THE 32ND ANNUAL Central Valley
Radio Control (CVRC) Fall Soaring
Festival in Visalia, California, is in the
books. And, as happened in 2004, Daryl
Perkins won in a down-to-the-wire finish.
The 2005 edition of the premier Soaring
event in the US, which was held October
1-2, featured 171 pilots in Open, 19 in
Two Meter, 68 in Rudder-Elevator-
Spoiler (RES), and 10 in Youth.
The CVRC staff does a great job of
running this event despite being a small
club. Getting nearly 300 people through
seven rounds of flying is difficult.
Saturday featured four rounds with a
completion time of roughly 3:30—plenty
of time to get in the fun stuff.
Many vendors were in attendance as
usual, showing the latest and greatest. A
full list of these companies is available
on the CVRC Web site: www.cvrc
soaring.com. I’ll cover some of the new
and unique items displayed this year.
Bobby Tom and others represented
Airtronics. The company’s new 94761
digital servo is ideal for sailplane use. I’ll
have more details later. Gordy Stahl
manned the Volz servo booth and showed
the all-digital line for Michael Volz.
124 MODEL AVIATION
Notes from the 32nd Annual CVRC Fall Soaring Festival
[[email protected]]
Radio Control Soaring Darwin Barrie
Also included in this column:
• Two things that disturb Darwin
• New Airtronics 761 servo
HKM was well represented at the CVRC Fall Soaring Festival in Visalia CA. Jochen
Luetke took this photo showing a few of the HKM Sharons at the event.
Darwin after learning that his perfect five-minute flight earned a
zero. The timer accidentally cleared the stopwatch. Judson photo.
In the landing zone the center was worth 25 points, the outer boxes were 15, and the
middle boxes were 10. Darwin didn’t get it! Photo by David Judson.
JR’s John Diniz launches his Sharon. Judson photo.
Alberto of Hobby Club had several new
airplanes on exhibit, including the Azure
that Mike Lee flew. This is a great-looking
model that flies extremely well. Mike has
done terrific in the Southern California
soaring circuit and was doing great at the
Fall Festival until his aircraft was hit with
some terrible air. I’ll discuss this later too.
Barry Kennedy had the new Supra that
drew much interest. It is an Open-class,
F3J Thermal Duration model that is new in
design and technology. The airfoil is
multidimensional. The fit and finish are
exceptional.
The extensive list of pilots who have
these on order is the who’s who and
includes the US and Canadian F3J teams.
That’s not bad for an airplane with a
mostly unknown performance record. It
will sell for $1,200.
By the time you read this Barry should
have the initial orders filled and a handle
on the production. I’ll report again as soon
as a few of these are in the field.
The model with the most numbers was
the Sharon 3.7 from HKM. Jochen Luetke
was in attendance promoting it. You can
see from the group picture of Sharon
owners that there was a bunch of them. I
have one on order and can’t wait to get it
going.
The beginning of the contest featured
the usual downwind launch and landing.
Fortunately the winds were relatively light.
Nevertheless, several tip-overs occurred
on landings. The rest of the day was
largely uneventful, with times fairly easy
to get.
Sunday was another story, with brisk
winds that rotated during the day and
considerably cooler temperatures.
Launches were into quartering winds all
day. This made landing tough.
The first flight of the day was a threeminute
round and not a big deal. The next
round was eight minutes. That is fairly
early in the day, with cooler temperatures
and winds for eight minutes.
My flight group was selected to be first
on Sunday. At the beginning of the eight-
April 2006 125
The unsung heroes of any big event are the transmitter guys. Judson photo.
minute round, several of us stepped up to
the winches to see what we could do. I
wasn’t feeling good, but I had a plan.
I was third to launch, and we all went
straight out and right. At roughly that time
we spotted a bird high and circling. It was
way out there, but I went for it and got
hooked up. This lasted approximately three
minutes and died out.
My model was extremely high, and I
felt I could coast out the last five minutes.
I went back upwind and began “S” turning,
and the airplane kept going up. I could
finally relax. I figured that if we got the
eight minutes this early in the round,
everyone would. Wrong.
During the flight we realized that all the
winches were down, and we were the only
three in the air. Things turned ugly for
many in this round. It seems as if there is
always some awful air for a period of time.
