Don Szczur
Posts: 981
Joined: 1/6/2002
From: Chantilly, VA, USA
Status: offline
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14th Annual International Tournament F3A Championships in Romilly, France
Here is a description of my experiences at the Romilly, France international competition. This competition is, spare the European Championships, the most prestigious events to attend as a competitor. Attending was a memory and experience that I will always cherish.
My desire to go to Romilly initially started sometime after the team selections/nationals last year and late fall. The fact that I was team alternate again in 2005 gave me the craving to attend some kind of international event for a couple of reasons. First, I’ve never been to a foreign competition. I’ve heard so much about the European style of flying, the hospitality of the hosts, and high degree of popularity of F3A among so many different countries. The experience gained by attending such an event could be very helpful in future competitions. I e-mailed Bernd (we had some acquaintence from the TOC and Don Lowe Masters) late in 2005. He sent me the web links to Romilly as well as the Matt’s contest in Lichenstien. Although the Matts’ contest was too close to the U.S Nationals to try and go, the Romilly contest worked since its in June. I spoke to several other F3A pilots in the U.S. about going as well, maybe make a vacation out of it with the families, but they pointed out the cost factor. After checking airfares on several internet venues, I came to the same conclusion. It was way too expensive.
So that was it. Not much more though about going until the 2nd of June. I got a “spam” e-mail from Expedia.com regarding those outrageously low rates for round trip tickets. I happened to see at the bottom of the page “Vacation packages from Washington to London and Paris from $849”. I hit the link to Paris and all of the sudden a bunch of really attractive offers came up. Hmmm. Wonder when that Romilly contest is? After hitting the link, guess what, its next weekend, the 10-12 June. I said, “Bummer-too late to go, but lets do a what-if… I plugged in the dates of the contest, get to Paris a few days early, leave a day or two after.” The vacation package comes up! It worked. Next question, is it too late to register? The website stated that registration preferred by 31 May. I sent an e-mail to the contest director, Pascal Blauel. Next question, I knew I could not ship fuel, how would I get to fly? The website showed another contest that occurred recently with an equipment matrix to include what engines and fuel that contestants used. I see that Keven, as well as a couple other members of the U.K team are running YS DZ’s. I do a search on the Great Britain aerobatics forum and up pops Kevin’s e-mail. I send him a note asking about borrowing some fuel for the contest. How would I ship the plane? It was too late to try and arrange shipping. What about taking it as part of oversize luggage check-in. A few calls to the airline and what I was able to get from them is that if the box is packed well, as a fragile item, it should be accepted. So off to the weekend for some practice, fun fly’s, church picnic, the usual weekend activities… the wife and kids leave for their week long trip to Alabama to visit family.
That Monday, I go to work, it’s a busy day. I really ask myself, “Is this really a realistic thing to be looking at?” Out at the flying field for practice Monday night, I start thinking, “I’d have to leave tomorrow, get to Paris Wednesday, drive the 2 hours to Romilly and practice on Thursday… and then fly in the competition over the weekend, drive back to Paris Sunday night, and fly out sometime Monday. Wait a minute, I have not discussed this with the wife yet. (she thought I was kidding about the whole thing). I invited her to fly out of Birmingham, Al to Paris, but she does not take up the offer. Father-in-law would really not take too kindly to that. She does offer the critical bit of information that sets the rest of this dream into reality… she gives me permission for me to go.
I spend literally the entire night Monday getting the airplane disassembled, and boxes built for the wings and fuselage. Actually, I had to rush to Lowe’s to buy a rotary saw, thin plywood, screws, and anything else I could think of to build the boxes. I’m sitting here thinking, am I nuts? I stay up til 4: 00 a.m. I’ve got the fuselage packed, find a cardboard box to put the wings in, and screw/tape it all up. So much for sleep. I lay down for a couple of hours for what turned out to be just a short nap. I get up a 6.a.m (for a morning meeting in Washington, DC). Make the reservations, and head out for work. I called my boss to let him know I was going to (try and) take Wednesday thru Friday off. I get the ok, last hurtle done. Its off to the airport to check in.
