What makes Rio a world famous city? First of all, it is the statue of Christ the Redeemer. In the daytime one can see that the statue stands on a mountain Corcovado (710 m), while at night Christ literally soars over the bustle of the big city – a most fascinating sight. Now the statue is covered with scaffolding, but in 2007 we managed to go up the mountain and take a close look at the statue. From a certain perspective, Sugar Loaf Mountain together with its foundation looks like a giant submarine, just surfaced. The ocean and mountains around create the inimitable color of the place.

I would like to start the report of the Race with the description of Santos Dumont Airport of Rio de Janeiro and with the flights organization. The airport has two parallel runways, 1260 and 1323 metres long. The longer runway is busy, mostly with Boeing 737 and Airbus 319. As we were told, the aiport traffic intensity is about 500 in 24 hours; in 2007, during the previous RBAR in Rio, the intensity was about 300. The takeoff heading of 193 degrees faces straight the Sugar Loaf Mountain which is 396 m high and is located 3.5 kilometres from 20 R and 20 L runway end. The outbound procedure with this heading presupposes a left turn immediately after the takeoff. We started from the short runway (20R), which is closer to the apron, upon the takeoff we reached the 30 m (100 ft) altitude, also turned left, crossed the 20L takeoff strip and went behind the Sugar Loaf at this altitude. Certainly it was quite a task to coordinate our flights in the aiport with such intensive traffic, and one training was cancelled, but I take off my hat to real professionals involved in our flights organization, both from the aiport and from RBAR. All the other track flights were made as scheduled, without any delays.

The first flight to the track brought our Team hope that we are able to meet competition. The fourth time gave a certain optimism. We still had a slight reserve in engine speed and a possibility to lean out fuel mixture to increase the engine power. However, leaping ahead I must say that our expectations were not justified.

The track turned out to be rather simple if not to invent things, but go straight from gate to gate. A peculiarity of the track is long straights between Gates 6(13) and 7(14) and between Gates 7(14) and 8(15). The part of the track between Gates 1(8)(15) - 3(10) may also be called a straight. In residuo we have an interesting part of the track between Gates 3(10)-4(11) where the pilot must decide himself where to start a turn and how to perform it and part of the track between gates 4(11)-5(12) where also an individual approach is possible.

Before Qualifying we were the ninth.

It became clear that we had had fewer reserves than other pilots. I decided to make the first Qualifying run with the smallest risk, and during the second run I decided to come into Gate 7 at rather an acute angle so that I could diminish the angle of turn into Gate 8 thus reducing the path length. This plan worked during the first circle, but in the second circle I touched the left pylon of Gate 7. Naturally, the first Qualifying time was scored, which moved us to the 11th place. It meant that in order to continue participation in the competition I had to show at minimum the second time in the Wild Card. I had to compete with Peter Besenyei, Yoshi Muroya, and Martin Sonka. In previous runs, Peter and Yoshi showed the time close to mine.

The analysis of Qualifying results showed that on straight parts of the track we had nearly the worst time, while on maneuvers parts of the track our result was second to fifth; the surprise was the best time on the part of the track between the 7-8 Gates during the second run due to entering Gate 7 at an angle. We could not improve the time on straight parts of the track as we had used all the engine potential, so the conclusion was evident: a flight without risks would not give a slightest chance to enter the Top 12.


Unfortunately, the Wild Card run almost copied the second Qualifying run: I hit the same pylon, only this time I did not notice it and continued the flight hoping that everything was OK. Only during the second circle, on the straight to Gate 7 I saw that the left pylon of the gate was missing... Six penalty seconds killed every hope to get into the Top 12...



After the Wild Card series the weather rapidly worsened, it started raining with a squally wind, and the competition was stopped. Times from the Qualifying were used as the final result for those who got in the Top 12, and the Wild Card times for the rest. I finished up the last, in 14th place. Still I consider this race very useful as it helped us to understand current capabilities of our plane and make decisions about further modifications. Our short-term plans include changing the shape of the lower engine cowling, thus reducing the drag.

The next race will take place on the border between the USA and Canada, on the Detroit River, between the cities of Windsor and Detroit. We will fly to the track from Windsor, that is why this race is called Canadian. As I remember from the past, the place is very windy and the wind can make the track rather difficult.

I would like to thank everyone who follows our competitions.