The top fliers in Open were close in
points. It became apparent that it was
going to come down to seconds on the
clock and landing points. Daryl Perkins
was in the lead, but there would be a tie if
Joe Wurts got a dead-on four-minute flight
and a 25-point max landing. With 39
minutes of flying and a max of 175 landing
points, how could a tie occur?
For Joe Wurts four minutes is not a big
deal, but the crosswind landing and an
exact time is tough no matter who you are.
As Joe clicked off the final 10 seconds, we
knew it would be close. Touch down and
slide into the 25-point box. Joe’s wife Jan
was timing and looked up to announce
“4:01”! Daryl had won by one second.
One of the great things to see is the upand-
coming Juniors. They posted some
great scores that were right there with the
top competitors. Cody Remington posted a
score of 2,399 that would have put him in
fifth place overall. We can only hope these
Juniors discover girls before too long.
Soapbox: Two things have always
disturbed me, and many others, about this
event that defy explanation.
1) The need for some sort of “gotcha”
landing (I’ll explain in a minute).
2) Off-field landings still get you flight
points.
This year the landing was five boxes.
(See the photo.) The center box was
awarded 25 points, the boxes on each side
of the center netted 10 points, and the
outermost boxes were worth 15 points. I
don’t understand why the scoring didn’t
follow a logical sequence of 25 points, 15
points, and 10 points.
Pilots are essentially penalized for
going for the center and missing by inches,
while someone who undershoots or
overshoots the center and lands in an end
box is rewarded with 15 points. For an
otherwise great landing zone the luck
factor comes into play, and it shouldn’t.
The second factor is the off-field
landing. This is the only contest I know of
in which you can be a mile away and still
get your flight points. So you are in a
thermal and can get eight minutes but can’t
get back. You still get your flight score.
This could really come into play as
described in the preceding, where many
people tanked a round.
You should land within defined field
boundaries to get your flight time. This is
part of the flight technique to find
thermals, exit if necessary, and find new
ones so you can get back to the field. If
you’re not good enough to get back to the
field, you should earn a zero. This
reminds me of my favorite bumper
sticker: “Stupid should hurt.”
Okay, I feel better now. Some people
will look at the final standings and see my
106 finish and wonder why I’m the one
writing this column. I had a first-time,
unfortunate event happen that cost me a
zero in the five-minute round. My timer
accidentally reset the watch before an
official landing judge confirmed the time,
and my 4:59:87 became a zero.
Sure I was upset, but accidents happen.
I certainly don’t have any hard feelings
and made it a goal to nail the remaining
times and move up as much as possible.
Most important, I had a great time. (No,
my timer wasn’t Gordy!)
Airtronics has a great new servo that is
specifically for sailplane use. The 761
weighs .80 ounce. Its dimensions are 1.06
x 0.47 x 1.18. The torque and speed
statistics were unavailable at the time of
this writing, but this is one quick servo.
On 4.8 volts it is fast; with 6.0 volts
attached it is scary.
The lug system allows for simplified
mounting in any configuration. Daryl
Perkins had his Insanity outfitted with
these servos and had to program a slight
delay in the elevator compensation
because of the speed. Daryl also said the
torque is more than adequate for his large
flapped Insanity. That’s all I need to know.
Check out the 761 at www.airtronics.net.
This servo retails for $100, with an
expected street price of $60.
Chris Adams ran the Fall Soaring Festival
after-contest hand-launch event with some
unique tasks. Each flight group mass
launched. At 15 seconds a horn sounded
and required a loop. The first four down
were out. Another round required two
loops. Another had a loop at 15 seconds
and then another at 30 seconds. Heck, I
can remember not too long ago when a
dead-air javelin launch of one minute was
great.
There was also a balsa-glider contest
for anyone who wanted to build the little
kit from M&M Glider Tech. It was
amazing how much time some of these
airplanes managed. If it weren’t for the
wind, I’m sure some of them would have
been lost. This was extremely entertaining
to watch.