The flight was long. I did not sleep at all, but did get some rest. The flight left Dulles at 10 PM and got in to Paris at about 10:30 a.m the next morning. Now I know what the term “red eye” means. By the time you are done the flight, all 8 hours of it, you have red-eyes. I kept asking myself, “what in the world am I doing?”. I reason, “This is an adventure, I may not have the opportunity to do this again”. Arriving at Paris, I find my way to the baggage claim…. Wing box comes through fine… no fuselage box. I locate the baggage assistance office and after some checking, and some more checking, about 4 hours worth, they conclude that the box did not make the flight. However, they could not tell me where it was, but assure me that it will most likely come the following morning. I give them my address and phone number to the hotel I’m staying at in Paris. Not a big problem, I think. I can still pick up the box and make it to Romilly for some practice on Thursday afternoon/evening. I pick up the rental car and drive to Paris….
I notice along the way, route A1, some kind of jet. At first I thought it was a bird, then a model airplane. I quickly realize that it is in fact a full scale Mig or Sukhoi jet flying some kind of routine. PARIS AIR SHOW! I recall someone at the field mentioning that the Paris Airshow comes to France around this timeframe. I take the exit, park, and walk to the spectator area adjacent to the airport runway. It appears to be some kind of bicycle riding park. The pilot is practicing his routines for the show next week right in front/on top of me. The jet is flying in ways I never imagined. Its doing 3-D maneuvers. It goes up and does… yes, a tailslide. A full scale jet fighter doing a tailslide? Yes! Where I’m standing the jet is doing these maneuvers probably 1500 to 3000 feet in altitude. I think to myself, what will my wife think, I’m killed in Paris by this Jet fighter as it crashes into me during the practice routines. I’ve never seen a jet do harriers, 3-D “rolls” pop-ups and even a tailslide! Next up is a Cap. I think to myself, “I wonder if this is Patrick Paris”? The pilot puts the Cap through some incredibly fast snap rolls. I think, I wish I had a video camera- the snap rolls that this pilot was performing were faster and more axial than some of the snaps that would have been given “zeros” by judges back in the States. Maybe we need to re-look at our snap definitions again…
I get back on the road again and… welcome to Paris. During rush hour, about 5:30 PM by this time. The 20 minute drive from the airport to downtown turns into two hours, but that is just the start. In downtown Paris, non (and I mean none) of the roads are parallel. This makes trying to navigate, drive, avoid the cars that are inches in front, behind, on the left, on the right, very challenging. By the time I get within “close proximity” of the hotel, I find a parking garage. 15 Euros to park per day (about 20 dollars or so). I get out of the car and my hands are shaking. This was not a fun experience. It felt like an hour long amusement park ride, like bumper cars, only without the bumps, thank goodness (the whole time I’m thinking if the included collision loss coverage I got with the vacation package would need to be activated). I did say some intensive prayers during this time.
After checking into the hotel, its still “early”, so I decide to WALK to some attractions. I got to see the Basilca on the hill (recommended by the baggage claim folks). The view of the city, just as the sun is setting, is probably one of the most beautiful urban views I’ve ever seen. When I saw a couple sitting on the lawn sipping wine and enjoying the romatic view, I knew that I must someday come back to this spot with my wife and enjoy that exact moment with her... and then walk down to the Arch de-Triumph. Along the way there is this road where literally every shop is what I’ll call a “restricted shop”. Well, I was greeted by one gentleman who offered me free tickets to a side show. I explained to him that I’m a Christian, but I don’t know that in French, so he re-emphasized, “free tickets, you don’t have to pay anything”. I know that in some parts of the world, people associate Christianity with money (giving to the poor) but any case, I walked away, amused. Paris is a beautiful city.
