Mathieu Rouanet (with P.A P. 1400T2R ) new World Champion 2005 is congratulated by Alain Barthère, head of the French Team on the last day,
after being third and assumed the title in the pure economy task that Ramon Morillas won. Congatulations Mathieu and thanks for your trust in P.A P.

4th Paramotor World Championship 2005 at Levroux (France)

Better organisation was expected, also we expected better tasks in a country such as France. In general the weather was poorly predicted (more like guesswork).

Many countries participated, though there were few newer pilots, too much competitiveness and not a very pleasant atmosphere.


MATHIEU ROUANET (P.A P. 1400T2R) became the new World Champion along with the French Team.

The first Spanish pilot was César Maldonado (9th) (P.A P. 1400T2R), flying the P.A P. RACING wing, made very good speed and good economy, even compared to wings such as those of Laurent Salinas or Ramon Morillas (Advance Sigma 6 proto). 

All our motors worked perfectly and we had no failures at all. Most importantly, there were no parachute deployments nor any accidents,despite some scares due to very hash weather and tough tasks to fly.

Photos: David Bretones, Pierre Aubert
Commentaries: Pierre Aubert, Dani Martínez
Traslation: Keith Pickersgill

Final scores and Classifications

+info http://ulmfrance.tv

Interview with Pierre Aubert (Factory PAP)

Organization

After the disastrous cancelling of the the European Championships in Portugal 2004, better organization was expected, as well as better tasks, especially in a country such as France (at Levroux ).

It is exasperating, after going to so many championships, seeing how history is always repeated with organizational failures, lack of resources and lack of weather forecasts (most of the budget went to the micro/ultralights).  For example, one of the judges (Jerome Pommier) did not have the resources necessary to judge, had to travel 300 kilometers to return home to collect bicycles, ball-point pens, notebooks, etc.

The inauguration of the international event, the food, etc. were not up to expected standards.  The persons in charge of the organization was Denise Lacote (proprietor of the location), and Joel Amiable, of FFPLUM . Director of the paramotor competition (new classes) was once again Mike Campbell-Jones (designer of the Reflex-action wings) and he was helped by Richard Meredith-Hardy who cancel his family holidays to help on a qualified, efficient and voluntary way.  Robert Keene was the director of the Classic Classes.

Participation

Many new countries participated although there werwe few new people or faces.  Every year the atmosphere gets worse due to more competitiveness between equipment, without as much celebration as in previous years such as we expect from the Russians, Czechs, Poles.

The Tasks

The weather was not forecast correctly in general, the tasks were badly designed and set, with very aggressive tasks of pure speed in very turbulent and thermic conditions in the middle of the day, rewarding the pilots with less value on safety, forcing low flying to increase penetration into wind, with much increased danger levels.

Instead of the pilots enjoying the flying and returning home having flown well, commendign the competition, the opposite happened.

There were days that despite being able to fly, they did not set any tasks  and others that in the heat of storm the task window was opened and eventually forced to cancel the task in the rain, without radio contact with pilots.

1st Task:  Pure navigation (Sunday 21 of August of 2005)

Objective: To fly to the greatest number of declared turnpoints within the time window and return to the deck.

Dani Martinez returned after only 3 turnpoints as he did not believe the weather conditions were safe to continue flying between storms.

Dani comments to us on what happened:
"I took off second that morning of the first day and was very surprised that nobody objected against the official declaration to open the window in those aweful conditions. I was the only 'top' pilot that returned to the field after passing through 3 turn-points and knew that I lost all possibility of the chamionship. The wing behaved well, but a superviolent gust of wind after a smooth mountain crossing with forest below me put the wing at 2'oclock behind me and immediately afterwards almost underneath the feet.

I stopped it with harsh brake input and in the ensuing mess I calculate the vertical speed at more than 100kph becuase the height loss was amazing. I came to withing 10 to20m of the ground then. 

With anger I flew another 2km but I said to myself: 'Baby, today might be the the day you die, but to die because the  organizer did not have the sense to change the task, and with my family back at the field...'

But my greater preoccupation was not only myself, but all those other less experienced pilots that came to learn and to follow those ahead, that a priority must be those that have more problems and must get annoyed in those conditions.

After that, we made a protest to cancel the task (some landed to shelter from rain and returned only after the rain stopped, scoring Zero!). The protest was rejected after 5 days, when they had 24 hours to respond.

The task gained the Czech, Frantisek Salava 1000 points.



2nd Task : Precision (Monday 22  of August of 2005)

Objective: To make a clean take off on the first attempt and subsequently land as near as possible to a spot.

The pilot is permitted Four takeoff attempts, climbs to 500ft overhead the target, cuts the engine before passing through a gate and tries to make a first-touch as near as possible to the centre of a target consisting of a series of concentric circles.

The second day had no wind, it was the day best to fly distance,  but they roused the pilots at 6 in the morning for the task at 7am without assessing the wind conditions for a better task for the morning which was calm until 11am.

With a bit of planning, they should have prepared alternate tasks to accomodate the different weather conditions.

Caesar Maldonado and Nino Muelas added the 500 points, and Josep Mª Sola and Ramon Morillas 483 near the morning call, Dani Martinez only added 250. Mathieu Rouanet (FR) and Johan Bossuyt (BEL) also made morning call with 500 points.


3rd Task: Economy, Navigation with bonus (Tuesday 23 of August of 2005)

Objective: Take off and fly as many turn-points as possible with a limited amount of fuel. A bonus score will be given for  returning to the airfield after visiting more than 3 turn-points.

