3D Masters - 2010/12

I’VE ATTENDED the annual 3D Masters
10 times, and the 2010 edition, held July
23-25, was one of the best organized and
most attended, with the fanciest demos and
the highest caliber of competition.
Jupiter RC Club of Venlo, Netherlands,
was the gracious host. Club Chairman
Walter Robijns, Flightline Director John
Vugts, and 3D Masters founder Jeff
Barringer ran the event like it was a Swiss
tourbillion watch: with precision and flair.
It drizzled on Friday and Sunday, but
Saturday’s weather was perfect, at 75°
with 5 mph winds and clear blue skies.
Fifty-five pilots from 21 countries were
invited or prequalified to participate in the
3D Masters. The accompanying tables
show the winners in the Master and Expert
events. There is also a Flight to Music
category.
The Master division is for the best 3-D
helicopter pilots: the maestros. Expert is for
pilots who will become Masters. The
Expert winner must move up to the Master
class the following year.
However, those who fly in Expert are by
no means second-rate. They are still among
the elite in the world, and they are good.
During three days of intense
competition, each pilot must perform a 3-
minute freestyle routine and a compulsory
flight for which he or she chooses
maneuvers from a collection that the
organizer sets forth. Those maneuvers have
a K-factor (difficulty) rating of 1-3; 1 is
very challenging and 3 is super challenging.
December 2010 47
Inset: Safety is an important part of all
European contests and fun-flys. A 15-
foot-tall net is always required to
separate the audience from the models.
Shown is Colin Bell of Nova Scotia,
Canada, safely performing his 3-minute
Freestyle routine with a Raptor 90 SE.
This event is a great place at which to
watch world’s best 3-D competition and
see the newest products. The Compass
Team demonstrated a new 6HV
electric-power helicopter.
12sig2.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 10/21/10 10:43 AM Page 47
When the judging was completed, Nick Maxwell of the US
emerged as the Master-class victor. Gael Lamirand of France won
in Expert. Kyle Dahl, another US pilot, took first place in the Best
Flight to Music category.
As the results show, the US still leads the world in 3-D flying,
which was pioneered in the US. But the Europeans and Israelis are
not far behind. The Mikado Team of Germany won the trophy for
best team.
Winning at the 3D Masters requires mostly pilot skill, because
today’s helicopters and equipment are excellent; otherwise, they
would not survive the capitalistic free-marketing competition. A
true master can fly almost any proven model or use any brand of
radio and go on to win, as long as he or she has enough practice
time.
Where the helicopter and equipment can help is in reliability. As
in Formula One and NASCAR racing, the equipment must survive
the grueling torture; if it fails, the competition is over. (See Nick
Maxwell’s results from the 2010 Extreme Flight Championships.)
Driver skill is important in car racing, but a well-tuned, flawless
design can provide that extra edge. To get the mechanics ready
requires a tremendous amount of prerace prepping and tuning.
I want to zero in on the interesting advancements in 3-D
helicopters and peripheral equipment that permitted the Masters
pilots to do their jobs. A clear trend is that electric-powered and
flybarless designs have matured.
Electric machines can effortlessly fly an aggressive 3-minute
routine. With fresh batteries, these models can accelerate faster
than nitro-powered helicopters can. I think that electric helicopter
technology will continue to improve in the next few years.
Modern flybarless helicopters can have an edge over traditional
flybar-equipped machines for 3-D flying, because the electronic
“black box” stability augmentation system (SAS) used in flybarless
versions are smart. They can make a helicopter more stable—and
more agile—than a model with a flybar. That seems like a dream!
One other distinct advantage of electronic stabilization is that it
provides an almost true rate-command system for cyclic control,
regardless of rotor speed. “Rate command” means that the aircraft
roll rate is proportional to control-stick displacement.
50 MODEL AVIATION
Gaui, a progressive RC helicopter
manufacturer from Taiwan, introduced
the X330 quad-rotor ARF. It makes an
excellent observation platform.
Right: Rudiger Feil, a German distributor
for Hirobo helicopters, converted his SDX
50 to electric. Notice that he added a metal
plate at the fan shroud and battery tray to
the lower frame.
The five judges—who sat through three days and 200 competition flights—are world-class pilots
themselves, including previous 3D Masters winner and F3C World Champion Curtis Youngblood.
You can vary the rotor rpm between
1,200 and 2,000, and your flybarless
helicopter with an SAS will maintain that
same fast roll rate, or tumble rate. The
“black box” simply puts in the necessary
blade-pitch change to achieve the
commanded roll rate. A flybar-equipped
helicopter depends on high rotor speed to
achieve crisp cyclic response.
