In the Air — 2007/12
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MA — Rob Kurek, Director of Publications
National Competition Fun Fly Association Championship
The National Competition Fun Fly Association (NCFFA) took its championship west of the Mississippi for the first time this year and got a great taste of Southwest hospitality in New Mexico.
The event consisted of two great, busy days of flying at the Albuquerque Radio Control Club’s flying field. The George Maloof Air Park has been in constant use for more than 50 years and has recently been designated an AMA Historic Flying Site.
The NCFFA promotes friendly competition with a variety of tasks. Many of the organization’s pilots have been getting together annually since the late 1980s.
This year two skill levels were offered: Masters and Sportsman. Each skill level competed in two types of flying: Unlimited and Fun Fly.
The Unlimited classes feature timed tasks and some wild flying. The Fun Fly classes typically feature mission tasks and some limitations on the airframe. The thrill of seeing top pilots compete and the ability to compete at a tamer level brought out 31 pilots and many spectators.
Most NCFFA members are used to flying on grass, which is in short supply in Albuquerque. Since pavement is extremely hard there, a 100 x 100-foot carpet area was provided for the Masters Unlimited models. The rest of the classes flew on the freshly paved runway.
The “fun” in Competition Fun Fly is the camaraderie among the competitors. Airplanes were wrecked several times during the event, and pilots offered glue, parts, or even to share their own airplanes so everyone would have fun.
Although it was exciting to watch the Masters models land on tabletops and seemingly defy gravity, it was even more gratifying to see so many Sportsman entries having such a great time. With two active flightlines during most events, more than 400 flights were logged in two days.
Jim Rice commented that the CD, Chuck Andraka, kept everyone moving through the schedule, but he did it in such a way that they enjoyed it. One Easterner said he had never flown so much at a fun-fly.
A giant barbecue that was catered Saturday night was prepared by Wanda Johnston, wife of assistant CD Mark Johnston. This is where the attendees vowed to get together next year.
To see the official scores from this event, go to www.ncffafly.org.
MA — Chuck Andraka, District VIII
Flights of Fancy — Community Flight Training
The second annual Flights of Fancy community flight-training event was held Saturday, September 1, in conjunction with other Kingsland Aqua Boom festivities. The Highland Lakes Flyers club (HLF) hosted the flying at its field in Kingsland, Texas.
More than 20 student pilots flew RC model aircraft with instructors' help. Each student was eligible to win one of three RTFs. The lucky winners were:
- Robert Gibbs of Austin (first)
- Kyle Pearce of Kingsland (second)
- Austin Pegues of Kingsland (third)
The Flights of Fancy event was a great success; hundreds of spectators cheered on their friends' and family members' first attempts at RC flight. Spectators also watched in amazement as club members performed daring flight exhibitions and parachute drops.
The HLF field is located on property that was formerly the Llano County landfill. Through a cooperative effort between HLF members and Llano County officials, the site was reclaimed and renovated for use as a model-aircraft flying facility. The club has invested roughly $10,000 in improvements to the site, which now ranks as one of the premier flying fields in that part of the state.
The HLF also participates in the Llano County Crawfish Festival and a bimonthly county-road cleanup project, in addition to sponsoring a float-fly contest and a swap meet. This fall the club will be working with Packsaddle Elementary School on a model-airplane project day for the students.
MA — Mike McDougall, District VIII
Electric Flight Goes Full Scale
Unveiled at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2007, Sonex Aircraft, LLC and AeroConversions Products announced the E-Flight Initiative, pioneering alternative energy research and development for sport aircraft. The announcement included a proof-of-concept prototype electric power plant installed in a Waiex airframe.
In 2006 Sonex's research-and-development team began work on what is now called the E-Flight Initiative. It is a push to explore viable alternative energies for powering sport aircraft and to improve the efficiency and performance of current products and technologies.
Conceptualization of an electric power-plant project predates the 1997 founding of Sonex Aircraft. In 1994 John Monnett and Pete Buck devised the concept to design, build, and fly a small electric-powered, manned aircraft capable of a short-duration flight and to set or establish speed records for this new class of aircraft.
E-Flight's proof-of-concept prototype will use the flight-proven Waiex airframe, flown single-pilot only, so the emphasis can be placed solely on power-plant research and development. Initial top speeds are expected to reach approximately 130 mph, and endurance is expected to be 25–45 minutes or longer, depending on power usage during each flight.
The current state and growing popularity of electric-powered RC model aircraft leads the layman to assume that this type of electric-powered aircraft is simply a matter of hooking a bigger battery to a bigger motor, charging it in an hour or two, and taking off. That is essentially true in principle, but scaling up these technologies in a viable manner presents significant challenges.
Brushless DC cobalt motor technology has advanced significantly since 1994’s Flash Flight study, allowing the design team to consider its use. However, a suitable brushless DC cobalt motor with the required power output and an acceptable size and weight did not exist and could not be sourced from a third-party vendor without incurring unacceptable costs.
As a result, the design team, in collaboration with Bob Boucher of AstroFlight, Inc., designed and built a new AeroConversions motor. It is the most powerful, lightest-weight, and efficient unit of this type ever produced.
The prototype AeroConversions motor is slightly larger than a 3.5-ounce coffee can and weighs approximately 50 pounds. It is a scalable unit; its core design has modular sections that can be reduced to make a lower-output, smaller motor (shortened in length) or added to make a larger motor with a higher power output.
Electronic motor controllers for brushless motors are commonplace today, mostly used in the RC market; however, a suitable controller for a 270-volt, 200-amp motor did not exist. Running such a high current requires much larger components. Although a handful of third-party vendors could design and build the appropriate controller for this project, it would take six to seven months of lead time and cost $20,000–$50,000.
The time and cost associated with acquiring such a controller were deemed unacceptable, so the research-and-development team, in cooperation with a key electronics expert, began designing a proprietary AeroConversions electronic motor controller.
Most contemporary electric power plants for gas-electric and pure electric cars and previous generations of RC electric vehicles use Li-Ion battery technology. Newer RC electric vehicles, cell phones, laptop computers, and other mobile devices have been moving toward Li-Poly cells. Li-Poly cells can safely discharge at a rate of 25 times their capacity, or "25C."
The E-Flight design team has engineered and constructed 10 battery "safe boxes," intended to contain eight Li-Poly packs per box and consolidate their charge/discharge and balancing wiring into two sets of multiple connectors. In addition to cooling, the boxes are designed to contain and safely direct fire or explosion within them through a "blowhole" that will be connected to a small exhaust manifold.
More details about the progress of E-Flight Initiative projects will be released in the months and years ahead. Sonex Aircraft, LLC invites all interested potential sponsors to contact the company. All available project information and updates will be posted to the E-Flight Initiative home page: www.aeroconversions.com/e-flight.
Sonex Aircraft, LLC is a rising star in the experimental kit-aircraft industry, providing a series of Sport Pilot–eligible airplanes along with the AeroConversions line of products. Check out the company at www.sonexaircraft.com.
MA — Mark Schaible, Sonex Aircraft, LLC
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
