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The new UADR CHALLENGE Stage 4 Uzhhorod Drone Racing Cup was held from September 1-3 in Uzhhorod, Transcarpathian region, on the territory of the medieval Uzhhorod castle, built at the turn of the 10th-11th centuries. UADR (Ukrainian Association of Drone Racing) got the right to hold the Eastern European Drone Racing Cup under the aegis of ERSA (European Rotor Sport Association), so the three winners of the stage got the opportunity to go to the European Drone Racing Championship as part of the Ukrainian national team. Australian pilot Chad Nowak became a special guest of the event.
.For the first time the stage was held for 3 days, each day had a clearly fixed schedule of the event - training flights, qualification, competition.
The long, exhausting 16-hour road from Odessa to Uzhgorod was quite a challenge for our team, but Uzhgorod welcomed us with a beautiful train station and warm, summer weather.
FlyMod Squad arrived in Uzhgorod only at 17.00, so almost the whole training day was missed. In addition, one of the team members, Dmitry Yatsenko, was without a working drone, so he had to stay and literally in the evening from scratch to assemble and customize the quadcopter for the competition.
Uzhgorod is a small city, so we reached Uzhgorod Castle on foot. On the way from one of the bridges there was a beautiful view of the mountain river Uzh. By the fall it was almost dried up, which was immediately used by many local fishermen, because even from the height of the bridge in the clear river water we could see flocks of large trout.
Uzhgorod looked very picturesque in the rays of the setting sun.
Initially Uzhgorod Castle was an ordinary wooden fortress in the possession of the Slavic prince Laborets (the principality of the White Croats), but the fortress was completely burned down by the army of the Hungarian kingdom. At the end of the 10th century a stone castle was built in its place, which we can still see today.
Zaporozhye and Kharkov pilots were already practicing on the place of the stage. It was getting dark quickly, and general fatigue was making itself felt, so few of our team had time to do more than 1 training flight on the track. LED tape saved pilots from plunging into total darkness.
Later some of Kiev pilots from QuadRat team arrived to the castle, with whom we immediately went to explore the center of Uzhgorod. A few hours later we unexpectedly met the organizers of the UADR competition, who immediately introduced us to a special guest from Australia, Chad Novak, the first official drone racing world champion. The center of Uzhgorod turned out to be a cozy and atmospheric place to spend a great evening, especially in the company of such a famous pilot.
The building of the former synagogue, built in Moorish style, is now occupied by the regional philharmonic hall.
The gathering of pilots for preparation and briefing was scheduled for 10 am. On the way to the castle we happened to notice how seriously the KKK (Korosten Copter Club) team was preparing for the stage. They had been testing their quads along the bank of the river Uzh since the morning.
In the morning the castle looked no less beautiful.
The deep moat surrounding the castle became a shelter for the competition, where the pilots' area and the track itself were located. The spectators and fans had a good view of the event. Photo from the position of spectators.
We can say one thing at once, the Uzhhorod Drone Racing Cup turned out to be the most exciting track of this season. The track had all kinds of elements: high-speed sections were replaced by a maze of gates, requiring good maneuverability. Unexpected height differences, from a small depression at the end of the ditch, from which you had to immediately take off to a height of 10-15 meters, where on the edge of the bastion were installed another gate, gave even more spectacular and already interesting track.
The most important achievement of the stage was the complete abandonment of transponders at last, thanks to the new radio notching system from Immersion RC. The starting gate was set up so that the serifs were almost never triggered in advance, so the qualifying flight times were much more accurate than they had been before. Qualification was held without unnecessary hurry and nerves, each pilot got 3 attempts to get the necessary results. Although there were enough complaints from pilots about failsafe triggering, caused not so much by technical problems as by the choice of location for flights.
On the second day there was no shortage of journalists.
Chad Nowak communicated a lot with Ukrainian pilots, gave support and advice, and in controversial situations acted as an unbiased party.
Safety first of all, triple layer of netting protected pilots and spectators from unforeseen quadrocopter drops.
Rausz Gabor, a pilot from Hungary, prepares for his qualification flight.
Initially it was announced that the competition will be held as part of the DRONEVAR festival. But for reasons unknown to us the festival could not take place, but it did not prevent the UADR Drone Racing Cup stage. In the absence of other entertainment, FlyMod Squad managed to visit the Uzhgorod Castle.
At the entrance to the courtyard there is a bronze statue of Hercules striking a huge snake with a club.
Further down the alley behind him is the statue of the ancient Greek God Hermes guarding the entrance to the tasting room of Transcarpathian wines.
Since its construction, the Uzhgorod castle has undergone many reconstructions and rebuildings, but it has acquired its modern look thanks to the Italian dynasty of the Druget family, which owned the castle from 1322 to 1691. The years of the Drugetts' ownership coincided with the emergence of new world trends in architecture and the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. This period saw major changes in the art of fortification, caused mainly by the emergence of new weapons, and primarily firearms.