The days of flybarless electronics has
finally arrived, and this technology will
only get better and less expensive. I believe
that it will revolutionize RC helicopters the
way the heading-lock gyro did when it was
introduced in 1997.
Nick Maxwell was flying a machine that
was new to the market: the flybarless Next-
D Rave ENV. It is available from CJ
Youngblood Enterprises (CYE), which
sponsors Nick.
The “ENV” stands for “Electric Nitro
Variant.” This model is available in four
variations: electric powered, nitro powered,
with a flybar, and without a flybar. The nitro
version uses a .90-size engine.
The Rave ENV sells for $799, regardless
of which version you select. I have a hunch
that the nitro-powered, flybar-equipped
version is the best bargain, because it should
have the most parts in the kit. The electric
flybarless ENV should have the fewest parts.
Nick powered his ENV with a
1915/1.5Y 450 Kv brushless power plant
from NeuMotors. According to CYE, the
best pinion for this motor and Kv value is
a 16T that needs to fit a 6mm motor shaft.
(Motor pinions are not currently included
in the ENV kit.)
12sig2.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 10/21/10 10:47 AM Page 50
December 2010 51
Lukas Riva of Lucarno, Switzerland—the 2008 3D Masters Champion—returns from the 3-minute
routine that he performed with a T-Rex 700 Nitro Pro flybarless.
French distributor Outrage displays the Velocity 50. This event features more than 20
tents to shop at and browse through; it’s a mecca for helicopter enthusiasts.
Colin Bell plays with the Raptor 90. This
metal tail rotor gearbox is now an
available option for the model.
To control more than 1,500 watts of
motor power, Nick uses a 160-amp Ice ESC
from Castle Creations. The Ice series is a
new design for modern, high-performance,
large electric models.
Castle Creations used to manufacture
the high-voltage, high-current HV series,
but the company learned that electric
aircraft are getting bigger and pilots are
demanding more rigorous performance.
Hence it developed the Ice series.
For juice Nick used two Thunder Power
6S 45C 5000 mAh Li-Poly batteries
connected in series. Twelve cells in series
provides roughly 48 volts. Nick equipped
his ENV with Radix blades from CYE.
Approximately one-third of this year’s
3D Masters pilots flew electric helicopters,
the most popular of which was the Mikado
Logo 600. It has the physical size of a 50-
class nitro machine but typically runs rotor
blades that are 600mm in length. Nick’s
ENV can run 690-710 mm main blades.
The other popular model is the electric
version of the T-Rex 700, which is a
modified 90-size helicopter. It also uses
690-710 mm main blades.
The Logo 600 is extremely popular
among Europeans because it is made in
Germany and was designed from the
ground up to be electric only; it has an
excellent power-to-weight ratio. It can be
powered by eight- to 10-cell Li-Poly battery
packs.
All Logo 600s are now flybarless,
because Mikado has been promoting the
use of its V-Bar electronic SAS for five
years. The V-Bar “black box” is not cheap;
it costs more than $500. That is an added
expense when outfitting a new model.
Part of the reason why a Logo 600 flies
so quickly and accelerates like a rabbit on
steroids is that eliminating the flybar
reduces aerodynamic drag and makes the
model a few ounces lighter. Doing away
12sig2.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 10/21/10 10:47 AM Page 51
with the flybar can reduce drag and
required power by at least 10%.
When throttle/collective is punched
with an electric helicopter, the motor
accelerates almost instantaneously to full
power. With a two-stroke combustion
engine, there is a slight delay. This is why
an electric-powered model can often beat
a nitro-powered model in a drag race.
The Tesla electric-powered sports car
that is made in California can accelerate
from 0 to 60 mph in 4 seconds. I sat in one
of those and was impressed, but the Tesla
can travel only 140 miles before its Li-ion
battery requires recharging.
Nitro-powered models did not give up
the fight easily at the 3D Masters, though.
Most competitors flew engine-powered
helicopters, and those models employed
flybars.
For stage presence it is hard to beat a
90-size helicopter roaring like a lion. At
the same time it is finely tuned and sounds
like a Ferrari, and it trails a steady plume
of smoke during aerobatics. I love flying
nitro engine-powered helicopters, but I
enjoy the benefits of convenience and no
cleaning with electric power.
Gael Lamirand flew a prototype
Outrage Velocity 90 powered by an O.S.
91HZ-R. That was the most popular
engine at the 3D Masters.
The 91HZ-R is the latest generation of
high-performance power plant designs.
The “R” is for its regulator-controlled
fuel-delivery system.
