Global 3D 2019 - end results
Sunday: drama, drama, drama

The great show, Global 3D had many dramatic and there were even more fantastic moments. Walter Robijns and his about 50 people team have done a wonderful job, because everything went well, like a Swiss watch.

After the first round, which happened on Friday and Saturday, Aaron Cole, Henrik Clausen, Vava Sasikana Boonmala, Marius Gehle, Thanawin Kiatgungwalgri were waiting the finals in Expert, and Kan Poonnoi, Kenny Ko, Kyle Stacy, Marik Wiehenstroth, Sakkarin Kongthon in Master class. The weather was nice, however gusty as well causing really inconvenient seconds sometimes. 

The pilots put everything possible into the flights. If there were many crashes on Saturday, this number was even higher on Sunday. Somebody among the organisers noticed even: There weren't as many crashes ever as this year.

Among the most memorable crashes, there was the crash of Toncsi (Antonia Bogdan-Szabo). The crash itself wasn't so dramatic, but the fact Toncsi - as the youngest member of Egodrift demo team, as she is 9 years old - could not fly her programme, because of a technical problem her heli switched to fail safe during the flight and fell down like a stone. But the crowd cheered, and somebody from there shouted that: Toncsi we love you. This was Antonia's first crash, and as a child she could not step over. Dunkan Bossion went to her among the firsts to console Toncsi. Really emotional and nice gesture from Dunkan.

During the same demo, just 5 minutes later, the most spectacular crash of Global 3D just happened. Ethan Williams and Jim Saunders were flying in parallel, when Jim's Specter 700 simply wiped itself and Ethan's helicopter out of the air. To be honest, the crash was in the flight as there was a near miss moment, just seconds earlier. One of the commentators, John Nobbs said:

And ten seconds later the two helis have finished the flight in million pieces. Ethan didn't look happy at all.

During the competition the most dramatic flight was Kyle Stacy's final freestyle round. He has used the yellow card earlier, so there wasn't more chance. Kyle was flying with fireworks, and pushed the Goblin Kraken on the maximum. As he told later, the fireworks caused the problem. Kyle was flying the heli down from high, and he was supposed the slow it down just above the ground. But the fireworks made the heli heavier, in addition the wind didn't help either, so the helicopter's tail just touched the ground and the heli has finished the flight with many flips on the ground. Kyle could not make it. The minimum time to fly in freestyle is three minutes. Kyle was flying for 2 minutes 18 seconds before the crash. This flight got him in the 5th place.

That describes everything: Marius Gehle has finished the competition with a borrowed helicopter from Alan Robinson, because he had no more flying helicopters for the final flight. Alan "wasn't so nervous" at all, when he realised, this was going to be the flight, where everything is in, no more chance, but Marius made it, and the helicopter got back to Alan in one piece.

Even the victory flights represented the whole Global 3D well. Sasikana Boonmala was flying for about half a minute before he crashed the Goblin Kraken, and CD, Sakkarin Kongthon had to replace his heli in the victory flight, because the first Logo gave up just seconds after the take off.

Master class final results in order

1. 213 Sakkarin Kongthon
2. 203 Kenny Ko
3. 202 Kan Poonnoi
4. 207 Marik Wiehenstroth
5. 204 Kyle Stacy
6. 214 Tim Kostorz
7. 212 Ryan Chiu
8. 206 Mariano Suarez
9. 205 Luca Pescante
10. 211 Robin Lipke
11. 210 Rasmus Jakobsen
12. 201 Chatchawit Kamsawang
13. 209 Peter Hsiao

Expert class final results in order

1. 110 Vava Sasikana Boonmala
2. 106 Henrik Clausen
3. 115 Marius Gehle
4. 101 Aaron Cole
5. 123 Thanawin Kiatgungwalgri
6. 105 Heng Kitchana
7. 104 Hamish Scott
8. 108 Wessel Haast
9. 109 Kuno Kang
10. 107 Jason Lin
11. 111 Ludovic Abrignani
12. 113 Lukas Vacek
13. 121 Samuel Jensen Aunbirk
14. 119 Pascal Lipke
15. 118 Maximilian Zick
16. 122 Simon Hatz
17. 103 Fabian Kloß
18. 102 Yan Müller
19. 117 Matthew de Wilde
20. 114 Lilian Many
21. 116 Matteo Lefebvre
22. 112 Lukas Bißlich
23. 120 Rachel Laura Plant

Global 3D in general

It has to be declared, the event was organised perfectly. The toilet question is always a critical problem at these events, but Global 3D provided something which is absolutely unusual: clean, fresh toilets throughout the whole event, even on Sunday evening. Food wasn't so expensive, the location was also really good. The only bad experience - which is not under Global 3D control - Vodafone 4G signal doesn't exist there, and we had four Vodafone mobiles there (from two countries), therefore online streaming or live report wasn't possible. Bad, but EE had 50 (!) times faster upload speed...

What was relying on Global 3D and Walter Robijns was perfect, even so he wasn't too satisfied with the Speedcup equipments. 

Fortunately no serious injuries happened, so the first aid spot wasn't overcrowded. Few scratches, one-two wasp bites, but nothing critical.

Future of the Global 3D

There are pilots - not necessarily competing pilots - who are talking about major changes required. The main concern is that the young pilots are way faster than the experienced old guys, therefore "older" pilots have no chance to win. There is a discussion about Veteran class or a similar solution, where even people being in the sport for longer time can win. This is the opinion of Bert Kammerer and Kyle Stacy as well. Kyle declared that, he doesn't feel he can fly this again, so if no changes, this was his last competition. Walter Robijns promised us, he will evaluate the question. 

But in general better event could not be wished at all.