses for a shot prior to the closing. Speaches, flyby's and fireworks ensued.






The French, US and Japanese teams after recieving their awards





Quique celebrates after winning the Individual World F3A Worls Championships! It took 27 years to get to this point in his carear.



Chad dresses up really good as we socialize at the banquet. We ate very late but everyone seemed to enjoy the event. Every one was very tired!




They put on a very nice dancing show to entertain the guests. Other than the late hour it was very well done. We headed back to the hotel around 00:30 and watched a dazzling light show of lightning. Xavier has some great pictures that I hope to post.



We will head to Buenos Aires in the morning for a couple days of sightseeing and down time. I'll update this blog with some comments as time permits.