The carburetor has a regulator that
precisely meters fuel feed. In principle it
works the way the previous generation of
the Kline regulator did. The unit on the
engine is massive and stores fuel like a
tiny header tank.
The other popular engines at this
contest were the O.S. 55HZ and the YS 91
SR RR. Twenty-year-old Dominik
Haegele of Germany, the 2009 3D
Masters Champion, employed a special
YS 91 SR RR engine that Rudiger Feil
blueprinted.
Rudiger, a five-time European F3C
Champion, is now the distributor for
Hirobo helicopters and YS engines in
Germany. I talked with him at the contest.
He said that even though the YS 91 is
an excellent engine, he strips it apart
during the blueprinting process. He refits
the bearings, cleans up the edges, and
introduces a secret modification to make
the 91 run even smoother, with more
power.
Rudiger sells a complete blueprinted
new YS 91 SR RR for approximately 400
Euros, or roughly $550 in the US. You
can order one directly from him via the
Internet.
A new program was added to the 3D
Masters last year: Synchro 3-D flying. A
team of two pilots flies together, as in
Olympics paired figure skating or
synchronized swimming.
Sometimes the helicopters do
maneuvers in parallel, and sometimes they
do different moves that complement each
other. This is harder than it looks; if you
are not sitting inside the cockpit, it is
difficult to judge distance between your
model and your partner’s.
The Synchro class is still in the
embryonic stage, and the two models
rarely do the same maneuvers precisely
the same. Even when they are doing
complementary moves, they do not match
in regards to timing.
In this year’s contest, when pilots
started maneuvers far apart it was difficult
for the audience to look at both machines
at the same time. This event will take a
few years to mature.
On the other hand, night-flying has
matured. More than 20 pilots entered the
competition on Saturday, and
approximately 1,000 people were in
attendance. These fliers performed the
same challenging 3-D moves at night as
they did in the daytime.
Ten year-old Alon Barak of Israel and
Petr Novotny of the Czech Republic tied
for first place in the nighttime contest.
Alon even performed a “blade stop” with
his Thunder Tiger Raptor 90 SE during an
autorotation, starting from 500 feet high.
If you want to become a “master,” your
best bet is to practice, practice, and
practice again. In talking with the top
pilots, I learned that they use computer
simulators quite a bit. They say that it’s
quite realistic for practicing closequarters,
smackdown-type 3-D flight.
A month before competition, even
young pilots such as Alon Barak were
burning 20 gallons of fuel in practice
sessions. The participants also recommend
attending fun-flys and contests to watch
and talk to other fliers.
Another source of inspiration is highquality
videos and DVDs featuring top
pilots. SKS Video Productions sells
excellent coverage of the annual Futaba
Extreme Flight Championships.
The top pilots come home from flying
each day and spend hours cleaning and
inspecting their machines, to prepare them
for the next day.
The 3D Masters has become an
equivalent to the IRCHA (International
Radio Controlled Helicopter Association)
Jamboree for international 3-D
competition. If you love this type of flying
as much as I do, don’t miss the 2011 3D
Masters. It has been held in Europe each
year and usually takes place close to the
second weekend in July. MA
James Wang
[email protected]
Sources:
3D Masters
www.3dmasters.org.uk

I’VE ATTENDED the annual 3D Masters
10 times, and the 2010 edition, held July
23-25, was one of the best organized and
most attended, with the fanciest demos and
the highest caliber of competition.
Jupiter RC Club of Venlo, Netherlands,
was the gracious host. Club Chairman
Walter Robijns, Flightline Director John
Vugts, and 3D Masters founder Jeff
Barringer ran the event like it was a Swiss
tourbillion watch: with precision and flair.
It drizzled on Friday and Sunday, but
Saturday’s weather was perfect, at 75°
with 5 mph winds and clear blue skies.
Fifty-five pilots from 21 countries were
invited or prequalified to participate in the
3D Masters. The accompanying tables
show the winners in the Master and Expert
events. There is also a Flight to Music
category.
The Master division is for the best 3-D
helicopter pilots: the maestros. Expert is for
pilots who will become Masters. The
Expert winner must move up to the Master
class the following year.
However, those who fly in Expert are by
no means second-rate. They are still among
the elite in the world, and they are good.
During three days of intense
competition, each pilot must perform a 3-
minute freestyle routine and a compulsory
flight for which he or she chooses
maneuvers from a collection that the
organizer sets forth. Those maneuvers have
a K-factor (difficulty) rating of 1-3; 1 is
very challenging and 3 is super challenging.
December 2010 47
Inset: Safety is an important part of all
European contests and fun-flys. A 15-
foot-tall net is always required to
separate the audience from the models.
