An ex-volunteer and a soldier of the Ukrainian Battalion “Luhansk-1,” Andrii Umrykhin won gold at the FAI F2 European Championships for Control Line Model Aircraft. Contestants from 40 countries participated in the competition, which was held by the World Air Sports Federation (FAI) in Bulgaria in late August.
Umrykhin defeated two Russian contestants, Igor Trifonov, a three-time drone modeling world champion, and Andrey Belyayev, a three-time European champion, in the semi-final and the finale respectively.
The winner was awarded with the Cup and a ticket to the FAI World Air Games, which will be held in Dubai later this year. Umrykhin will compete with 15 other contestants.
The soldier brought the Cup with him to Eastern Ukraine, where he was sent to fight the pro-Russian insurgents immediately after the end of the contest.
Umrykhin is an experienced model aircraft maker. “We created unmanned aircraft vehicles, which were used for various purposes. The government hardly supported us financially, so we found model makers to work with us. Today our drones can perform a variety of tasks – from airborne reconnaissance to search for missing children and stolen transport,” said the Ukrainian model maker in an exchange with the Ukrainian media.
Umrykhin himself uses drones to identify drug-containing plants in corn fields – “a task which takes minutes and involves only two people,” he says.
