Radio Control Aerobatics - 2009/09

I’M ON MY way to Pombal, Portugal,
the 21st-29th of August with the US F3A
(FAI RC Aerobatics) World
Championships team, which I consider to
be one of the best ever to represent our
country. The team pilots are World
Champion Quique Somenzini, back-toback
Nationals Champion Jason Shulman,
longtime FAI competitor Andrew Jesky,
and newcomer Brett Wickizer.
As on all teams, along with the stars
is the all-important supporting cast. Each
pilot has a caller/mechanic, and then
there are the team manager, assistant
manager, fund-raising committee, Web
team, logo designers, and sponsors, not
to mention the many friends and wellwishers.
This year, the traveling team consists of
Raiko Potter, Bryan Hebert, Verne Koster,
and Ryan Smith. Bryan Kennedy, David
Shulman, Brian Clemmons, Archie Stafford,
Tom Simes, Marty Moleski, and Jerry
Moreau make up the fund-raising group,
Web team, and logo-design committee.
As the team manager, I thank each of
you for your support and help in sending
this team to the World Championships. Our
goal is to bring home both the World
Champion and the team championship Gold
Medals.
—Albert
In this month’s column, I will discuss
preparing for the Nats and the RC
Aerobatics (Pattern) season. I will also
feature a write-up from Mark Atwood about
the new Airtronics
SD-10G, which is
now available.
My preparation
for the new season
begins as soon as
the old season ends,
in roughly
November. At that
time, I begin to learn
the new sequences
and get my airplanes
ready for the next
year. This occupies
me during the slow
part of the year.
I also continue to
perfect my indoor
flying skills for the
upcoming season.
Flying inside and
using the flight
simulator help me practice new maneuvers.
A key component in preparing for the
next season starts at the beginning of the
outdoor flying season. It is vital that you
stay in tune with your model and practice
regimen.
As with full-scale aircraft, keeping
track of your component use is crucial and
can save you money and time. I can tell
you from experience that using a
component beyond its usefulness can be
risky and a possible safety hazard.
When it comes to your airplane,
preventive maintenance is job number
one. I keep a journal that contains
information about all of my flights,
including a daily tab of the wind,
temperature, visibility, and direction of
flight.
I also keep track of the propellers I use,
needle-valve settings, fuel, and engine rpm.
This allows me to monitor the model’s
power-system performance. It’s amazing
how being able to recognize a change in
engine or motor function can save a
practice day or a contest.
In addition, I record how many flights I
have on the equipment; e.g., servos,
receivers, and batteries. The importance of
tracking how long the servo gears last, how
many milliamps draw on your batteries
after every flight, the number of charging
cycles, replaced components, and repairs
cannot be overemphasized. When
something looks wrong, you can refer to
your journal to see what the problem could
be.
If you are drawing only 120 mAh from
the receiver battery after every practice
flight, and then you notice that you drew
more than 200 mAh after one flight, this
could mean that you have a servo binding,
servo motor breaking down, or any number
of issues that have to be addressed in the
workshop.
The part of the journal that you
sometimes wish would go away is the
documentation of a bad flying day. Keeping
track of how your practice goes, especially
on a poor day, can be extremely productive.
With urban sprawl, practice flying sites
are getting farther away. Making every
practice session worthwhile requires some
planning and a way of tracking your
performance before a contest.
In my journal, I keep track of the
direction of the flights, number of flights,
weak and strong maneuvers, focus
maneuver, and expected outcomes. This
way, I can establish realistic goals for each
current and future practice session. It’s
important to be able to review what is good
and what needs improvement, both during
the season and in the off season.
I recommend that all serious
competitors, if at all possible, have
backup models that can be set up to
match their primary aircraft. The list of
those who have lost a season because
they didn’t have backup aircraft in
standby mode is long and distinguished.
I try my best to have two airplanes
with identical setups (e.g., throws and
electronics). That way, if anything
happens to the primary model, I can jump
to the number-two airplane without
having a problem transitioning.
Having your aircraft set up is
significant to how you will perform with
it during the season. I have been using
Bryan Hebert’s triangular trimming
guide, to make sure my airplane is set up
the best way it can be. We will discuss
Bryan’s trimming setup in a future
column.
One of the challenges for many Pattern
pilots is the cost of our equipment.
Airtronics has added a new radio to the
list of good systems that meets the
Pattern pilot’s needs and has a price that
won’t break the bank.
Following is what Mark Atwood told
us about the new SD-10G.
“Airtronics’ new entry into the radio
market, the SD10G, is a full-featured
radio designed for the competition pilot
in every discipline, be it with airplanes,
helicopters or sailplanes
“The SD-10G is a dedicated 2.4 GHz
system using FHSS [frequency hopping]
communication, has safety link model/
receiver binding, and has full channel and
switch assignments. It comes with 20-
model memory but supports add-on
memory cards for 20 more models and a
USB computer connection to support both
model storage and transmitter
programming upgrades. It supports all of
the Airtronics 2.4 receivers (10-channel,
eight-channel, seven-channel, and micro
six-channel).
“For the Pattern competitor, your
options are pretty limitless. Aircraft type
supports various configurations, including
100 MODEL AVIATION
dual aileron and dual elevator-servo setups.
“All switches are three-position, fully
assignable, and can be overloaded with
multiple functions assigned to each. There
are triples rates on each axis, bidirectional
expo for each rate, five flight modes, stick
switches, a nine-point throttle curve, and
five custom mixes also with nine-point
curves.
“I could go on and on with features, but
the important thing is that Sanwa solicited
competitive fliers in every discipline to
design this radio. It does what we need it to
do.
“The stock programmable aircraft mixes
include the ones we really use: rudder to
elevator, rudder to aileron, and throttle to
elevator, along with seven other stock
mixes before you have to touch the custom
mixes.
“Programming is extremely simple, and
the screen, while graphical and informative,
doesn’t require a diesel generator to supply
power. In fact, the entire system runs on 7.2
volts, which comes from a 1500 mAh
NiMH pack but is designed to also support
the use of a two-cell Li-Poly battery.
“There are also some nice-to-have
features. One-touch model select for your
three favorite models makes it very quick to
switch between your primary and backup
aircraft without scrolling through menus.
Similarly, there is a custom menu to which
you may assign your most used functions to
speed up programming. Very helpful at the
field.
“Increment and decrement functions
can be assigned to the two-way springloaded
switch, which, while flying, allows
you to increase or decrease a mix
percentage. You can trim for rudder pitch
coupling in one flight, increasing or
decreasing the mix percent as needed while
you fly.
“And you can name your flight modes
so you don’t forget which one is set up for
3-D.The radio comes packaged with a
transmitter and receiver, charger, and
switch harness.”
Thanks to the AMA for its support of the
2009 F3A team. I will provide daily
updates of the World Championships from
Pombal on the F3A Web site. Go USA! MA
—A.C.
Sources:
2009 US F3A team updates:
www.f3a.us
Airtonics
(714) 963-0329
www.airtronics.net
National Society of Radio Controlled
Aerobatics
www.nsrca.us