Shown is Colin Bell of Nova Scotia,
Canada, safely performing his 3-minute
Freestyle routine with a Raptor 90 SE.
This event is a great place at which to
watch world’s best 3-D competition and
see the newest products. The Compass
Team demonstrated a new 6HV
electric-power helicopter.
12sig2.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 10/21/10 10:43 AM Page 47
When the judging was completed, Nick Maxwell of the US
emerged as the Master-class victor. Gael Lamirand of France won
in Expert. Kyle Dahl, another US pilot, took first place in the Best
Flight to Music category.
As the results show, the US still leads the world in 3-D flying,
which was pioneered in the US. But the Europeans and Israelis are
not far behind. The Mikado Team of Germany won the trophy for
best team.
Winning at the 3D Masters requires mostly pilot skill, because
today’s helicopters and equipment are excellent; otherwise, they
would not survive the capitalistic free-marketing competition. A
true master can fly almost any proven model or use any brand of
radio and go on to win, as long as he or she has enough practice
time.
Where the helicopter and equipment can help is in reliability. As
in Formula One and NASCAR racing, the equipment must survive
the grueling torture; if it fails, the competition is over. (See Nick
Maxwell’s results from the 2010 Extreme Flight Championships.)
Driver skill is important in car racing, but a well-tuned, flawless
design can provide that extra edge. To get the mechanics ready
requires a tremendous amount of prerace prepping and tuning.
I want to zero in on the interesting advancements in 3-D
helicopters and peripheral equipment that permitted the Masters
pilots to do their jobs. A clear trend is that electric-powered and
flybarless designs have matured.
Electric machines can effortlessly fly an aggressive 3-minute
routine. With fresh batteries, these models can accelerate faster
than nitro-powered helicopters can. I think that electric helicopter
technology will continue to improve in the next few years.
Modern flybarless helicopters can have an edge over traditional
flybar-equipped machines for 3-D flying, because the electronic
“black box” stability augmentation system (SAS) used in flybarless
versions are smart. They can make a helicopter more stable—and
more agile—than a model with a flybar. That seems like a dream!
One other distinct advantage of electronic stabilization is that it
provides an almost true rate-command system for cyclic control,
regardless of rotor speed. “Rate command” means that the aircraft
roll rate is proportional to control-stick displacement.
50 MODEL AVIATION
Gaui, a progressive RC helicopter
manufacturer from Taiwan, introduced
the X330 quad-rotor ARF. It makes an
excellent observation platform.
Right: Rudiger Feil, a German distributor
for Hirobo helicopters, converted his SDX
50 to electric. Notice that he added a metal
plate at the fan shroud and battery tray to
the lower frame.
The five judges—who sat through three days and 200 competition flights—are world-class pilots
themselves, including previous 3D Masters winner and F3C World Champion Curtis Youngblood.
You can vary the rotor rpm between
1,200 and 2,000, and your flybarless
helicopter with an SAS will maintain that
same fast roll rate, or tumble rate. The
“black box” simply puts in the necessary
blade-pitch change to achieve the
commanded roll rate. A flybar-equipped
helicopter depends on high rotor speed to
achieve crisp cyclic response.
The days of flybarless electronics has
finally arrived, and this technology will
only get better and less expensive. I believe
that it will revolutionize RC helicopters the
way the heading-lock gyro did when it was
introduced in 1997.
Nick Maxwell was flying a machine that
was new to the market: the flybarless Next-
D Rave ENV. It is available from CJ
Youngblood Enterprises (CYE), which
sponsors Nick.
The “ENV” stands for “Electric Nitro
Variant.” This model is available in four
variations: electric powered, nitro powered,
with a flybar, and without a flybar. The nitro
version uses a .90-size engine.
The Rave ENV sells for $799, regardless
of which version you select. I have a hunch
that the nitro-powered, flybar-equipped
version is the best bargain, because it should
have the most parts in the kit. The electric
flybarless ENV should have the fewest parts.
Nick powered his ENV with a
1915/1.5Y 450 Kv brushless power plant
from NeuMotors. According to CYE, the
best pinion for this motor and Kv value is
a 16T that needs to fit a 6mm motor shaft.
(Motor pinions are not currently included
in the ENV kit.)
12sig2.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 10/21/10 10:47 AM Page 50
December 2010 51
Lukas Riva of Lucarno, Switzerland—the 2008 3D Masters Champion—returns from the 3-minute
routine that he performed with a T-Rex 700 Nitro Pro flybarless.
French distributor Outrage displays the Velocity 50. This event features more than 20
tents to shop at and browse through; it’s a mecca for helicopter enthusiasts.
Colin Bell plays with the Raptor 90. This
metal tail rotor gearbox is now an
available option for the model.