In this task Ramon Morillas rounded 9 turnpoints but returned 9 minutes over-time and scored a zero.

The test gained Michel Carnet (GBR) 1000  points, and the best Spanish pilot, Nino Muelas scored 769 points, followed by Dani Martinez with 692 points. Mathieu Rouanet made 699 points.

4th task: Navigation with constant speed legs (Tuesday 23 of August 2005)

Objective: Pilots execute a standard precision take off and then leave the  airfield through the designated official gate.Then fly a course along a  specified sequence of turnpoints, at a constant speed along each leg.  Return to the field or land at a specified out-landing.

The task began with rain and Dani Martinez flew first and others followed. They suspended the takeoff window by 1/2 hour and Dani landed in the  field. They opened the launch window when the front and rain passed, flying the route in the rain (they flew the same course) and it was like a speed run that other favorite pilots did not mark well, because they protested
until the international jury annulled the task.

5th Task: Precision circuit (Clover-leaf slalom) in the shortest time. Wednesday 24 August 2005

In this task, Ramon Morillas  tied with the Czech, Pabel Brezina( 500 points each), and secondly was Dani Martinez with 490 points tied with the Russian, Alexander Bordanov, and the Pole, Maciej ZACZENIUK. Johan BOSSUYT (P.A P. Belgium) added 462 points and Mathieu Rouanet made 436 points.

6th Task: Speed-triangle plus Out-and-no-return (Wednesday 24 August 2005)

Objective: With limited fuel (6 litres), to fly around a circuit in the shortest possible time and then with the pilot's remaining fuel, fly in a given direction as far as possible.

This task gained Mathieu Rouanet 867 points, and then followed Michel Carnet (GBR) with 815 points. The best Spanish pilot was Dani Martinez  with 548 points followed of Caesar Maldonado with 420 points. Ramon Morillas scored zero, because when he flew ahead,  he hit strong sink (rotor) and forced to the land. All pilots who followed behind saw this and
flew with more height to clear the sink area.

In that same task Carlos Cañizares also struck the ground and broke his propeller, and at least Five other pilots were forced down due to rotor.

(Thursday 25 of August of 2005)  Much wind and rain all the day:

We went away to see little tourist towns,  as the  strong wind forecasts indicated we would not fly. However with aftersight, we had enough determination to fly in the conditions that prevailed that day.

7th Task: Fast-slow speed (26 Friday August 2005)

Objective: To fly in a circuit first as fast as possible then as slow  as possibl

This task scored the French and companion of Mathieu, the acrobat  Ronan Chollou with 473 points, followed of the Saline compatriot Nicolas  (410 points), the Pole Krzysztof ROMICKI (408) and the Czech Frantisek  SALAVA with 407 points. Caesar Maldonado with the P.A P. Racing (391) and Mathieu Rouanet (389). Carlos Cañizares later was the  second Spanish with 342 points, and Josep Mª Sola was the third Spanish pilot with 326 points, in front of Dani Martinez with 310 points, Ramon Morillas  (302 points) and NinoMuelas (301)


8th Task: Pure Navigation (Friday 26 August 2005)

Objective: To fly to the greatest number of declared turnpoints within the time window and return to the field.

In order to complete the championship they made too easy a task of navigation, where the turnpoint photos very obvious and were seen long before arriving and too easy to mark on the map.

If you did not have an engine problem, the 1000 points were assured. 24 pilots added the 1000 points.

Our pilots did it well, all adding 1000 points, though Josep Mª Sola had 857 points,  and Carlos Cañizares scored 0 points

9th Task: Pure economy

The last day, the task was won by the reigning paramotor champ Ramon Morillas, although the championship was already determined.

When all pilots had already landed, Ramon was still flying doing serious wing-overs, indicating his liter bottle which still had half a liter, proving that he remains the guy to beat in economy tasks.

The Champion.

MATHIEU ROUANET flew very  well with the regular P.A P. 1400T2R with dell'orto and a OZONE proto wing with special trimers and a reflex profile type. From the side it was like a VULCAN for thermalling, and on the other hand similar to type ACTION, although much more technical, because in speed it deflated much and required a lot of work to manage.
He has done very well and we wish to congratulate to him and to thank him for his ongoing confidence in P.AP. Paramotors.

The first Spanish

The first spanish pilot was Caesar Maldonado, who flew the P.A P. RACING wing, and flying in thermal made very good time against wings such as the those of Ramon Morillas or Laurent that flew Advance Sigma 6. He scored in all the tasks and made 9th place. Nino Muelas was 2nd spanish(15th) and just behind was Dani Martinez 3rd (16th overall). Josep Mª Sola (22th) was scoring little by little in all tasks doing what could, and in the end added more points than Ramon Morillas (23th). Ramon Morillas and Carlos Cañizares failed in some taskes.

Incidents:

Mechanically speaking, all our motors worked perfectly and did not have any failures. The condition of the machines in general, was very new.

The most  important is that there were no parachute deployments nor any accidents, although there were some scares due to the harsh winds and conditions.

Ryoya IGARASHI with Pierre's another son.

Finally spanish P.A P. team was 3th, because the Chezq Republic was very strong too.

Congratulations to French Team, because actually they continued beeing the best in the world. Congatulations Mathieu and thanks for your trust in P.A P.

See you

P.A P. TEAM