Hello all and welcome
to Wayne’s world - the world of model flying as I see it.
So what
have I got for you this month, well I have news of how I got on in the
Club F3F
event
and
some
news
of
a new
model
seen out on the slopes. I make no excuses for this months Wayne’s
World revolving around my glider flying because at the moment that is the
only flying I’m doing and at the time of writing I see it continuing
that way, all will be revealed later!
So what is F3F????
If you already know the rules and regulations of F3F then you should scroll
down a bit but for the beginners out there here is the low down.
F3F is a glider event/competition that is flown on the slopes,
a course is marked out and this consists of 2 gates or polls 100 metres
apart, simple enough so far. You typically stand in the middle of the 2
gates,
one to the left marked A and one to the right marked B. Two people have
the honour of standing by each gate with a buzzer. Once you launch you
are
given 2 minuets to climb as high as you can and once you go off the
course
at gate A the buzzer will sound and the next time you come on course
the clock
starts and you will get buzzed. You then fly to gate B and the buzzer will
sound once you have passed this gate you then turn and go back to gate
A and so on until you have flown 10 legs.
As you can see you are up against the clock
at all times. Yes you will get an overall winner, a second, third
and so on but all you are trying
to do is better your last time. As to what type of model you use is up
to you but the normal thing is a fully moulded machine of about 3 mt wing
span.
I used my Sagitta for my first 2 runs then because I didn’t
improve on my first run time I decided to switch to my Lift Off XS and
this was a good move.
When I arrived at the slope it was in low
cloud, this was at 9:30am and the competition was scheduled to start at
10 so it was
obvious that
we where going to have a late start, about 10:15. Mark Ollier arrived
and it was starting to look a little better so we decided to check it out
by
flying our foamies. It was obvious from flying these that there was
no problem with running a comp so after one or two phone calls had
been made it was “game on”. My first run was 83 seconds with
the same again for my second run; my third run was 65 seconds followed by
68
seconds and a final run time of 57 seconds. To put all this in to the finish
positions for each round I went from 8th in the first two runs then up to
6th, then 5th, then 4th, all in all I had a good day and yes it would be
nice to win but as you can see from my times I was getting better because
the best time averaged out by the over all winner, who managed 54 seconds.
The next event I will be telling you about is a foamy event so this is going
to be
a lot of fun with a capital F.
|
|
|
A
Selection of models from the comp.
|
A Zagi is always
good to test the slope
|
At the time of writing my power club are about to have their
AGM, at a committee meeting some time before I asked my fellow committee
members how they feel about the club doing very simple flight tests for every
member including the committee.
My thinking behind this
is we do have one or two members that are, shall I say a little lacking
in there confidence and so doing
a test would, I think
help them and also help to raise the general standard within the club.
I know we do have some members that have taken tests with other clubs and
as
for myself I have a BMFA “B”. So as long as any member can
show proof of them taking and passing a test then they would have no
need
to take the
test with us.
The feeling amongst my fellow committee members was we have
no need to do tests, this I think is a very negative view especially as
I have said above,
it would help to improve the standard within the club. I would like to know
from you all, does your club run a test before people can go solo? It
would be nice to know how you feel about the above. At the moment I have
lost
a lot of confidence with the power club for several reasons one of which
is general flight safety. So because of this I can see myself only going
power flying on week nights, now that the clocks have changed!
Below is a photo
taken the other weekend on our easterly slope, the model is built and owned
by
Eric Burke a visitor to our slopes
who mainly
fly’s on the Long Mynd. I asked Eric for some information with regard
to the model and this is what he had to say.
"The model is a Rhonsperber and is a 1/4
scale version of the 1935 Hans Jacobs sailplane
built in Germany. There were about 100 of them built in total and my model
is finished in the colour scheme of the one belonging to Ernst Udet, a former
WW1 ace and later a very high ranking officer in the Luftwaffe hence the
D-KOMMANDANT logo on the side. The model is now going into it's 6th year
and I have kept a log book of all the flights. Actual time in the air
is now in excess of 45 hours which is not bad when I think how scared of
it I was on the first launch! The model has been aero-towed, slope soared
and winch-launched in it's time and never been a problem on any of these
methods."
I must say that the day was not only made a little more special
than normal by seeing this model but also by talking to Eric. You see,
Eric has been
model building and flying for 50 years and is such a mine of information
not only with regard to models but full size gliders. I would like
to take this opportunity to thank Eric for helping to make the day a
special one.
Well that’s it for this month I hope you like my ramblings...
...and remember
to keep the wind beneath your wings and also some going over the top!!!
Article by Wayne Haycock for Bumpy Green
Model Aerodrome
April 2003
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