To control more than 1,500 watts of
motor power, Nick uses a 160-amp Ice ESC
from Castle Creations. The Ice series is a
new design for modern, high-performance,
large electric models.
Castle Creations used to manufacture
the high-voltage, high-current HV series,
but the company learned that electric
aircraft are getting bigger and pilots are
demanding more rigorous performance.
Hence it developed the Ice series.
For juice Nick used two Thunder Power
6S 45C 5000 mAh Li-Poly batteries
connected in series. Twelve cells in series
provides roughly 48 volts. Nick equipped
his ENV with Radix blades from CYE.
Approximately one-third of this year’s
3D Masters pilots flew electric helicopters,
the most popular of which was the Mikado
Logo 600. It has the physical size of a 50-
class nitro machine but typically runs rotor
blades that are 600mm in length. Nick’s
ENV can run 690-710 mm main blades.
The other popular model is the electric
version of the T-Rex 700, which is a
modified 90-size helicopter. It also uses
690-710 mm main blades.
The Logo 600 is extremely popular
among Europeans because it is made in
Germany and was designed from the
ground up to be electric only; it has an
excellent power-to-weight ratio. It can be
powered by eight- to 10-cell Li-Poly battery
packs.
All Logo 600s are now flybarless,
because Mikado has been promoting the
use of its V-Bar electronic SAS for five
years. The V-Bar “black box” is not cheap;
it costs more than $500. That is an added
expense when outfitting a new model.
Part of the reason why a Logo 600 flies
so quickly and accelerates like a rabbit on
steroids is that eliminating the flybar
reduces aerodynamic drag and makes the
model a few ounces lighter. Doing away
12sig2.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 10/21/10 10:47 AM Page 51
with the flybar can reduce drag and
required power by at least 10%.
When throttle/collective is punched
with an electric helicopter, the motor
accelerates almost instantaneously to full
power. With a two-stroke combustion
engine, there is a slight delay. This is why
an electric-powered model can often beat
a nitro-powered model in a drag race.
The Tesla electric-powered sports car
that is made in California can accelerate
from 0 to 60 mph in 4 seconds. I sat in one
of those and was impressed, but the Tesla
can travel only 140 miles before its Li-ion
battery requires recharging.
Nitro-powered models did not give up
the fight easily at the 3D Masters, though.
Most competitors flew engine-powered
helicopters, and those models employed
flybars.
For stage presence it is hard to beat a
90-size helicopter roaring like a lion. At
the same time it is finely tuned and sounds
like a Ferrari, and it trails a steady plume
of smoke during aerobatics. I love flying
nitro engine-powered helicopters, but I
enjoy the benefits of convenience and no
cleaning with electric power.
Gael Lamirand flew a prototype
Outrage Velocity 90 powered by an O.S.
91HZ-R. That was the most popular
engine at the 3D Masters.
The 91HZ-R is the latest generation of
high-performance power plant designs.
The “R” is for its regulator-controlled
fuel-delivery system.
The carburetor has a regulator that
precisely meters fuel feed. In principle it
works the way the previous generation of
the Kline regulator did. The unit on the
engine is massive and stores fuel like a
tiny header tank.
The other popular engines at this
contest were the O.S. 55HZ and the YS 91
SR RR. Twenty-year-old Dominik
Haegele of Germany, the 2009 3D
Masters Champion, employed a special
YS 91 SR RR engine that Rudiger Feil
blueprinted.
Rudiger, a five-time European F3C
Champion, is now the distributor for
Hirobo helicopters and YS engines in
Germany. I talked with him at the contest.
He said that even though the YS 91 is
an excellent engine, he strips it apart
during the blueprinting process. He refits
the bearings, cleans up the edges, and
introduces a secret modification to make
the 91 run even smoother, with more
power.
Rudiger sells a complete blueprinted
new YS 91 SR RR for approximately 400
Euros, or roughly $550 in the US. You
can order one directly from him via the
Internet.
A new program was added to the 3D
Masters last year: Synchro 3-D flying. A
team of two pilots flies together, as in
Olympics paired figure skating or
synchronized swimming.
Sometimes the helicopters do
maneuvers in parallel, and sometimes they
do different moves that complement each
other. This is harder than it looks; if you
are not sitting inside the cockpit, it is
difficult to judge distance between your
model and your partner’s.
The Synchro class is still in the
embryonic stage, and the two models
rarely do the same maneuvers precisely
the same. Even when they are doing
complementary moves, they do not match
in regards to timing.
In this year’s contest, when pilots
started maneuvers far apart it was difficult
for the audience to look at both machines
at the same time. This event will take a
few years to mature.