My Van’s RV-7 is finished, and I have 21
hours on it now. What a rewarding
experience! My ability to attend contests is
greatly improved. I’ll
Edition: Model Aviation - 2006/04
Page Numbers: 124,125,126
Edition: Model Aviation - 2006/04
Page Numbers: 124,125,126
THE 32ND ANNUAL Central Valley
Radio Control (CVRC) Fall Soaring
Festival in Visalia, California, is in the
books. And, as happened in 2004, Daryl
Perkins won in a down-to-the-wire finish.
The 2005 edition of the premier Soaring
event in the US, which was held October
1-2, featured 171 pilots in Open, 19 in
Two Meter, 68 in Rudder-Elevator-
Spoiler (RES), and 10 in Youth.
The CVRC staff does a great job of
running this event despite being a small
club. Getting nearly 300 people through
seven rounds of flying is difficult.
Saturday featured four rounds with a
completion time of roughly 3:30—plenty
of time to get in the fun stuff.
Many vendors were in attendance as
usual, showing the latest and greatest. A
full list of these companies is available
on the CVRC Web site: www.cvrc
soaring.com. I’ll cover some of the new
and unique items displayed this year.
Bobby Tom and others represented
Airtronics. The company’s new 94761
digital servo is ideal for sailplane use. I’ll
have more details later. Gordy Stahl
manned the Volz servo booth and showed
the all-digital line for Michael Volz.
124 MODEL AVIATION
Notes from the 32nd Annual CVRC Fall Soaring Festival
[[email protected]]
Radio Control Soaring Darwin Barrie
Also included in this column:
• Two things that disturb Darwin
• New Airtronics 761 servo
HKM was well represented at the CVRC Fall Soaring Festival in Visalia CA. Jochen
Luetke took this photo showing a few of the HKM Sharons at the event.
Darwin after learning that his perfect five-minute flight earned a
zero. The timer accidentally cleared the stopwatch. Judson photo.
In the landing zone the center was worth 25 points, the outer boxes were 15, and the
middle boxes were 10. Darwin didn’t get it! Photo by David Judson.
JR’s John Diniz launches his Sharon. Judson photo.
Alberto of Hobby Club had several new
airplanes on exhibit, including the Azure
that Mike Lee flew. This is a great-looking
model that flies extremely well. Mike has
done terrific in the Southern California
soaring circuit and was doing great at the
Fall Festival until his aircraft was hit with
some terrible air. I’ll discuss this later too.
Barry Kennedy had the new Supra that
drew much interest. It is an Open-class,
F3J Thermal Duration model that is new in
design and technology. The airfoil is
multidimensional. The fit and finish are
exceptional.
The extensive list of pilots who have
these on order is the who’s who and
includes the US and Canadian F3J teams.
That’s not bad for an airplane with a
mostly unknown performance record. It
will sell for $1,200.
By the time you read this Barry should
have the initial orders filled and a handle
on the production. I’ll report again as soon
as a few of these are in the field.
The model with the most numbers was
the Sharon 3.7 from HKM. Jochen Luetke
was in attendance promoting it. You can
see from the group picture of Sharon
owners that there was a bunch of them. I
have one on order and can’t wait to get it
going.
The beginning of the contest featured
the usual downwind launch and landing.
Fortunately the winds were relatively light.
Nevertheless, several tip-overs occurred
on landings. The rest of the day was
largely uneventful, with times fairly easy
to get.
Sunday was another story, with brisk
winds that rotated during the day and
considerably cooler temperatures.
Launches were into quartering winds all
day. This made landing tough.
The first flight of the day was a threeminute
round and not a big deal. The next
round was eight minutes. That is fairly
early in the day, with cooler temperatures
and winds for eight minutes.
My flight group was selected to be first
on Sunday. At the beginning of the eight-
April 2006 125
The unsung heroes of any big event are the transmitter guys. Judson photo.
minute round, several of us stepped up to
the winches to see what we could do. I
wasn’t feeling good, but I had a plan.
I was third to launch, and we all went
straight out and right. At roughly that time
we spotted a bird high and circling. It was
way out there, but I went for it and got
hooked up. This lasted approximately three
minutes and died out.
My model was extremely high, and I
felt I could coast out the last five minutes.
I went back upwind and began “S” turning,
and the airplane kept going up. I could
finally relax. I figured that if we got the
eight minutes this early in the round,
everyone would. Wrong.
