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Welcome to Mosquito Meeting '98 at 2nd - 5th July
Mosquito Meeting '98 is the Nordic Euro Convention for WarBirds players. Come to see, feel and taste the atmosphere, real aeroplanes and history on site. Get to meet the other dweebs of the skies and share your tactics in the scandinavian light and warm summer! Experience the unique midsummer nights, lakes and Finnish nature! The Mosquito Meeting '98 is held in the middle Finland at an airstrip of Menkijärvi next to the Airforce base of Kauhava. (See map)
The traditional Mosquito Meeting is arranged by VLeLv ICEBREAKERS and the convention is the oldest existing WarBirds con with years of tradition. In the meeting you have a possibility to fly with the best, the ugliest and the most modest real-life fighter pilots and to join real-life activities with real-life aeroplanes and real-life people!
More information about Mosquito Meeting '98 will be available here soon so stay tuned.
See you all in Menkijärvi,
Yours sincerely,
VLeLv ICEBREAKERS
Program and Events during the con |
Thursday 2-Jul-98 First day of the con | ||
09:30 | Gathering in Menkijärvi | Collecting of the participants from Kauhava goes on for the whole day, there will be a pickup at the Kauhava railway station about when ever an inter-town train arrives. |
Registration and setting up | Please register to the event once you arrive. Setting up the living quarters as well as the gameing equipment. Other spontaneous program available for those on site. | |
16:30 | Welcome to MM98 | Official opening of MM98 |
17:00 | Dinner | Bullet-proof menu from our state of the art kitchen |
Printing of the MM98 gear | Please see the "What to pack" section in this document for details. | |
On-line WB | Getting to know the system, instructions, free flying | |
Sauna | Bring your own towel, this is fun! | |
On-line WB | More free flying | |
Friday 3-Jul-98 Second day of the con | ||
09:00 | Breakfast | Bullet-proof menu from our state of the art kitchen |
09:30 | Visit to the FAFB in Kauhava | Visit the Finnish Airforce academy and base in Kauhava. Those who register after 22-Jun-98 can not attend the FAFB visit due to FAF visitor registration guidelines. |
12:00 | Lunch | The food is served in the Kauhava airbase army kitchen. |
Fly real planes | Jyty&co, our army flight intructors are giving flying lessons in real aeroplanes. Please prepare to pay to the instructor the generated costs. | |
16:00 | WB competitions start | You will need to signup for the competiotions by 15:00. |
17:00 | Dinner | Bullet-proof menu from our state of the art kitchen |
18:00 | Theory: Wingman Tacticks | Capt Majapuro from FAF will open theme for this convention - Wingman Tactics. This theme will go though during all the convention. |
Sauna | Bring your own towel, this is fun! | |
On-line WB | More free flying | |
Saturday 4-Jul-98 Third day of the con | ||
09:00 | Breakfast | Bullet-proof menu from our state of the art kitchen |
Fly real planes | Jyty&co, our army flight intructors are giving flying lessons in real aeroplanes. Please prepare to pay to the instructor the generated costs. | |
WB Competitions continue | ||
Theory: Wingman Tacticks | ||
12:00 | Light lunch | Bullet-proof menu from our state of the art kitchen |
Paint ball duel | Note! You need to sign up for the duell before lunch | |
16:00 | Theory: WW2 tacticks and equipment | Mr Shaw, "Mouse" tells us about aircombat tacktics and equipment before 1939. |
17:00 | Con Party Dinner | Bullet-proof menu from our state of the art kitchen |
WB Competitions finals | ||
Lottery | ||
21:00 | Rollcall for MM98 Mission | Planning and roll call for MM98 official mission, run by VLeLv ICEBREAKERS CO -Lark- |
Sauna | Bring your own towel, this is fun! | |
23:30 | Official MM98 Mission | |
Sunday 5-Jul-98 Fourth and last day of the con | ||
10:30 | Breakfast | Heavy breakfast to keep you going all day. Bullet-proof menu from our state of the art kitchen |
Cleaning up | Cleaning up the camp and packing up the gear | |
13:00 | Leave to visit the Tikkakoski air museum | Lunch on site or along the way not included in the con price! The Tikkakoski Air Museum near Jyväskylä is well worth paying a visit! |
Tarzan Go Home - ugh! | Head for home from Jyväskylä or return to Kauhava. Rides in different vechiles arranged before leaving to the Tikkakoski Air Museum. |
There will be free online and H2H flying at all times unless the whole staff team is appointed to arrange another program. Squad fites can be extended from the virtual skyes to the ground with competitions... You can also print MM98 logos to your gear, sauna is hot every night and the evening fire place is waiting for your songs.
The daily program will be on display at the site, the program presented here is a draft and it is a subject to changes.