On the other hand, night-flying has
matured. More than 20 pilots entered the
competition on Saturday, and
approximately 1,000 people were in
attendance. These fliers performed the
same challenging 3-D moves at night as
they did in the daytime.
Ten year-old Alon Barak of Israel and
Petr Novotny of the Czech Republic tied
for first place in the nighttime contest.
Alon even performed a “blade stop” with
his Thunder Tiger Raptor 90 SE during an
autorotation, starting from 500 feet high.
If you want to become a “master,” your
best bet is to practice, practice, and
practice again. In talking with the top
pilots, I learned that they use computer
simulators quite a bit. They say that it’s
quite realistic for practicing closequarters,
smackdown-type 3-D flight.
A month before competition, even
young pilots such as Alon Barak were
burning 20 gallons of fuel in practice
sessions. The participants also recommend
attending fun-flys and contests to watch
and talk to other fliers.
Another source of inspiration is highquality
videos and DVDs featuring top
pilots. SKS Video Productions sells
excellent coverage of the annual Futaba
Extreme Flight Championships.
The top pilots come home from flying
each day and spend hours cleaning and
inspecting their machines, to prepare them
for the next day.
The 3D Masters has become an
equivalent to the IRCHA (International
Radio Controlled Helicopter Association)
Jamboree for international 3-D
competition. If you love this type of flying
as much as I do, don’t miss the 2011 3D
Masters. It has been held in Europe each
year and usually takes place close to the
second weekend in July. MA
James Wang
[email protected]
Sources:
3D Masters
www.3dmasters.org.uk

I’VE ATTENDED the annual 3D Masters
10 times, and the 2010 edition, held July
23-25, was one of the best organized and
most attended, with the fanciest demos and
the highest caliber of competition.
Jupiter RC Club of Venlo, Netherlands,
was the gracious host. Club Chairman
Walter Robijns, Flightline Director John
Vugts, and 3D Masters founder Jeff
Barringer ran the event like it was a Swiss
tourbillion watch: with precision and flair.
It drizzled on Friday and Sunday, but
Saturday’s weather was perfect, at 75°
with 5 mph winds and clear blue skies.
Fifty-five pilots from 21 countries were
invited or prequalified to participate in the
3D Masters. The accompanying tables
show the winners in the Master and Expert
events. There is also a Flight to Music
category.
The Master division is for the best 3-D
helicopter pilots: the maestros. Expert is for
pilots who will become Masters. The
Expert winner must move up to the Master
class the following year.
However, those who fly in Expert are by
no means second-rate. They are still among
the elite in the world, and they are good.
During three days of intense
competition, each pilot must perform a 3-
minute freestyle routine and a compulsory
flight for which he or she chooses
maneuvers from a collection that the
organizer sets forth. Those maneuvers have
a K-factor (difficulty) rating of 1-3; 1 is
very challenging and 3 is super challenging.
December 2010 47
Inset: Safety is an important part of all
European contests and fun-flys. A 15-
foot-tall net is always required to
separate the audience from the models.
Shown is Colin Bell of Nova Scotia,
Canada, safely performing his 3-minute
Freestyle routine with a Raptor 90 SE.
This event is a great place at which to
watch world’s best 3-D competition and
see the newest products. The Compass
Team demonstrated a new 6HV
electric-power helicopter.
12sig2.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 10/21/10 10:43 AM Page 47
When the judging was completed, Nick Maxwell of the US
emerged as the Master-class victor. Gael Lamirand of France won
in Expert. Kyle Dahl, another US pilot, took first place in the Best
Flight to Music category.
As the results show, the US still leads the world in 3-D flying,
which was pioneered in the US. But the Europeans and Israelis are
not far behind. The Mikado Team of Germany won the trophy for
best team.
Winning at the 3D Masters requires mostly pilot skill, because
today’s helicopters and equipment are excellent; otherwise, they
would not survive the capitalistic free-marketing competition. A
true master can fly almost any proven model or use any brand of
radio and go on to win, as long as he or she has enough practice
time.
Where the helicopter and equipment can help is in reliability. As
in Formula One and NASCAR racing, the equipment must survive
the grueling torture; if it fails, the competition is over. (See Nick
Maxwell’s results from the 2010 Extreme Flight Championships.)
Driver skill is important in car racing, but a well-tuned, flawless
design can provide that extra edge. To get the mechanics ready
requires a tremendous amount of prerace prepping and tuning.
I want to zero in on the interesting advancements in 3-D
helicopters and peripheral equipment that permitted the Masters
pilots to do their jobs. A clear trend is that electric-powered and
flybarless designs have matured.
