After a two hours journey, a group of pattern and helicopter pilots from Hong Kong including yours truly arrived at the flying site in Poon Yu, China. The trip includes an 1 hour and 15 minutes high speed ferry ride that went underneath the Tsing Ma bridge - the sixth largest/ longest suspension bridge in the world. For your reference, the Golden Gate Bridge ranks 8th, whilst the San Francisco Bay Bridge ranks 35th. Amonst the travelers this morning were Team Philippines led by Jayjay Neri, whom I have the pleasure of communicating through RCU pattern forum and private e-mail for quite some time.

Poon Yu is a small industrial town north west of Hong Kong, the flying site is situated inside a theme park that includes facilities for fishing and motor-crossing for motorcycles, the RC club shares its runway with an ultra-lite flying school. The paved runway is well over a thousand feet long, with wide open flying air space. RC flying is growing rapidly in China, and they are hungry for the latest technologies from Japan and the west. Pattern is fast becoming the most popular form of flying amonst aspiring RC pilots.

Upon arrival at the field, the first person I ran into was Akiba-san from Futaba, Japan - designer of the Proline. He is one of the guests/ demo pilots invited by Radar along with other top helicopter pilots from Hirobo. Akiba will be giving demo flights with a 33% Ultimate designed by Chip Hyde, manufactured by World Models, and powered by a 3W 100 cc engine throughout the weekend. After he finished his practice, I had the privilege of discussing his Proline design with him, for which I have the pleasure of finalizing my order for a January delivery. In addition, we also discussed the composite version. According to Akiba, the X-treme version will probably be available before next summer. He further informed me that he will be using the OS 200 FI at the 2007 WC, but indicated the YS Dingo is a much easier engine to handle.

Since this is a Thursday afternoon, not that many competitors has yet arrived. Amonst the early arrival, most of them are flying a World Models design including a number of Zens, Tai Chis and Grooveys. Attached a few pix of our trip, and yours truly with Akiba:-