Free Flight Indoor
2007 season openers in Colorado and Ohio
John Kagan [[email protected]]
The 2007 indoor free flight (FF) season is underway, and I've been fortunate enough to participate in season-opener competitions in Colorado and Ohio. First up was the Pikes Peak Ceiling Climb run by the renowned Magnificent Mountain Men (MMM) FF club in Colorado.
These guys sure know how to put on a show. This year, in addition to their regularly scheduled competition, they added an F1D Team Selection Regional, National Cup events, a new Colorado Cup grand champion trophy, and even expanded the schedule to two days.
You may have seen me refer to Colorado Springs as "Indoor Free Flight Town USA." Public relations master Don DeLoach coined this moniker based on the growing concentration of top indoorists and great flying sites. It's a bit of lighthearted conceit that is perfect for rewarding the efforts of local participants and leaders and catching the attention of outsiders.
In case you thought it might be just fluff, look at the accompanying proclamation signed by Colorado Springs Mayor Lionel Rivera, thanks to the efforts of MMM member Jerry Murphy. How cool is that? This goes to show how positively people perceive our activity and how much can be done with a bit of work. This piece of public relations magic has generated a healthy amount of media coverage and resulted in more than a few new visitors to the contest. Great work, guys!
This elevated status carried over to the flying, resulting in no less than six site records set—not including the multiple times each mark was surpassed during the course of the day. The competition was friendly but tough, with many challenges called out and met. The F1D regional featured three local fliers and two imports. The top three qualified for the finals, and each broke the site record by a significant margin.
Some organizer advisors worried that the site was not tall or significant enough to warrant a regional contest. With 37 feet of ceiling height and more than 6,000 feet of altitude, it is unlikely that any national records will be set here. However, the challenges of flying in Colorado Springs are formidable and unique enough to provide a great learning opportunity. Much F1D success involves quickly adapting to given conditions, and this site is a good test. This is exactly the type of flying I've neglected in recent years, and I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to tune up some skills.
Bill Gowen flew out from Atlanta, Georgia, to challenge the locals in a variety of events, with an emphasis on nonpowered flight. He took two of the three Glider events, winning by a margin of more than six seconds in Standard Catapult Glider and an amazing 13 seconds in Unlimited Catapult Glider (both site records). Bill also won A6, took second in Hand-Launched Glider (HLG), and finished third in Limited Pennyplane and F1L, making him the apparent hands-down winner of the new Colorado Cup grand champion trophy.
But hold the presses! Local flier Rob Romash wasn't about to let that happen on his home turf. After a review of all the events, it turns out that Bill and Rob tied for first place. With no method of tie-breaking defined yet, the inaugural Colorado Cup will have two names on the first plate.
Rob posted a two-flight total of 22:28, topping second-place finisher Tom Sova by 24 seconds. As the contest was winding down, Rob ribbed Tom (who was trailing in MiniStick too) by saying, "Hey, are you going to beat me in anything?"
That was not a good move, as it turns out. Tom promptly put up a flight that topped Rob's MiniStick contest time and beat his site record by one second! Nice comeback, Tom. The last site record went to Bill Leppard in Intermediate Stick, flying uncontested in the meet, with a time of 16:52.
This was a great event in a beautiful town. The contest is turning into a real battlefield, with solid support from the local organizers. Try it next year!
The annual contest at the Kent State Field House in Ohio was held the following weekend. Boy, what a difference 6,000 feet of altitude and 13 feet of ceiling height makes. National records fell like dominoes; no less than seven records were set!
By popular demand this year's session was extended until 8 p.m., giving participants (especially those traveling from afar) a full 12 hours of flying time in one of the premier Category II sites in the area.
Local indoor specialist Don Slusarczyk joined forces with previous CD Michael Zand to run a great contest/recorder trials, generously forfeiting a significant amount of his flying time to keep things running smoothly. Don's new Cabin model looked certain to set a record until a freak torque meter failure crushed the fuselage. The rest of the airplane survived and will surely return next year.
The Glider events took the traditional morning spot, and an epic battle between HLG stars Jim Buxton and Rob Romash quickly developed. Jim set the national record at this site last year with two flights of approximately 51 seconds. (HLG uses a two-flight total.)
Jim's model was a fairly significant departure from previous Category II designs. It was a non-flapper with a high aspect ratio and a large span. Rob campaigned a similar version this year and soon upped the bar with a matching pair of 57.0s (quite a jump!), earning him a national record—for roughly an hour.
Jim responded with his own matching pair of 57.8s, just squeaking past for a new record. He wrote:
"This was quite a battle. Rob is probably too tough to admit it, but I am in a fair amount of pain still. It was the most intense day of HLG I have been involved in in 20 years.
"When you throw a pair of identical times as your best, it is a pretty good indication that you are getting everything you can out of a Glider, and it doesn't occur often. To see it happen to two fliers on the same day is really rare. To see two fliers so far over the existing record, and so close to each other in time, is once in a lifetime perhaps."
Rob set another record in MiniStick with 11:04, and that one held. He had hoped to best Stan Chilton's previous mark of 11:00 by a more significant margin but ran out of time. There was plenty of rafter banging, and you can only get so lucky with these tiny models. Many flights resulted in hang-ups.
Previous Junior F1D team member Nick Ray also set a MiniStick record—in the Senior category—with 8:58.
Jim Richmond took ceiling scrubbing to an extreme in Limited Pennyplane, making first contact in less than a minute and bouncing around for a good part of his 12:53 flight. Bill Gowen used a different approach with a much bigger motor and slower climb. He almost topped the previous 12:28 mark too but came up just eight seconds shy.
