15th FAI World Helicopter Championship - Day 2: Felix Baumgartner's Visit and Fender Rigging Event

In the second day of the 15th FAI World Helicopter Championship, points that counted for the general rankings could be made during the Fender Rigging event. Like the day before, representatives of Russia were the leaders of the event. Today most Polish fans cheered the two brothers Marcin and Michal Szamborski, who rose to the 5th place of the overall rankings. The highlight of the day at the airport Przylep was the visit of Felix Baumgartner, well known for being part of the Red Bull Stratos project.

Today's Rigging Fender event was won by the mixed Russian crew Elena Zhuperina and Nikolay Rodionov by getting the maximum of 300 points. The second place was taken by the pair Maxim Puajukas and Oleg Sotnikov, and the third position went to Viktor Degtyar and Petr Vasiliev.

In the overall standings of the Championship the Russian crew Viktor Korotaev and Vladimir Ziablikov still has the best score  – with an excellent result of 599,7 points (out of 600 possible). The second and third places also occupy crews from Russia Andrey Orekhov and Vadim Sazonov (599,5 point) and Maxim Puajukas and Oleg Sotnikov (598,6 points).

On Friday the special guest of the Championship was Felix Baumgartner, the man who jumped from space in 2012 and exceeded the speed of sound, a spectacular event watched by the whole world. Baumgartner accepted the invitation of the Aviation Association Helisport, which organises 15th FAI World Helicopter Championship in Zielona Gora. He arrived at the airport by helicopter and enjoyed great media attention.

On Saturday morning the rivalry in Precision Competition will start, as this event could not be carried out on Friday for organisational reasons.

More information can be found on the official website of the competition: www.whc2015.pl and on the Championship's profile on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WHC2015

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(Photo credit: StanislawMalinowski.com)