Electric machines can effortlessly fly an aggressive 3-minute
routine. With fresh batteries, these models can accelerate faster
than nitro-powered helicopters can. I think that electric helicopter
technology will continue to improve in the next few years.
Modern flybarless helicopters can have an edge over traditional
flybar-equipped machines for 3-D flying, because the electronic
“black box” stability augmentation system (SAS) used in flybarless
versions are smart. They can make a helicopter more stable—and
more agile—than a model with a flybar. That seems like a dream!
One other distinct advantage of electronic stabilization is that it
provides an almost true rate-command system for cyclic control,
regardless of rotor speed. “Rate command” means that the aircraft
roll rate is proportional to control-stick displacement.
50 MODEL AVIATION
Gaui, a progressive RC helicopter
manufacturer from Taiwan, introduced
the X330 quad-rotor ARF. It makes an
excellent observation platform.
Right: Rudiger Feil, a German distributor
for Hirobo helicopters, converted his SDX
50 to electric. Notice that he added a metal
plate at the fan shroud and battery tray to
the lower frame.
The five judges—who sat through three days and 200 competition flights—are world-class pilots
themselves, including previous 3D Masters winner and F3C World Champion Curtis Youngblood.
You can vary the rotor rpm between
1,200 and 2,000, and your flybarless
helicopter with an SAS will maintain that
same fast roll rate, or tumble rate. The
“black box” simply puts in the necessary
blade-pitch change to achieve the
commanded roll rate. A flybar-equipped
helicopter depends on high rotor speed to
achieve crisp cyclic response.
The days of flybarless electronics has
finally arrived, and this technology will
only get better and less expensive. I believe
that it will revolutionize RC helicopters the
way the heading-lock gyro did when it was
introduced in 1997.
Nick Maxwell was flying a machine that
was new to the market: the flybarless Next-
D Rave ENV. It is available from CJ
Youngblood Enterprises (CYE), which
sponsors Nick.
The “ENV” stands for “Electric Nitro
Variant.” This model is available in four
variations: electric powered, nitro powered,
with a flybar, and without a flybar. The nitro
version uses a .90-size engine.
The Rave ENV sells for $799, regardless
of which version you select. I have a hunch
that the nitro-powered, flybar-equipped
version is the best bargain, because it should
have the most parts in the kit. The electric
flybarless ENV should have the fewest parts.
Nick powered his ENV with a
1915/1.5Y 450 Kv brushless power plant
from NeuMotors. According to CYE, the
best pinion for this motor and Kv value is
a 16T that needs to fit a 6mm motor shaft.
(Motor pinions are not currently included
in the ENV kit.)
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December 2010 51
Lukas Riva of Lucarno, Switzerland—the 2008 3D Masters Champion—returns from the 3-minute
routine that he performed with a T-Rex 700 Nitro Pro flybarless.
French distributor Outrage displays the Velocity 50. This event features more than 20
tents to shop at and browse through; it’s a mecca for helicopter enthusiasts.
Colin Bell plays with the Raptor 90. This
metal tail rotor gearbox is now an
available option for the model.
To control more than 1,500 watts of
motor power, Nick uses a 160-amp Ice ESC
from Castle Creations. The Ice series is a
new design for modern, high-performance,
large electric models.
Castle Creations used to manufacture
the high-voltage, high-current HV series,
but the company learned that electric
aircraft are getting bigger and pilots are
demanding more rigorous performance.
Hence it developed the Ice series.
For juice Nick used two Thunder Power
6S 45C 5000 mAh Li-Poly batteries
connected in series. Twelve cells in series
provides roughly 48 volts. Nick equipped
his ENV with Radix blades from CYE.
Approximately one-third of this year’s
3D Masters pilots flew electric helicopters,
the most popular of which was the Mikado
Logo 600. It has the physical size of a 50-
class nitro machine but typically runs rotor
blades that are 600mm in length. Nick’s
ENV can run 690-710 mm main blades.
The other popular model is the electric
version of the T-Rex 700, which is a
modified 90-size helicopter. It also uses
690-710 mm main blades.
The Logo 600 is extremely popular
among Europeans because it is made in
Germany and was designed from the
ground up to be electric only; it has an
excellent power-to-weight ratio. It can be
powered by eight- to 10-cell Li-Poly battery
packs.
All Logo 600s are now flybarless,
because Mikado has been promoting the
use of its V-Bar electronic SAS for five
years. The V-Bar “black box” is not cheap;
it costs more than $500. That is an added
expense when outfitting a new model.