By this time, I must have walked about 5 miles and it was also getting late, so I decided to take the Metro. I’m lucky to live in Washington DC in this regard- the Metro is much easier there. In Paris, there must have been something like 50 or 60 metro routes. It took me a half hour to figure out which ones to take to get back to the hotel. The cost was quite reasonable though. It only took 1.6 Euros (about $2) to get back. However on the way out of the metro gate I was an attempted pick-pocket case. Here is some advice that you may use that may save your wallet. First, always keep it in your front pocket; with deep pockets its pretty hard to get it out. That’s what I did and when a felt a gentle tug I immediately reached back and grabbed his hand. I squeezed and bent back his pinkie until he was on his knees. He was saying something in French, sounded like he was trying to make some kind of excuse, but I know what he was trying to do. I left very promptly at that point, fearing he or his accomplice would put a knife in my belly. How do they operate? Just walking though the narrow Metro exit gate, the guy in front stops abruptly and turns sideways, as if he forgot something, the guy behind me bumps into me and then reaches into the pocket to grab the wallet. Any case, an experience worth sharing. I slept pretty well that night- the first night that I had in the week to sleep.
I got up early and drove back to the Airport. It took two hours, hands shaking again from the driving “experience”. I spent the next 14 hours at the airport baggage claim area. I’ve begged, waited, cooperated, waited, begged, waited, pleaded, waited. It was a nightmare that would not end. I went through 3 shifts of baggage office managers. Each time having to beg, explain the importance of having the airplane, trying to find out where it was. I was starting to have bad visions of no more fuselage. It could be anywhere in the world, it could have left the airport in the back of someone’s pickup truck. At 9 PM the baggage claim manager allowed me to make some international calls to try and have someone go to Dulles airport to find someone to talk to. After a day and a half, nobody at Dulles was answering the lost baggage notice. The manager called Pascal and explained the situation. He was very nice, explaining that he would allow me to fly two flights on Saturday and still attend. The manager took a break at 9 PM and allowed me to make some calls back to the States. I wore out my welcome after running up an hour of international calls on their phone. Since I could not sleep in the baggage claim office, I left the office at just before midnight. Now, it was only 6 PM back in Dulles, so I made several calls on the credit card. About $150 worth of calls later, I find out that the bag is at Dulles Airport, having missed the original flight due to the TSA inspecting it, and re-taping it up. Now an agent told me on the flight just before departure that it was inspected and re-taped up, so I assumed it was on the flight. But as far as I could tell it missed the flight and since it had to travel with me, I’d have to arrange for someone to ship it freight. That was out of the question, and flying back to bring it over was not an option later. After asking the Airport Hotel what the rates were for the evening, I actually laughted at the lady at the check in counter, “Yes, we have rooms… That will be $350 Euros (about $400 for the night). Heck, I could buy a ticket and fly back to Dulles and get my plane for two nights at that Hotel. I decided to venture out to Romilly.
Driving in a foreign country, in the middle of the night, with poor maps, very little sleep in the past days… I asked myself again, well just concluded that I must be nuts. But I continued on. The two hour trip took four hours, but I found Romilly. Around 4:30 in the morning I pulled over to a parking area to sleep. I’ve got to tell you something, it was dark. It was so dark I actually could not sleep. I continued on and in town found a semi-lit parking lot and got an hour of rest in the front seat. Before I knew it, daylight came. I woke up. It was like waking up in some kind of time-warp. It was surreal. Here I was, two days before at work as if nothing was out of the ordinary, and now I’m in the middle of France. Surreal. I drove out to the field at this point, the sun had risen and it was about 6:30 a.m. There was nobody there flying. Normally in the U.S. there are pilots practicing the morning of the contest- at sun- up. Not so in Europe. I drove back to town and went to McDonalds. However I see that it does not open until 10:00 a.m. So much for breakfast! I drove back to the field and by this time it was about 8:30 a.m. There were a couple pilots setting up their planes and getting in practice flights. None of them spoke English. I walked around smiling, not saying anything, just watching. They started speaking to each other in French. I had no idea who any of them were, could not communicate with them, and just had this feeling like I was just going to crawl under a rock. I was committed at this point.
To Be continued....
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Romilly Experiences - 
