----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2004 9:30 AM
Subject: [RCSE] Report on Nats XC and a
brief visit with F3-B
I spent the weekend at Muncie trying
to help out Skip Schow's XC team. The team didn't have a
name, so my first (possibly only) major contribution was to suggest a
couple:
Team Knobly seemed to be the
favorite.
The Schow Hounds was a distant
second.
Conditions were not favorable for the
first attempt to mix XC and Scale Aerotow. My impression was
that the participants nevertheless all had a ball. This bodes well
for the future development of combined Scale Aerotow and XC.
Team Knobly was Skip Schow, Tom
Broeski, Antonio Quesada and John Derstine. John told me he
had never flown an RC glider from the back seat of a convertible before.
I got the impression that this was the first time for Antonio as
well. After seeing a few of the winch-launched XC teams head
out on the course, both Derstine and Quesada were eager to give it a
try. Later, Tom Broeski, who had brought along a 3 meter ASW to
sell, decided to put the ASW together and head out onto the course as
well.
All three managed to
aero-tow, fly the half mile or so to the start gate, and then fly due east
into the 20 mph prevailing wind and get out of the AMA property and onto the
public roads. They were hooked.
I should add that some of the
dedicated XC planes (non-scale) were not able to do as much.
Thermals were present, but were being blown apart and blown downwind. It
was a tough day. A colorful Sailaire was seen spending most
of its time flying backward. Clearly, being aero-towed to a couple of
thousand feet made starting out onto the course a whole lot
easier.
The rules this year limited
aero-towing to the scale ships. This will likely be a matter for
rules discussion. The big XC jobs certainly have enough room in
the fuselage for a tow release mechanism and servo (as well as lunch and a
small dog). As Skip Schow says, aero-tow makes each launch a
potential assault on the course.
Seeing the XC ships doing XC was
great. Those big beauties are obviously capable of much more than the
usual tasks assigned at the NATS (take off, retract gear, turn left,
thermal circle, land, yawn.) They are fast, they can thermal well, and
can land accurately.
Lots of the scale guys did not want
to risk their ships out on the public roads on a tough flying day. They
were given the option to launch and fly circuits around the AMA property,
staying outside the main perimeter road. I saw Skip Miller go by four
times. One, he actually lapped us. When I left for dinner,
he was still in orbit.
Scale XC is evolving. It was
fun, and it has a bright future. We did learn a couple of
important things:
1. The guys at the full scale
airport adjacent to the AMA property freak when they see 6 meter
sailplanes being towed up near their airspace. We had to re-locate our
take off point away from the airport.
2. Expanding XC to two days
does not guarantee good weather on at least one day. We had
northeaster's on Saturday and rain on Sunday.
3. It is hard to fly a scale
plane from the back seat of a convertible when it is raining and the top is
up.
I spent a little down time watching
F3-B for the first time. Here is what I understood of it, keeping in
mind I might have gotten some of this wrong: There are three parts to
F3-B: speed, distance ,and a sort of combination thermal duration and
interpretive
dance.
It takes a crew of about 47
people to run the event, including timers, spotters, electronics engineers,
structural consultants, and aromatherapists. Approximately 3 people on
the planet understand all of the rules, which were written by the same group
that invented bridge.
The speed event involves launching
into low earth orbit and then squandering all that altitude for speed in about
14 seconds, the sailplane equivalent of bungee jumping. If
RC sailplane events ever make it onto ESPN-2 it will be the F3-B speed event
they cover first.
The F3-B crowd looked intense and
athletic and happily engaged in their event. The XC/Scale
Aerotow crowd looked a little less intense, a whole lot less
athletic (I contributed a lot to that part) and just as happily
engaged. It was a fun weekend, despite less than perfect
weather.
Tom H. Nagel
Columbus,
OH
