World Air Games 2009 Turin, Italy June 6-14, 2009

Photography and brief by Luca Giandomenico Polidori

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   Aerobatics, aeromodelling, helicopters, experimental, parachuting, microlights, gliding, hang-gliding, paragliding, ballooning... where can you find all of the disciplines together in the same location, at the same time, in the same event?  It's easy: at the World Air Games

 

  They are a sort of Olympic Games of the air organized by the FAI (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale) that establishes regulations for air sporting events which are organised by member countries throughout the world and confers medals, diplomas and other awards to those who excel in all aeronautic disciplines as well as for work done in the restoration of old aircraft.

 

  The World Air Games 2009 took place in the north of Italy. From the 6th to the 14th of June the main power events were scheduled on the Torino-Aeritalia airfield, while the skies over Mondovì (80 Km south of the city) was filled with the bright colours of the balloons. The steep hillsides overlooking the lakes of Avigliana (located on the outskirts of the Alps) hosted the spectacular hang-gliders and paragliders, while in Turin again, model aircrafts danced to music in the Palaruffini site.
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  Although Turin is very close to the mountains, for most of the week the weather was sunny and very hot with temperature over 30 degrees. So good weather but also strong conditions for all athletes, especially for those who were flying on aircrafts and gliders were the temperature under the canopy can reach 40 degrees!

 

  From Sunday 7 to Thursday 11 all participants were committed with qualifications for the finals of each discipline that took place on Friday 12 and Saturday 13. On Sunday afternoon an airshow of four hours were scheduled for the closure of the event.

 

  During the airshow thousands of spectators could see on flying display six different aerobatic teams: the Italian “Pioneer Team” and “WeFly! Team”, the Swiss “Pilatus P3 Flyers” and the military “PC7 Team”, the “Flying Bulls” equipped with the Zlin 50 and the 10 paramotors “Audace”.

 

  One CAP232 “Total”, one CAP 21DS and a SU-31M piloted by the best Italian aerobatic pilots Sergio Dallan, Luca Salvadori and Marco Bosoni completed the aerobatic display.

Some particular events were also organized like: the speed race between a vintage car Alfa Romeo of the 1927 and an historic biplane, the exhibition of Christian Moullecc flying with his duck storm, a “music display” of a Robinson R22 and a display of one VLAICU 2 (replica) of the 1912. The static display was composed by most of the aircrafts that participated to the games and to the show.
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But let’s have a focus on the World Air Games 2009 races.

 

  More then 400 athletes covering the 10 sports disciplines competed for 25 titles to be awarded by the Games and entertained the public with their fantastic and exciting actions.

“The pilots and parachutists competing in Turin are among the best in the world.

 

  They have all excelled in their World Championships. Never before have these top competitors all performed together” said Pierre Portmann - FAI president.

 

  About the powered aerobatics race, the best aerobatic pilots in the world were flying exciting “Unlimited Free” programmes. This event required pilots to demonstrate their ability to manoeuvre their high-performance aircraft at extreme physical limits and within a 1-km cube (the “box”) located just right in front of the public. The winner of WAG09 in this discipline was Renaud Ecalle (France) followed by Mikhail Mamistov (Russia) and Gerald Cooper (Great Britain).

 

  Glider aerobatics pilots, like their powered colleagues, had to demonstrate their ability to fly specific manoeuvres within a limited “box”. As gliders are not enginepowered, pilots rely solely on the energy they derive from converting altitude into speed. The results of this discipline are: first rank Pietro Filippini (Italy), second rank Kaminskiy Georgy (Russia) and third rank Piriou Erik (France).

 

  About the aeromodelling competition, three kind of races were scheduled: “Indoor Aero Musical”, “Radio Controlled Aerobatics”, “Hand-Trown Gliders”. The winners of each discipline were respectively Fabien Turpaud (France), Donatas Pauzuolis (Lithuania) and Massimiliano Sacchi (Italy).

 

  Gold medal for Sven Goehler (Germany) on ballooning, Eric Raymond (USA) with his experimental aircraft “Sunseeker II”, Sebastian Kawa (Poland) on glide racing, Andrea Iemma (Italy) on hang gliding aerobatics, Wolfgand Siess (Austria) on hang gliding speed run, Robert Grimwood and Chris Saysell (Great Britain) on microlight pylon race, Mathieu Rouanet (France) on microlight paramotor slalom.

 

  Very exciting the helicopters final where the team composed by Nikolai Burov and Viktor Korotaev (Russia) won against the other finalist Russian team. There were two different challenging events in which every crew had to test their piloting ability: the “parallel slalom” and the “fender rigging”. The first one takes place inside a rectangle of about 120 x 200 meters. Each second crew member must first pick up a bucket of water using a handheld

rope dangling from the helicopter. Then the pilot manoeuvres the bucket through a series of gates, requiring the helicopter to move forwards, backwards and sideways. The bucket is then placed on a small target at the end of the course. Losing water and exceeding the allocated time result in penalties.

 

  The second one, conducted in pairs again, requires precise slalom flying within an area of about 179 x 110 m. Each second crewman carries a load (a boat fender) at the end of a length of rope. The object is to be flown along the course with minimum penalties and then be deposited into a container without touching its sides.

 

  About the parachuting, the Canadian Jason Moledzki won the gold medal on “canopy gliding” (Speed + Distance + Accuracy) competition, first rank for the Russian team on “canopy formation” competition and for Istvan Asztalos (Hungary) on “accuracy landing” discipline. The “precision landing” involves landing as close as possible to the target (a sensor-equipped disk of only 2 cm in diameter). Points are added for the number of centimetres away from the disk and for faulty landings. The winner is the athlete from the top 10 with the lowest cumulative score at the end of the competition. The “canopy formation” is contested in more rounds of 4-Way Rotations. Each team of 4 athletes plus video cameraman launches simultaneously at a height of 2,100 metres (7,000 ft), and immediately deploys chutes. They must then manoeuvre through the required sequence of formation changes within the allowed time and the minimum manoeuvre height of 750 meters (2,600 ft ). Finally the “canopy piloting” discipline requires each athlete to make 3 launches, each with a different scope-distance, accuracy and speed.

 

  The Spanish athlete Horacio Fernandez Llorens, the Sat Brother team and the Serbian athelete Goran Djurkovic won respectively the “Paragliding-Aerobatics solo” competition, the “Paragliding-Aerobatic Syncro” competition and the “Paragliding-Landing Accuracy” competition.

 

  So really nice and exciting these “World Air Games” that could be able to gather all air disciplines athletes and enthusiasts in an only one event and to show to all spectators what the man can do in the sky with his -sometimes strange- inventions.