Outstanding Performances by Our RC Aerobatic Pilots (F3A European Championships in Zamora, Spain)

Report on the 2022 F3A European Championship in Zamora, Spain

(Summary of the official report by TM Marco Pelizzone)

The national team consisted of pilots Sandro Matti, Reto Schumacher, and Philipp Schürmann. They were assisted by Viktor Matti, Alois Schürmann, and Urs Bärtschiger, as well as, of course, team leader Marco Pelizzone. They were joined by Daniela Schmitter, who served as a judge throughout the entire competition.

It’s worth noting that Philipp Schürmann lost his A-class model just days before departure due to a crash (signal failure) and had to compete with his older model. To make matters worse, Reto Schumacher also had an accident in which he suffered a serious hand injury.

The weather conditions were challenging. In the morning, temperatures hovered around 14 °C, rising to around 40 °C in the afternoon. On top of that, a mostly very strong wind blew from various directions. The venue was located on a hill just a few kilometers outside the city of Zamora. The infrastructure was well-suited to the event, with shelters, a small restaurant, and a total of three hard-surface runways available—though only two were actually used. The organizers, primarily members of the Losada-Garcia family, went out of their way to make us feel at home.

The figure sequences flown were P23 in the preliminaries and F23 in the semifinals. In the finals, two additional, previously unknown programs were added.

The European Championships proceeded without a hitch. The organizers were well prepared. All organizational and technical processes were handled very efficiently. The smooth and efficient organization at the starting areas was particularly noteworthy.

It’s worth noting that only 37 pilots participated in this European Championship. For example, pilots from all Eastern and Central European countries, the Baltic states, Denmark, Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Sweden were absent.

After the heats, Sandro Matti was in the lead, while Reto Schumacher qualified for the semifinals in 12th place. Philipp Schürmann finished in a very respectable 25th place.

For his first European Championship—and flying a replacement model at that—it was an outstanding performance. In the semifinals, Sandro defended his top spot ahead of Lassi Nurila (FIN) and Gernot Bruckmann (AUT). In the final, two runs with unknown figure sequences plus one run with the F23 were flown. In the end, Sandro had to cede his top spot to Finland’s Lassi Nurila by a narrow margin of 1.37 points (2,986.23 points to 2,987.6 points). As expected, Gernot Bruckmann finished in third place. Reto finished in 10th place. As a result, Sandro won the silver medal in the individual competition, and the Swiss F3A national team also won the silver medal in the team competition, which was as follows:

1. Austria, 34 ranking points

2. Switzerland, 37 ranking points

3. Spain, 41 ranking points

The Swiss national team had a successful showing, winning two silver medals. Sandro missed the championship title by a hair’s breadth. These results give us hope for top finishes at future continental and world championships.

It was a wonderful, enjoyable championship with an exceptionally strong team spirit within our squad.

We’d like to thank the pilots, the volunteers, and all the sponsors who made this experience possible.

UB