During the flight we realized that all the
winches were down, and we were the only
three in the air. Things turned ugly for
many in this round. It seems as if there is
always some awful air for a period of time.
The top fliers in Open were close in
points. It became apparent that it was
going to come down to seconds on the
clock and landing points. Daryl Perkins
was in the lead, but there would be a tie if
Joe Wurts got a dead-on four-minute flight
and a 25-point max landing. With 39
minutes of flying and a max of 175 landing
points, how could a tie occur?
For Joe Wurts four minutes is not a big
deal, but the crosswind landing and an
exact time is tough no matter who you are.
As Joe clicked off the final 10 seconds, we
knew it would be close. Touch down and
slide into the 25-point box. Joe’s wife Jan
was timing and looked up to announce
“4:01”! Daryl had won by one second.
One of the great things to see is the upand-
coming Juniors. They posted some
great scores that were right there with the
top competitors. Cody Remington posted a
score of 2,399 that would have put him in
fifth place overall. We can only hope these
Juniors discover girls before too long.
Soapbox: Two things have always
disturbed me, and many others, about this
event that defy explanation.
1) The need for some sort of “gotcha”
landing (I’ll explain in a minute).
2) Off-field landings still get you flight
points.
This year the landing was five boxes.
(See the photo.) The center box was
awarded 25 points, the boxes on each side
of the center netted 10 points, and the
outermost boxes were worth 15 points. I
don’t understand why the scoring didn’t
follow a logical sequence of 25 points, 15
points, and 10 points.
Pilots are essentially penalized for
going for the center and missing by inches,
while someone who undershoots or
overshoots the center and lands in an end
box is rewarded with 15 points. For an
otherwise great landing zone the luck
factor comes into play, and it shouldn’t.
The second factor is the off-field
landing. This is the only contest I know of
in which you can be a mile away and still
get your flight points. So you are in a
thermal and can get eight minutes but can’t
get back. You still get your flight score.
This could really come into play as
described in the preceding, where many
people tanked a round.
You should land within defined field
boundaries to get your flight time. This is
part of the flight technique to find
thermals, exit if necessary, and find new
ones so you can get back to the field. If
you’re not good enough to get back to the
field, you should earn a zero. This
reminds me of my favorite bumper
sticker: “Stupid should hurt.”
Okay, I feel better now. Some people
will look at the final standings and see my
106 finish and wonder why I’m the one
writing this column. I had a first-time,
unfortunate event happen that cost me a
zero in the five-minute round. My timer
accidentally reset the watch before an
official landing judge confirmed the time,
and my 4:59:87 became a zero.
Sure I was upset, but accidents happen.
I certainly don’t have any hard feelings
and made it a goal to nail the remaining
times and move up as much as possible.
Most important, I had a great time. (No,
my timer wasn’t Gordy!)
Airtronics has a great new servo that is
specifically for sailplane use. The 761
weighs .80 ounce. Its dimensions are 1.06
x 0.47 x 1.18. The torque and speed
statistics were unavailable at the time of
this writing, but this is one quick servo.
On 4.8 volts it is fast; with 6.0 volts
attached it is scary.
The lug system allows for simplified
mounting in any configuration. Daryl
Perkins had his Insanity outfitted with
these servos and had to program a slight
delay in the elevator compensation
because of the speed. Daryl also said the
torque is more than adequate for his large
flapped Insanity. That’s all I need to know.
Check out the 761 at www.airtronics.net.
This servo retails for $100, with an
expected street price of $60.
Chris Adams ran the Fall Soaring Festival
after-contest hand-launch event with some
unique tasks. Each flight group mass
launched. At 15 seconds a horn sounded
and required a loop. The first four down
were out. Another round required two
loops. Another had a loop at 15 seconds
and then another at 30 seconds. Heck, I
can remember not too long ago when a
dead-air javelin launch of one minute was
great.
There was also a balsa-glider contest
for anyone who wanted to build the little
kit from M&M Glider Tech. It was
amazing how much time some of these
airplanes managed. If it weren’t for the
wind, I’m sure some of them would have
been lost. This was extremely entertaining
to watch.