At the end of the XVI century, according to the project of Italian engineers, a complete reconstruction of the castle was carried out in order to strengthen its defensive capacity - strong walls were built at a certain distance from the palace, a diamond-shaped bastion was built at each corner, the height of which reaches 10-15 meters. Cannons were placed on the platforms of the bastions, which kept the approaches to the castle under fire.
On three sides of the structure was surrounded by a ditch 8-10 meters deep, over which a lifting bridge was thrown to the entrance gate. The holes for the chains that were used to lift the bridge have been preserved to this day. The thickness of the outer fortress wall reached from 2.5-3 meters to a height of 10 meters, it has been preserved to this day.
The inner chambers are also enclosed by a small moat, over which a wooden bridge was built.
The castle chambers have 4 floors, a separate courtyard and are protected by powerful metal gates.
The busts of the last owners of the castle - Count Miklós Berceni and Countess Christina Csáky, who transformed the castle from an ordinary defensive structure into a luxurious palace with flowering gardens.
Right from the courtyard you can go down to the casemates and torture chambers, the exposition of which includes a mannequin that resembles Putin.
Inside the main castle building there is a large number of exhibits and museum exhibitions, about 40 rooms contain hundreds of expositions, such as weapons and armor, ancient interiors, archaeological excavations, stuffed animals, etc.
View of Uzhgorod from the eastern bastion of the castle.
Alley with the statue of the eagle-turule, the symbol of Hungary. According to legend, the bird brought the sword lost in the battle to the leader of the rebels, Hungarian Prince Ferenc Rakoczy.
We didn't have time to see even 50% of all the museum's displays as there was too little time left before closing time.
Qualification results:
After the qualification we were in for a surprise from UADR, and co-organizers of the competition GO "Kulturna Platforma Zakarpattia" and "Kreativni Industriy Teritorii". At 19.30 all pilots were taken to the backwoods of Uzhgorod private sector, where a modern building of the Gallery "Ilko" was located, where an art-house video accompanied by live electronic music was shown. The video started with a presentation of nature, customs and life of Transcarpathian inhabitants, but later it turned into a semantic part, in which the authors intended to show that the creation of a drone by a human is a creative process and the drone itself is not just a flying machine, but a part of art, with the help of which you can create and create. Also in the lobby of the gallery was presented the photo project "Promka" by Oles Kromplyas, which united about 50 photo works showing the hard realities of the Ukrainian military in the ATO zone.
In the hall where the movie was shown, a girl model sat obediently for several hours under the brush of a makeup artist, and as a result her face looked like a revived impressionist painting. After the end of the movie a small performance was waiting for us, the model was given to photographers and FPV pilots. Everyone could take pictures, hug, touch or be licked by the model.
Chad liked the model and turned out to be very photogenic
Then followed a small afterparty
Day 3. Competition
The third day of the main competition was on the verge of disruption, as at night it started to rain heavily, and in the morning the rain did not subside. But luckily for pilots and organizers, by noon the elements receded and the races started. The competition was held according to the standard Double Elimination system, 4 pilots participated in the tournament heats.
Uzhhorod Drone Racing Cup became one of the most unpredictable stages of this season. The main favorites and qualification leaders dropped out in the middle of the competition, and many teamless rookies advanced further than anyone could imagine. As a result, the finals were extremely tight and the results were mixed. The final heat was re-run as many as 4 times, 2 heats involving all four pilots of the finalists, and two heats between only two pilots.
Results of the first final heat (6 laps):
The re-lap was caused by the decision of the race management to change the channel between the pilots, because of which the pilot Modest Ach lost the video signal during the race.
Waiting for the re-lap
Results of the second final restart (6 laps):
Despite the fact that Modest Ach was declared the winner, Nikolay Podakov and Air's Crew were able to challenge the results of the heat, and the organizers decided to restart only two pilots, between whom the first place will be played. 3 rounds, up to 2 wins.
Air's Crew examines DVR recordings
Results of the third final heat (3 laps):
After Modest Ach's crash there was a significant silence among spectators and pilots, so the organizers decided to give a chance and make one more re-flight to confirm the result.
Results of the fourth final fly-in (3 laps):
The final table of winners looked like this:
General table for all stages of UADT Challenge 2017
Competition grid:
Modest Ach, Mykola Podakov, Ihor Butseroga (from left to right)
In addition to the opportunity to participate in the national team of Ukraine at the European Drone Racing Championship, the winners received gifts from FlyMod online store, and the main prize was a unique metal statue of a drone.
For a spectacular end of the race the pilots flew along the race track with smoke bombs attached to the quads.
Despite the excellent stage, there is still room for growth in the technical aspect of the race organization. For example, due to the lack of unification of video transmitter power, some pilots had serious problems with the video signal, even with the use of grandstands.
For example, DVR video where you can clearly see the complete overlap of someone else's video signal while flying around the course.
Fakti ICTV
Uzh Inform
PAT NSTU Tisa-1
Radio Liberty
Text and photo: Vyacheslav Tregubov
Video from DVR: Igor Olishevskiy
Comments
Или просто некачественные передатчики были?
Если первое, то это недопустимо, все на одной мощности должны выступать же.
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