GatorF3B logo

Hosted by the Orlando Buzzards

Organized by Gordon Buckland & Mike Gardner

CD’d by Sandy Smith

Events Calendar

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About Gator F3B World Cup

Crowded winch area at a European F3B contest

The Gator F3B World Cup soaring event at The Space Coast in Florida.
CD: Sandy Smith
Organizers: Gordon Buckland – gordon@gatorf3b.com, Mike Gardner – mikejr83@gmail.com, Sandy Smith – sandy@gatorf3b.com

Link to official Invitation to Gator F3B 2018. Download and print.

Link to RC Groups thread about the Gator West F3B 2018

RCGroups Thread about the original 2011 contest.


Welcome to the Gator F3B contest. The eight annual GatorF3B World Cup event is to be held at The Compound in Palm Bay Florida. This event will be a fundraiser for the US F3B team for their quest to contest the 2019 world championships and to provide an introduction to F3B for many RC soaring aficionados in Florida who have never experienced the excitement and passion that makes F3B so addictive to those who have experienced it before.

Originally in mid 2010 the idea was tossed around by Gordon Buckland and Mike Lachowski. Mike was very instrumental in encouraging us Gatorland soarers to put the first Gator on. In 2011 over $1,500.00 was raised for the F3B team at the first event with the help of some fantastic sponsors and support of a great local IRKS RC club. With the success of the inaugural 2011 event behind us we moved forward to support the F3B community in USA and make it an annual event. The 2nd GatorF3B was held in early March of 2012 and this thread on RCGroups has the detail of the 2012 contest.

Roman Vojtech of the Czech Republic flew in to CD the contest and it was such a huge success that a 3rd and 4th event were also conducted in 2013 and 2014. It was at the 2014 event that the World Speed Record was broken twice in amazing strong conditions. The 5th gator f3B event was held for the first time in California at the Scamps Free Flight field in Perris. The 6th Gator F3B returned to Cocoa FL and now the 7th Annual event is to be held again on the West Coast at Lost Hills Free Flight field.

The official CD for the 2017 event is to be Sandy Smith and Warren Day is putting in a huge effort to organize the event. Mike Lachowski will once again provide timing equipment and logistics. We have an absolutely fabulous flying field kindly made available by the Lost Hills club and an active F3B community on the West Coast to come out and help with timing, Base B duties, lunchtime stuff etc. The event will be flown over three days with a Thursday practice and Friday setup and Speed Cup with F3B contest starting Saturday and concluding on Sunday.

The dates for the 2017 event are to be Jun 16th, 17th and 18th 2017.

The format is planned as follows:
Thursday Jun 15th 2017 – Start at 7:30 for contestants to practice and the course to be set up etc.
Friday Jun 16th – Start with Pilots Briefing at 7:30am and then practice with for first Round of Speed Cup to begin at 1:00pm. Last flights around 6:00pm
Saturday Jun 17th Pilot Briefing at 7:30am – First Round at 8:00am. In order to complete sufficient rounds we expect to fly until 6:00pm before we pack up for the evening.
Sunday Jun 18th Pilot Briefing 7:30am – First Flights at 8:00am. Last round completed by 3:00pm Sunday. Presentations and raffle 3:15pm.

We would really like to encourage a lot of participation from the very strong West Coast F3B’ers as well as those in the North and Central USA. Heck we’ll even invite the Canadians, Australians, Kiwis and Europeans to come join us for some fun in the sun.

We may also have a contingent of very talented world class pilots flying in from Sth America and Europe to contest the event. We expect to have participation from the Chilean team from Chile and the European World Cup Pilots have also showed a lot of interest.

If you are a pilot who plans to attend the event please register on the registration page by clicking on the link above.

Lets go fly F3B in Florida, see The Space Coast and Disneyworld and have a heck of a good time with your F3B mates.