Oct - Rcsoaring.com

More documents

Recommendations

Info

The F3J Experience:Seattle 2006...Chicago 2007...Adaparazi 2008Sherman Knight, duworm@aol.comIn December 2006, Dave Beardsleymentioned to me that the F3J WorldChampionships in 2008 would bein Turkey and that we should see ifwe could qualify our kids. Soundedinteresting, especially the Turkey aspectof it. “I’m in, sounds cool.” What I didn’trealize at the time was I was about toexperience the most difficult thing I havedone since I started flying — handinga perfectly good, brand spankin’ newCarbon/Kevlar sailplane to a 13 year oldwith a smile on my face while saying“Have fun out there,” and walking away.And not once, but with three differentplanes!At the time, I only knew one thing aboutF3J. A couple of guys with track shoestowed the plane on launch. My learningcurve was going to be steep, but whatthe heck, we were shooting for the WorldChampionships!F3J has lots of rules, lots and lots ofrules. Towline length limits, tow bridalconstruction restrictions, safety zoneflight limits, parachute size restrictions,launch windows and a bunch of others.Even the line used for launching wasdifferent. In Thermal Duration, slap onsome #300 line and go. In F3J the towlineis monofilament. Sounds easy, but youreally wanted a certain brand of mono.Something called “Speedline” was themono of choice. A quick Google searchand NOTHING, zip, nada. It took monthsto track this stuff down. And you needit in at least three different diameters.The more stretch (lighter line) the better.Unfortunately, as headwinds increasedon launch, the lighter line would break,requiring a heaver line. Balancing theweight of the aircraft, the strength of4 R/C Soaring Digest
the towmen and the strength of theheadwind was required to select thecorrect size of the monofilament tow line.Too heavy and the launch suffered. Toolight and the line broke. And you did notwant to break a line. Break a line onceand that flight just became your throwoutround. Break a line a second timeand you did not make the fly-offs. Inother words, no podium for you.Each competitor is allowed only threeaircraft for the competition. At the WorldChampionship level this means threeprimary aircraft. A primary with a coupleof old planes that are still in pretty goodshape does not cut it. Unfortunately,you really need more like four or five.(The reasons will become clear laterin this article.) You are not allowed toreplace any part of the aircraft like a newfuselage or a new wing tip panel. But youare allowed to repair them all you want.Bring your repair kit, because you WILLbe doing repair work. What is it aboutF3J that damages more aircraft than aThermal Duration contest?F3J does not allow landing skegs ofany kind. Hard dork landings aren’t justtypical, they are required. In addition,there are lots of planes in close proximityto each other. Because scoring for eachround is Man-on-Man, up to 16 aircraftlaunch at the same time from lanes only35 feet apart. That also means 16 aircraftsetting up for approach at the sametime. Because of the follow-the-leadermentality many competition pilots have,that also means up to 16 planes in thesame thermal at one time. You guessedit, F3J is a contact sport!Daryl Perkins reduced the entire strategyof F3J to one sentence. “F3J is all aboutthe first three seconds and the lastthree seconds.” Huhhh? Like ThermalDuration, the clock starts when theplane comes off tow and starts when theplane touches a ground based object.Unlike Thermal Duration you mustlaunch and land in a ten minute window.In other words, it is impossible to geta ten minute flight within a ten minutewindow. Time on tow and landing earlyis subtracted from the ten minutes. Tomake the fly-offs, you get one throw-out,you make your time in all the remainingrounds, you launch in less than threeseconds and you land inside the lastthree seconds. This strategy will work atthe local contest level, but it will not beenough to make the fly-offs at the WorldChampionship levels.Man-on-Man scoring takes the bestscore in the round and gives that person1000 points. All the other pilots’ scoresare normalized against that 1000 points.So, if all the pilots in the same roundland early, the best score still receives1000 points. Under this system, no pilotis penalized for being unlucky enough tofly a round in bad air when the roundsbefore and after flew in great air.F3J rounds take place in a ten minutewindow. If you land early, that may havejust become your throw-out. The aircraftmay not leave the thrower’s hand until thewindow opens and the plane must landbefore the ten minute window closes.If you launch early, you must re-launchin that window. Oops, that just becameyour throw-out. If you land after thewindow closes, a severe point penalty isassessed. Darn, another throw-out!There are other “throw-out” causingevents. Land more than 75 feet from thelanding zone, another throw-out. Fly overa safety zone under three meters, “OopsI did it again.“Unfortunately, you only get one throw-outleading up to the fly-offs. In the 15 minutewindow fly-offs, if six rounds are flown,there is another throw-out.The Selection TrialsThe road to the World Championshipsgoes through the selection trials for eachcountry. For Team USA, the selectiontrial were sponsored by SOAR, the localSoaring club near Chicago in Septemberof 2007. By March of 2007, there werethree Dads and their sons going tothe trials from the Seattle area. DaveBeardsley and his son Brendon, myselfand my son Michael, and Jim Laurel andhis son Connor.October 2008 5
Page 1 and 2: SoaringDigestRadi C ntr lledOctober
Page 3: R/C Soaring DigestManaging Editors,
Page 7 and 8: October 2008 7
Page 9 and 10: Tents are a poor description of the
Page 11 and 12: of the juniors from Seattle so I di
Page 13 and 14: adrenaline is up in preparation. In
Page 15 and 16: The WorldChampionshipsThe Team Even
Page 17 and 18: US Junior WC F3J Team: Dave Kalamen
Page 21 and 22: 2October 2008 214
Page 23 and 24: spin and managed to fly the plane b
Page 25 and 26: Above and clockwise: Junior Team to
Page 27 and 28: Clockwise from above:The Supra wing
Page 29 and 30: Joe Wurts, Manager for Team New Zea
Page 31 and 32: 2316October 2008 31
Page 33 and 34: Above and right: Cody Remington pre
Page 35 and 36: Above: One of the many collisions t
Page 37 and 38: The F3J WorldChampionship Fly-offsT
Page 39 and 40: Ben Clerx’ plane box and travelin
Page 41 and 42: Above: Ordering at McD’s is easy
Page 43 and 44: first became aware of Pitcherons/I
Page 45 and 46: We agreed that Dan would launch for
Page 47 and 48: out light and stiff and looked up t
Page 49 and 50: Uncle Sydney’s gossip columnMiles
Page 51 and 52: quite as grand for this club compet
Page 55 and 56:
October 2008 55
Page 57 and 58:
Rol Klingberg built and flew hang g
Page 59 and 60:
The KW 100 awaits another flight. H
Page 61 and 62:
October 2008 61
Page 63 and 64:
Flaps down!October 2008 63
Page 65 and 66:
The FerengiRules of SoaringBy Peter
Page 67 and 68:
Tinamous are strictly neotropical b
Page 69 and 70:
Tinamou SpecificationsSpan 95"Chord
Page 71 and 72:
The finished tip panel ready for sh
Page 73 and 74:
One of the two tow hook blocks inst
Page 75 and 76:
in the hatch, thus holding the hatc
Page 77 and 78:
in handling, but I’ve since remov
Page 79:
October 2008 79
show all

Oct - Rcsoaring.com

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?