IN THE LOOP

摘要

At the time of writing the 2013 World F3A Championships have just finished. Held at the Midvaal Raceway in South Africa, this year's event saw some eighty pilots from thirty countries compete for the top prize in R/C aerobatics. Incredibly, though not really amazingly, French pilot Christophe Paysant Le Roux (CPLR) retained the title of F3A World Champion for the seventh time, a feat only previously achieved by the legendary Hanno Prettner. Time will now tell if CPLR continues to an eighth title in Switzerland in 2015. Prior to the event there was an awful lot of speculation as to whether a YS powered model could succeed at the high altitude (1513 m) the competition site was based at. Indeed it was also suggested that the biplane format would be far more suited to the lower density air than a monoplane. In fact YS powered models took both first and second places, with CPLR using his new Galactik design, which is a monoplane produced by Oxai.