By Weston Liu, IAC 10467
2025 Camp Voltige brought eight competition pilots together on the last three weekdays of May for challenging aerobatic flying and skills development in Brunswick, Maine. Each pilot flew two intense flights a day with ground critiquing. The first four flights were skill builder flight programs designed for each competition level by Wes Liu. Each flight program was designed to provide a mental challenge and introduce new and/or more complex figures than might be encountered in IAC Known or Unknown Programs. Following the first four training flights, the IAC Known and the competitor’s Free Program were scheduled. The structured and challenging practice is designed to build confidence for contest days.
Flight programs were created in advance by Wes Liu who mined the IAC sequence archives for challenging figures and reviewed the Aresti catalog for less common figures that are eligible for use in Known, Unknown, and Free programs. Wes composed flight programs designed to challenge the preflight analysis and planning skills of the pilots as well as their airmanship-in-the-box skills. Plan the flight – fly the plan.
Images (including logo at top) provided by Wes Liu
The two Sportsman pilots got their first experience of getting a flight program on Tuesday evening and flying it on Wednesday. We hope to see them moving to Intermediate soon. The four Intermediate pilots got to work on their energy management skills and experienced more negative G. The two Advanced pilots were challenged by very complex figures that had different rolls on every line, pushes, and a variety of rollers.
Clint Davies graciously opened his Brunswick, Maine Aerobatic Practice Area to the campers. Clint also organized dinner outings to the local seafood, Italian, and German themed restaurants. Maine is a great place for seafood! Brunswick Executive Airport (KBXM) is a retired Naval Air Station. As the local folks are familiar with airplane noise the local police website reported ten positive calls and one negative one during our flying. Flight Level Aviation provided low-cost hangar space and great hospitality.
Photos by Wes Liu
Organizing a camp requires a combination of a friendly airport, box real estate, hotels, hangar space, and amenities in the surrounding community just as an IAC contest does. In the northeast U.S. we are fortunate that we have two locations for Camp Voltige: Eastern Slopes Regional, and Brunswick. We can fly at each location in alternate years.
This is the third year Wes Liu has organized Camp Voltige. “Voltige” is French for aerobatics. The Camp Voltige logo shows the stylized organic chemistry diagram of the adrenalin molecule. The camp is intended to bring each participant out of their winter slumber and up to a high skill and confidence level for the new aerobatic contest season. Each year we get repeat participants as well as some new faces. The camp is a rewarding experience for all. Looking forward to the 2025 contest season and another Camp Voltige in 2026!
Photos by Wes Liu
Bio:
Wes Liu is a veteran of more than 50 IAC contests. Wes has served as Chair of the IAC Judges Program as well as a Nationals Contest Jury member. He currently flies a Sukhoi 26MX in Intermediate IAC competition.