We will also have real aeroplanes (Grumman AA-1a American Trainer "yankee", MS 893 A Rallye, Cessna 150 J "niin mopo kuin vaan olla voi" or Taifun 17-E "mopu" and possibly also sail planes) on site. It is possible to fly one with the local trainer. This is not done out of good spirit of the trainers but costs you additional 350,- FIM per hour to cover the generated expenses. If you have a parachute lisence please contact us for further details.
Since Mosquito Meeting is held very close to the Finnish Airforce base of Kauhava (and we are using the FAF permicies anyway) we have a possibility to visit the base and possibly also the shooting range. Please note, that you need to send in your social security number to access the Finnish Army base.
A visit to the Tikakoski Air Museum is be arranged at the last day of the con for those that are interested. Among other planes there are a Bf109G, F2A-1 Brewster 239 and a replica of the first FAF plane, Thulin on display. Tikkakoski is near the town of Jyväskylä roughly 200 km SE from Menkijärvi.
How does one register to the event and how much does it cost? |
The attendance fee is 140,- USD (650,- FIM). The fee includes
Please fill in and submit the attached pre-registration form, once we have received and handled your information you will get a confirmation by email. Note that there can be a maximum of 50 participants in Mosquito Meeting '98. The registrations are handled in FIFO order. Your registration is considered final only after when you have payed the full attendance fee.
Who can participate: §1 You must have an active WarBirds account at iMagic Online. §2 You must be 18 years of age or older. §3 You will commit to obey the commands and instructions given to you by the arranging team.
If any of the pre-registration information is missing or not complete we will not confirm the pre-registration. Please press the 'Mail the information to mm98 @ ibm.net' -button only once. Multiple clicks will most likely result multiple messages and registrations from you. This form might not work properly in all browsers due to the configuration in your browser or network. In this case please send the pre-registration information to mm98 @ ibm.net by email.
The iMagic Online has promised to handle the credit card registration fees for overseas visitors. You will receive further details after we have received your pre-registration information.
After you have registered for the event we will send you a list of things to remember. The list will be available in this page too.
How to get to Mosquito Meeting '98? |
Railway timetables: | ||
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Train | Helsinki | Kauhava |
P49 | 06:58 | 11:00 |
P51 | 09:58 | 13:59 |
P53 | 12:58 | 16:57 |
IC41 | 14:58 | 18:42 *EXTRA FEE! |
IC57 | 15:58 | 19:44 *EXTRA FEE! |
P45 | 17:58 | 22:12 |
P61 | 19:24 | 00:29 |
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Train | Kauhava | Helsinki |
IC604 | 6:02 | 09:58 *EXTRA FEE |
P606 | 7:12 | 12:02 |
IC50 | 10:01 | 13:58 *EXTRA FEE |
P52 | 12:47 | 17:02 |
P54 | 15:47 | 20:02 |
P58 | 18:58 | 23:02 |
| ||
The above timetables are valid untill the end of June 1998, up-to-date timetables will be placed here as soon as they are available. Buy a ticket at railway station, ticket will be checked by train personell once or few times during the trip. You can also reserve a seat for extra cost. | ||
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Flight timetables: | ||
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Flight | Helsinki | Vaasa (Thu 02-Jul) |
AY333 | 06:35 | 08:15 |
KF301 | 06:50 | 07:50 |
AY339 | 12:10 | 14:10 |
AY315 | 15:15 | 17:10 |
AY323 | 16:20 | 17:15 |
KF305 | 17:15 | 18:15 |
KF307 | 18:35 | 19:35 |
AY327 | 19:50 | 20:55 |
AY347 | 23:25 | 00:30 |
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Flight | Stockholm (ARN) | Vaasa (Thu 02-Jul) |
AY618 | 18:25 | 20:45 |
AY620 | 22:15 | 00:10 |
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Flight | Vaasa | Helsinki (Sun 05-Jul) |
AY320 | 14:30 | 15:30 |
AY324 | 17:35 | 18:35 |
KF306 | 18:45 | 19:45 |
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Flight | Vaasa | Stockholm (ARN) (Thu 05-Jul) |
AY617 | 17:30 | 17:50 |
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After the event you will be taken back to the Kauhava railway station, however if you are lucky you may get a lift to Helsinki-Vantaa Airport from someone going back to Helsinki
You will receive detailed instructions on how to get around in Finland and what to pack with you after you have registered to the event. The instructions will be available all over this page too, once we get them finished...
Those of you using a private plane can use the air strip of Menkijärvi next to our camp. The runway can be found on any aviation charts and there is plenty of parking space for your plane. Note that there are no ground or tower services in Menkijärvi, eg. you can not buy flying petrol from Menkijärvi (unless we make some very special arrangements).