My Van’s RV-7 is finished, and I have 21
hours on it now. What a rewarding
experience! My ability to attend contests is
greatly improved. I’ll
Edition: Model Aviation - 2006/04
Page Numbers: 124,125,126
THE 32ND ANNUAL Central Valley
Radio Control (CVRC) Fall Soaring
Festival in Visalia, California, is in the
books. And, as happened in 2004, Daryl
Perkins won in a down-to-the-wire finish.
The 2005 edition of the premier Soaring
event in the US, which was held October
1-2, featured 171 pilots in Open, 19 in
Two Meter, 68 in Rudder-Elevator-
Spoiler (RES), and 10 in Youth.
The CVRC staff does a great job of
running this event despite being a small
club. Getting nearly 300 people through
seven rounds of flying is difficult.
Saturday featured four rounds with a
completion time of roughly 3:30—plenty
of time to get in the fun stuff.
Many vendors were in attendance as
usual, showing the latest and greatest. A
full list of these companies is available
on the CVRC Web site: www.cvrc
soaring.com. I’ll cover some of the new
and unique items displayed this year.
Bobby Tom and others represented
Airtronics. The company’s new 94761
digital servo is ideal for sailplane use. I’ll
have more details later. Gordy Stahl
manned the Volz servo booth and showed
the all-digital line for Michael Volz.
124 MODEL AVIATION
Notes from the 32nd Annual CVRC Fall Soaring Festival
[[email protected]]
Radio Control Soaring Darwin Barrie
Also included in this column:
• Two things that disturb Darwin
• New Airtronics 761 servo
HKM was well represented at the CVRC Fall Soaring Festival in Visalia CA. Jochen
Luetke took this photo showing a few of the HKM Sharons at the event.
Darwin after learning that his perfect five-minute flight earned a
zero. The timer accidentally cleared the stopwatch. Judson photo.
In the landing zone the center was worth 25 points, the outer boxes were 15, and the
middle boxes were 10. Darwin didn’t get it! Photo by David Judson.
JR’s John Diniz launches his Sharon. Judson photo.
Alberto of Hobby Club had several new
airplanes on exhibit, including the Azure
that Mike Lee flew. This is a great-looking
model that flies extremely well. Mike has
done terrific in the Southern California
soaring circuit and was doing great at the
Fall Festival until his aircraft was hit with
some terrible air. I’ll discuss this later too.
Barry Kennedy had the new Supra that
drew much interest. It is an Open-class,
F3J Thermal Duration model that is new in
design and technology. The airfoil is
multidimensional. The fit and finish are
exceptional.
The extensive list of pilots who have
these on order is the who’s who and
includes the US and Canadian F3J teams.
That’s not bad for an airplane with a
mostly unknown performance record. It
will sell for $1,200.
By the time you read this Barry should
have the initial orders filled and a handle
on the production. I’ll report again as soon
as a few of these are in the field.
The model with the most numbers was
the Sharon 3.7 from HKM. Jochen Luetke
was in attendance promoting it. You can
see from the group picture of Sharon
owners that there was a bunch of them. I
have one on order and can’t wait to get it
going.
The beginning of the contest featured
the usual downwind launch and landing.
Fortunately the winds were relatively light.
Nevertheless, several tip-overs occurred
on landings. The rest of the day was
largely uneventful, with times fairly easy
to get.
Sunday was another story, with brisk
winds that rotated during the day and
considerably cooler temperatures.
Launches were into quartering winds all
day. This made landing tough.
The first flight of the day was a threeminute
round and not a big deal. The next
round was eight minutes. That is fairly
early in the day, with cooler temperatures
and winds for eight minutes.
My flight group was selected to be first
on Sunday. At the beginning of the eight-
April 2006 125
The unsung heroes of any big event are the transmitter guys. Judson photo.
minute round, several of us stepped up to
the winches to see what we could do. I
wasn’t feeling good, but I had a plan.
I was third to launch, and we all went
straight out and right. At roughly that time
we spotted a bird high and circling. It was
way out there, but I went for it and got
hooked up. This lasted approximately three
minutes and died out.
My model was extremely high, and I
felt I could coast out the last five minutes.
I went back upwind and began “S” turning,
and the airplane kept going up. I could
finally relax. I figured that if we got the
eight minutes this early in the round,
everyone would. Wrong.
