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Winner (center) Jonas Blomdahl, 2nd (left) Oleg Golovidov, 3rd (right) Ralph<br />
Mittlebach, and (far right with the bubbly) CD Alex Wunschheim.<br />
Designs - One of the biggest differences<br />
between the European and American<br />
models was their primary building<br />
techniques for the wings. Most of the top<br />
European pilots were flying planes with<br />
hollow molded wings. The skins were<br />
either rohacell (dense foam) or balsa<br />
wood. All of the Americans were flying<br />
vacuum bagged foam core wings with<br />
either Kevlar or fiberglass skins.<br />
The fuselages were similar in design,<br />
but with more Kevlar pods in the<br />
American camp and carbon fiber for the<br />
Europeans.<br />
Tail surfaces were another area of<br />
discrepancy, many European planes had<br />
foam core tail surfaces with large vertical<br />
fins. Many of the fins had <strong>com</strong>paratively<br />
small rudders (less than 20% of the area),<br />
and Johnas’ Cirrus had no rudder at all!<br />
The American tails mostly followed Mark<br />
Drela’s designs with somewhat lesser<br />
areas in the vertical and much larger<br />
rudders (40-60%).<br />
Radio gear - there were a few Europeans<br />
running 2.4 GHz systems where 1/3 of<br />
the Americans were Giga-hertzing it. 2.4<br />
GHz was certainly nice with so many<br />
<strong>com</strong>petitors. Although I have to give it to<br />
the organizers, the radio impound was<br />
extremely well run. I don’t remember a<br />
single mistake and there were only a few<br />
delays (like two) of the contest for the<br />
impound the entire three days!<br />
<strong>Apr</strong>il 2009 27
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