Jim; Sure, I'll make a report on the evening of Sunday 12-8. The use of hi-starts to launch gliders in a TD contest isn't a new concept as Frank Weston of WACO and "Magic" fame lobbied for this method in the early 90's. Of course, the reason he wanted to see the use of hi-starts was that the wings and joiner rods of his gliders weren't strong enough to take an aggressive winch launch and resulting zoom. Even though his gliders soared superbly, they would typically give up at least 100 feet of launch height from a winch and this was an obvious handicap in competition and in marketing his products. He even went so far as to offer free hi-starts to clubs that agreed to host TD contests with hi-start launches. So here we are one decade later, trying hi-starts again and for a similar reason. Some of the European molded F3B and F3J models will launch so high that they make childs play of even extended flight times. As a result, all TD contests come down to who can land the best and contests are rarely determined by soaring skill. Well, the obvious way to put "soaring" back into soaring contests is to reduce and equalize launch height. This is difficult to do with winches as the potential power varies from one winch to another or even from one round to the next. If a winch goes down for 10-15 minutes because of a line break, the motor cools and the battery recharges and suddenly it's the strongest winch after the line is repaired. However, with six matched hi-starts that can only be stretched to identical tensions, the launches will be much more equalized and reduced from those able to be obtained with a winch. Of course, the specifications of the glider you fly and the optimization of your launch technique becomes even more critical. An extra 20 feet isn't a big issue from a 600 foot launch, but it becomes very important when everyone launches simultaneously and only gets to about 300 feet. An extra 20 feet will allow you to cover your competition as in F3J tactics. If you stream off to the opposite horizon from 300 feet and don't find lift, you're going to get seriously buried, so search patterns will be reduced. It's really a mixture of the best features of MOM and F3J. All in all, it's going to be a very challenging format, will open up the wood to more pilots and produce some unlikely winners.
TPG decided to be a leader in this new format for some not so obvious reasons. As you're probably aware, it takes a lot of time and effort to maintain four sets of winches and retrievers as well as the dozen batteries, chargers and generator and all the paraphernalia it takes to keep everything running (raised platforms for winches, raised stantions for turn arounds, harnesses, battery leads, swivels, foot pedals, hoops, retriever switches, etc., etc.). Consequently, it's been hard to get anyone to volunteer for the annual Winch Masters position. By substituting hi-starts for winches during several monthly contests, the job of Winch Master becomes much less daunting. Once assembled, hi-starts require virtually no maintenance and set up is a breeze. Instead of taking an hour to set up and tear down winches and all associated perifanalia, we can now fly that extra hour. Although the intial purchase of the hi-starts does tie up considerable club resources, that money is paid back over a few years as winches and retrievers don't have to be restrung and batteries replaced as often. Finally, it's hoped that TPG pilots will benefit from the absolute necessity to become more skilled soaring pilots to compete effectively. Depending on their situations, other clubs may want to consider a similar transition. Fred ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Deck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "FRED SAGE" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 10:06 PM Subject: Re: [RCSE] Highstart Max Launch > Fred: > How about a report to RCSE on this event? TPG may be on to something > here. > Jim Deck RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off.
