The 17-year-old Finn Martens from Ellertshaar has become world champion model flying among the juniors. De Drent was the best last week at the world championship in Tarp, Germany, in a class for some kind of gliders.
“This is a” Discus Launch Glider, “he looks at the model plane he has in his hands. “It is actually a model plane without drive, it is intended that you throw it up and fly with it.” He throws that plane in the air about 60 meters, after which it can climb up to and including about 300 meters. Such a plane can stay in the air for about an hour, then the battery runs out.
That climbing must be done through thermics. Something that he also succeeds this afternoon. “I am now in a warm bubble of air,” he says. “If I let the plane turn circles, he rises.”