Jim took a safer no-touch approach in EZB with his ridiculously light 0.3-gram model, launching just three minutes before the end of the contest and landing 23 minutes and 19 seconds later. He topped the previous record by more than two minutes.
I followed Jim's lead and set a record in F1D doing 28:49, also without touching the ceiling. I had 300 turns left, and the time is still nowhere near the 33:42 world record Hungarian Dezső Orsovai set, so there is plenty left to work on for next year.
The Kent contest keeps getting better. Come join us next year for some of the best Category II flying around!
Record Three-Views
There has been an ongoing project for several years to make the three-view drawings submitted with indoor FF record applications readily available to those who are interested. Early efforts revealed a copyright liability that needed to be cleaned up, and AMA lawyers were routed to produce the appropriate verbiage.
It has taken a while, but I'm happy to report that the latest record applications now include a release page for those applicants who are inclined to share their drawings. It will probably take a bit more time to get website access set up, but you should at least be able to call or mail in drawing requests once again.
If you would like to see what the seven Kent record-setting designs look like, contact the AMA Competitions Department and request your copy. These beautiful drawings (well, most of them anyway) are perfect for framing in the workshop or, it is hoped, providing the basis for your own record-setting model. Your interest will help justify future efforts to make this information easier to access.
Electric Indoor FF
Reader John Kruse sent me the following and a picture of his new fun-fly model.
"Thought you might be interested in my latest FF indoor model—it's electric powered.
The somewhat unique wing is fabricated from a single piece of carbon-fiber rod, secured at the central crossover point with cyanoacrylate glue and covered with grocery-store Reynolds Wrap. A pair of 1/16-inch square balsa ribs at the midspan create an airfoil (for lift), and a piece of thread stretched between the tips provides dihedral (for stability). The foam tail surfaces are attached to a tubular fuselage.
Thrust comes from a 6 mm diameter pager motor, coupled to a 9:1 reduction gear, turning a 6-inch-diameter carbon-fiber prop. Flight duration/maximum altitude are controlled by a manually adjustable (prelaunch) electronic timer, connected to a rechargeable lithium-polymer battery.
I tried to use a fairly large diameter, slowly rotating propeller to capture the look of a typical indoor rubber-powered model. Better yet, it even flies like one!"
Looks great, John!
I'm intrigued by the amazing advancements in electric-powered flight, but I don't have much personal experience with it so I asked multitime national record holder Ray Harlan to share some of his opinions about these exciting models. He said:
"Getting started in electric free flight is challenging and fun. These models are very different from rubber-powered models because of the way the batteries behave.
"There is no very strong peak that can be used to control altitude, as with rubber. Instead, the only practical control is to adjust prop pitch until the model just barely climbs on a full charge. Very small changes in pitch can have dramatic effects on climb, so a good pitch gauge is a must.
"There are no commercial adjustable-pitch props, so you are on your own to build one. The photo shows mine, which consists of a plastic hub and two 00-90 brass screws attached to the prop spars (.030 carbon-fiber rods). They thread into the hub and are locked in place with nuts. The blades are carbon fiber, molded over a form then cut to shape. Balsa also could be used, but some reinforcing with tissue covering is recommended.
"The motor of choice seems to be the Mabuchi M20 (low voltage), sold as the KP-00 by several vendors. It can be purchased alone or with a small gearbox of 2.67:1 ratio. A larger ratio is better; Bob Selman (www.bsdmicrorc.com) sells a 4.2:1. An even higher ratio is desirable, but you will have to build your own.
"A shaft support can be epoxied to the top of the motor, and gears are available from Selman and others (www.homefly.com, www.smarttoolsinc.com). Smart Tools has nine- and 81-tooth gears that will provide a 9:1 ratio. Careful construction is required to get accurate shaft spacing.
"There is another curious difference from rubber models. If your model doesn't climb, the prop pitch must be increased to make the motor work harder, not decreased to make the prop spin faster. Tweak the pitch up a little at a time until the model climbs a little. Be careful, though, because it could be through the roof in 10 minutes.
"The two 50 mAh cells allowed can be in series or parallel. If your model is on the heavy side, use series; otherwise parallel should give longer flight times.
"The model is standard indoor construction but has plenty of boron on the spars and struts. If it crashes, it's going to break. Be prepared for numerous repairs.
"The model should have a wing area between 200 and 300 square inches. Mine has the motor behind the wing to make steering easier. The model will pivot on a wingtip if the balloon string catches it. These models fly a bit faster than Pennyplanes, so steering is tricky.
"While it sounds as though this is a highly technical event, getting started isn't that difficult. Don't worry too much about building the lightest model (20–35 grams should be okay) or perfecting the gearbox. Pay attention to the prop, however. Then give it a try."
Key practical tips from Ray Harlan:
- Use a good pitch gauge and set pitch so the model just barely climbs on a full charge.
- Build an adjustable-pitch prop (plastic hub, brass screws, carbon or reinforced balsa blades).
- Prefer a higher gearbox ratio (4.2:1 or 9:1 if you can manage the gearbox).
- Two 50 mAh cells may be used in series (for heavier models) or parallel (for longer times).
- Expect fragility; use boron on spars and struts and be ready for repairs.
- Aim for 200–300 sq. in. wing area and a finished weight around 20–35 grams.
That's it for this issue. I hope to see some of you at the next big meet. Til next time. MA
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