Part of the reason why a Logo 600 flies
so quickly and accelerates like a rabbit on
steroids is that eliminating the flybar
reduces aerodynamic drag and makes the
model a few ounces lighter. Doing away
12sig2.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 10/21/10 10:47 AM Page 51
with the flybar can reduce drag and
required power by at least 10%.
When throttle/collective is punched
with an electric helicopter, the motor
accelerates almost instantaneously to full
power. With a two-stroke combustion
engine, there is a slight delay. This is why
an electric-powered model can often beat
a nitro-powered model in a drag race.
The Tesla electric-powered sports car
that is made in California can accelerate
from 0 to 60 mph in 4 seconds. I sat in one
of those and was impressed, but the Tesla
can travel only 140 miles before its Li-ion
battery requires recharging.
Nitro-powered models did not give up
the fight easily at the 3D Masters, though.
Most competitors flew engine-powered
helicopters, and those models employed
flybars.
For stage presence it is hard to beat a
90-size helicopter roaring like a lion. At
the same time it is finely tuned and sounds
like a Ferrari, and it trails a steady plume
of smoke during aerobatics. I love flying
nitro engine-powered helicopters, but I
enjoy the benefits of convenience and no
cleaning with electric power.
Gael Lamirand flew a prototype
Outrage Velocity 90 powered by an O.S.
91HZ-R. That was the most popular
engine at the 3D Masters.
The 91HZ-R is the latest generation of
high-performance power plant designs.
The “R” is for its regulator-controlled
fuel-delivery system.
The carburetor has a regulator that
precisely meters fuel feed. In principle it
works the way the previous generation of
the Kline regulator did. The unit on the
engine is massive and stores fuel like a
tiny header tank.
The other popular engines at this
contest were the O.S. 55HZ and the YS 91
SR RR. Twenty-year-old Dominik
Haegele of Germany, the 2009 3D
Masters Champion, employed a special
YS 91 SR RR engine that Rudiger Feil
blueprinted.
Rudiger, a five-time European F3C
Champion, is now the distributor for
Hirobo helicopters and YS engines in
Germany. I talked with him at the contest.
He said that even though the YS 91 is
an excellent engine, he strips it apart
during the blueprinting process. He refits
the bearings, cleans up the edges, and
introduces a secret modification to make
the 91 run even smoother, with more
power.
Rudiger sells a complete blueprinted
new YS 91 SR RR for approximately 400
Euros, or roughly $550 in the US. You
can order one directly from him via the
Internet.
A new program was added to the 3D
Masters last year: Synchro 3-D flying. A
team of two pilots flies together, as in
Olympics paired figure skating or
synchronized swimming.
Sometimes the helicopters do
maneuvers in parallel, and sometimes they
do different moves that complement each
other. This is harder than it looks; if you
are not sitting inside the cockpit, it is
difficult to judge distance between your
model and your partner’s.
The Synchro class is still in the
embryonic stage, and the two models
rarely do the same maneuvers precisely
the same. Even when they are doing
complementary moves, they do not match
in regards to timing.
In this year’s contest, when pilots
started maneuvers far apart it was difficult
for the audience to look at both machines
at the same time. This event will take a
few years to mature.
On the other hand, night-flying has
matured. More than 20 pilots entered the
competition on Saturday, and
approximately 1,000 people were in
attendance. These fliers performed the
same challenging 3-D moves at night as
they did in the daytime.
Ten year-old Alon Barak of Israel and
Petr Novotny of the Czech Republic tied
for first place in the nighttime contest.
Alon even performed a “blade stop” with
his Thunder Tiger Raptor 90 SE during an
autorotation, starting from 500 feet high.
If you want to become a “master,” your
best bet is to practice, practice, and
practice again. In talking with the top
pilots, I learned that they use computer
simulators quite a bit. They say that it’s
quite realistic for practicing closequarters,
smackdown-type 3-D flight.
A month before competition, even
young pilots such as Alon Barak were
burning 20 gallons of fuel in practice
sessions. The participants also recommend
attending fun-flys and contests to watch
and talk to other fliers.
Another source of inspiration is highquality
videos and DVDs featuring top
pilots. SKS Video Productions sells
excellent coverage of the annual Futaba
Extreme Flight Championships.
The top pilots come home from flying
each day and spend hours cleaning and
inspecting their machines, to prepare them
for the next day.
The 3D Masters has become an
equivalent to the IRCHA (International
Radio Controlled Helicopter Association)
Jamboree for international 3-D
competition. If you love this type of flying
as much as I do, don’t miss the 2011 3D
Masters. It has been held in Europe each
year and usually takes place close to the
second weekend in July. MA
James Wang
[email protected]
Sources:
3D Masters
www.3dmasters.org.uk