It was close contest at the 2016 FAI S World Championship for Space Models as the under 18s went head to head in the scale altitude (S5B) rocket category. Michal Bobrowski from Poland flew the highest flight with his 1:4.5 scale replica of the American Arcas rocket reaching 361m. Bobrowski said “I chose it for it’s simplicity. It’s a single stage rocket and the design is very aerodynamic.”

His choice paid off in the sky, but judges awarded more “static points” to Slovakian Michal Zitnan for his scale representation of the more complicated Japanese Sounding rocket from the 1970s-80s era. “The model took me 150 hours to complete. I was really nervous when I was preparing it for launch because any mistake could see all that hard work wasted,” said the 16-year-old.

Zitnan’s two-stage design even separated in flight like the original, and reached 338m earning him enough cumulative points to land him at the top of the podium.

It was a similar story for Michal Bobrowski’s father Wojciech, who despite leading in the air with a 497m flight, was beaten by American Matt Steele’s model of Black Bryant IV on static points in the seniors scale altitude (S5C) contest.

There was also victory for youngster Simon Bolfa from Slovakia in the RC glider rocket S8D categories, and for Bulgarian, Stefan Stefanov, who was level with three others throughout the three competition rounds, but clinched victory after a final flight-off to win the adults S9A Gyrocopter duration contest.

Full results at cupnavigator.com/worldrocket2016.

More pictures here.

Photo credit: FAI / Andy Pag