What to pack with you? |
Essential equipment to pack:
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It is highly recommended that you bring your own flight gear (stick, throttle, pedals etc) with you! This will enable your ultimate flying experience with the gear you already know. To ensure you own flight experience and the times you desire we suggest you bring your own hardware (220V/50Hz) to the meeting. Further information about e.g. the network configurations will be mailed to you after registration.
Also, bring some blank t-shirts, ties, underwear or sleeping bag (use your imagination) on which you might want to print the MM98 logo (top of this page) to. Note that the cloth must be atleast 80% cotton, clean and dry before printing. One, prefereably very dark or light colour makes the logo look very good.
Be aware that you are not insured by the arranging team. This means that you will attend the convention at your own risk (eg. of injury or your own equipment). We recommend that you consult your own insurance company for further details.
Guess why the meeting is called Mosquito Meeting? Where else can you expect to have millions of females flying with you? Yes, you can buy mosquito protection on site. If you need further instructions or help on what to pack with you please contact the ICEBREAKERS and we will help you out.
General instructions for the meeting |
Communications:
Practically all Finns understand and most also speak English so you should not face any language problems nor do you need to learn Finnish to get around. In Helsinki most hotels, shops and offices can server you also in French, German and Russian languages. Also, 5% of Finnish people speak Swedish as their native language and a great majority of people will understand and speak Swedish well. Truly a language enabled coutry!
Finland is the Promised Land of cellular phones. Coverage is good, and this is about the normal way to make a call here. If you have a GSM card of your own, you can use it in here. (US phones do not work, though - GSM cards should fit local phones which can be rented from eg. the Helsinki railway station).
Payphones operate with specific cards, which you can buy from almost any shop. Common prices for such cards are 30/50/100Fim. There are a few different payphone operators, and their cards work only in their own phones despite similar looks. The operators are TELE and AVANTI, phones are marked with stickers which tell which card will work. There are usually payphones in trains, (located in restaurant car), too, and you should be able to buy a card from there also.
Probably needless to say, but email works as well. You need a connection which is arranged in MM98. For emergency use temporary Unix accounts can be arranged. These accounts will expire right after MM98.
Food and drink:
Food is safe in Finland, water in most lakes and normal faucet water is good for drinking too. Beer differs in taste and in strength from US beers, typical percentage is 4,5% of alcohol. Strong alcohol (max 50%) can only be bought from special shops, which can be found from almost everywhere. There is no such thing as decaffeinated coffee. Coffee is strong when compared to US coffee-like product. Drugs are highly illegal and not permitted in the meeting.
Souvenirs:
If I must recommend some special product to buy from Finland, it is the traditional Finnish knife. Kauhava is famous from its high-quality knives, and local companies have long traditions in making knives.
Another unique and usefull souvenir is the "kuksa", a wooden cup used to drink coffee and other hot drinks. At the begining the kuksa needs some special care but as long as you do not drink milk from it it is practically a life long investment.
Sightseeing in Helsinki and Finland:
If you have extra time in Finland around the Mosquito Meeting there is lot to see and experience. Here are a few links for starters: Suomenlinna Sea Fortress (Helsinki), Finnish Aviation Museum (Helsinki), Travel in Finland, Virtual Finland, Seurasaari open air museum (Helsinki) and the Helsinki Camera.
Rules for the use of hardware: | |
§1 | You must respect the wishes of the hardware owner in all circumstances. |
§2 | Do not touch to any hardware unless you have a written personal persmission from the hardware owner. Prior to the permission the owner will train you to use the unique hardware set (sticks etc). Each computer will have a list of allowed users. |
§3 | Computer configurations may not be changed in any way even if they seem funny or unlogical, many of us use the computer for work too. |
§4 | Eating and drinking is prohibited while using the hardware. The hardware owner can make exeptions to this rule. |
§5 | Respect other people using the hardware and do not disturb them or enter the no-go-zone around the hardware unless they ask you to. |
In order to make Mosquito Meeting '98 a memorable and pleasent experience for all participants the arranging team has set up eg. rules for the use of computers and other hardware that all participants are expected to follow.
The tents are for sleeping and silent meditation, respect other people wanting a moment of peace. Additionally to the rules written in here common sence and set of unwritten social behaviour rules apply.
The MM98 Duty Officer can and will take necessary action to maintain peace and good atmosphere. In the worst case the participant may be excluded from the meeting and sent home at his own cost. No fees will be refunded in such a case.
Our highly honorable sponsors: |
-= Finnish Airforce =- |
And sponsors who did not meet their promices: |
MikroBitti Magazine |
The information on this page is subject to change without further notice. The ICEBREAKERS reserves all rights to change the pricing, programme and any other details as necessary.