During the flight we realized that all the
winches were down, and we were the only
three in the air. Things turned ugly for
many in this round. It seems as if there is
always some awful air for a period of time.
The top fliers in Open were close in
points. It became apparent that it was
going to come down to seconds on the
clock and landing points. Daryl Perkins
was in the lead, but there would be a tie if
Joe Wurts got a dead-on four-minute flight
and a 25-point max landing. With 39
minutes of flying and a max of 175 landing
points, how could a tie occur?
For Joe Wurts four minutes is not a big
deal, but the crosswind landing and an
exact time is tough no matter who you are.
As Joe clicked off the final 10 seconds, we
knew it would be close. Touch down and
slide into the 25-point box. Joe’s wife Jan
was timing and looked up to announce
“4:01”! Daryl had won by one second.
One of the great things to see is the upand-
coming Juniors. They posted some
great scores that were right there with the
top competitors. Cody Remington posted a
score of 2,399 that would have put him in
fifth place overall. We can only hope these
Juniors discover girls before too long.
Soapbox: Two things have always
disturbed me, and many others, about this
event that defy explanation.
1) The need for some sort of “gotcha”
landing (I’ll explain in a minute).
2) Off-field landings still get you flight
points.
This year the landing was five boxes.
(See the photo.) The center box was
awarded 25 points, the boxes on each side
of the center netted 10 points, and the
outermost boxes were worth 15 points. I
don’t understand why the scoring didn’t
follow a logical sequence of 25 points, 15
points, and 10 points.
Pilots are essentially penalized for
going for the center and missing by inches,
while someone who undershoots or
overshoots the center and lands in an end
box is rewarded with 15 points. For an
otherwise great landing zone the luck
factor comes into play, and it shouldn’t.
The second factor is the off-field
landing. This is the only contest I know of
in which you can be a mile away and still
get your flight points. So you are in a
thermal and can get eight minutes but can’t
get back. You still get your flight score.
This could really come into play as
described in the preceding, where many
people tanked a round.
You should land within defined field
boundaries to get your flight time. This is
part of the flight technique to find
thermals, exit if necessary, and find new
ones so you can get back to the field. If
you’re not good enough to get back to the
field, you should earn a zero. This
reminds me of my favorite bumper
sticker: “Stupid should hurt.”
Okay, I feel better now. Some people
will look at the final standings and see my
106 finish and wonder why I’m the one
writing this column. I had a first-time,
unfortunate event happen that cost me a
zero in the five-minute round. My timer
accidentally reset the watch before an
official landing judge confirmed the time,
and my 4:59:87 became a zero.
Sure I was upset, but accidents happen.
I certainly don’t have any hard feelings
and made it a goal to nail the remaining
times and move up as much as possible.
Most important, I had a great time. (No,
my timer wasn’t Gordy!)
Airtronics has a great new servo that is
specifically for sailplane use. The 761
weighs .80 ounce. Its dimensions are 1.06
x 0.47 x 1.18. The torque and speed
statistics were unavailable at the time of
this writing, but this is one quick servo.
On 4.8 volts it is fast; with 6.0 volts
attached it is scary.
The lug system allows for simplified
mounting in any configuration. Daryl
Perkins had his Insanity outfitted with
these servos and had to program a slight
delay in the elevator compensation
because of the speed. Daryl also said the
torque is more than adequate for his large
flapped Insanity. That’s all I need to know.
Check out the 761 at www.airtronics.net.
This servo retails for $100, with an
expected street price of $60.
Chris Adams ran the Fall Soaring Festival
after-contest hand-launch event with some
unique tasks. Each flight group mass
launched. At 15 seconds a horn sounded
and required a loop. The first four down
were out. Another round required two
loops. Another had a loop at 15 seconds
and then another at 30 seconds. Heck, I
can remember not too long ago when a
dead-air javelin launch of one minute was
great.
There was also a balsa-glider contest
for anyone who wanted to build the little
kit from M&M Glider Tech. It was
amazing how much time some of these
airplanes managed. If it weren’t for the
wind, I’m sure some of them would have
been lost. This was extremely entertaining
to watch.
My Van’s RV-7 is finished, and I have 21
hours on it now. What a rewarding
experience! My ability to attend contests is
greatly improved. I’ll