RADIO CONTROL PYLON RACING
Duane Gall 1267 S. Beeler Ct., Denver CO 80231 E-mail: [email protected]
SPECIAL EDITION
My report on the 2003 Nationals (Nats), which was inadvertently omitted from the December 2003 issue because of a production error, was published in the January 2004 issue. So we interrupt our regular programming to bring you this special feature. This month I'll provide a more complete answer to the spectator's question that I mentioned in the Nats coverage; it was basically, why do we do this? Why should an up-and-coming, perhaps slightly bored, sport flier leave his or her routine of drilling holes in the sky to hit the road and attend a racing meet? Why should a club consider including a race in its schedule of events for the upcoming season?
I'll start with the individual flier's point of view.
- It's fun.
Of course this is the first consideration. You have many choices of how to spend your precious leisure time. If you're already a radio control (RC) pilot, chances are that you won't be drawn away to pull the handle on a slot machine or raise petunias. Racing provides an amplified version of the thrill you already get from flinging your eager craft through footless halls of air.
So why not just enter a fun-fly? Agreed, that adds something extra as well. If you've never tried any sort of competition, you should start there, at least to develop grace under pressure. Anybody can start an engine in 60 seconds when nobody's paying attention, but it's another matter when there's a clock ticking and all eyes are on you. Succeeding at this provides a little "Aha!" moment all by itself. Add three other pilots with their engines blazing away on the starting line, and the anticipation mounts. What will happen next? Will your caller launch your airplane straight and true? Will you be the first one to reach the far pylon? Will you have to steer around someone who had a tight wheel or a flameout?
Once in the air, the real fun begins. Then you're in charge of a high-performance machine in head-to-head competition! Never mind that it may be a little T-34 prebuilt that you picked up on eBay and it's only going 60 mph. If that's the class in which you're flying, all other pilots will have close to the same thing. Then it's pure adrenaline as the four of you dice and tussle for the lead. Winning the heat and landing your airplane in one piece, ready for the next go-round, brings a glow of satisfaction that can't be matched anywhere. And if you keep everything pasted together long enough to take home a trophy, that's frosting on the cake.
Too many onlookers—and unfortunately a few competitors—think winning is the only thing that matters. If that's your attitude, you probably won't last long in this game. "Racing luck" happens to everyone. As I write this, I've just returned from a 1,000-mile road trip to a two-day contest where things did not go well for me. To put it bluntly, I got spanked. Yet it was fun. I flew an airplane I designed and built from scratch, it went fast, and I managed to beat one RFG (real fast guy) in a straight-up duel once all of the technical stuff finally fell into place. I hope this will serve as the new, higher baseline for next season.
- It makes you a better pilot.
"Oh, come on; it's just a bunch of left turns! Where's the skill in that?" Well, you may have noticed that there are 30 turns (three per lap multiplied by ten laps). Add in the fact that your airplane needs to be carefully trimmed and balanced and the control throws adjusted so that it will fly straight and true through the turns without deviating or stalling. And don't forget that you must be mindful of the other airplanes on the course and be able to take off and land safely in traffic in a variety of wind conditions.
With all of this, it's clear that there is more to racing than just "left turns." Master racing and you will automatically become a master pilot.
- It makes you a better craftsman.
I would have written "builder," but in this age of Almost Ready-to-Flys (ARFs), ready-to-cover kits, and composites, "builders" have become a rare breed.
Still, the need for a safe, reliable racing machine will drive you to a level of excellence in preparing and maintaining your equipment that you wouldn't have thought possible before you started racing.
Experience is the best teacher, and if you hang around experienced racing pilots and get up close and personal with their setups—by attending the Nats or another big contest and browsing through the pits, for instance—you'll learn enough to fill an "Encyclopedia of Stylin' Hardware."
All of the contestants' airplanes undergo rigorous preflight inspections. Their engines are clean. Their radio installations are tight, vibration-resistant, and easy to check and maintain. And, as you can see from the Nats photos, their paint jobs are gorgeous.
If there isn't much racing in your area, you can get plenty of advice online. The RC Universe forum (www.rcuniverse.com/forum/PylonWorld/forumid_1227.html) contains questions and answers, often with stunning pictorials, about engine and tank installation, wing construction, finishing tips, propeller selection, fiberglass fuselage molding, etc.
- The scoring is objective.
Unlike most other competitive events in which judges subjectively award scores, racing is scored on purely objective factors; i.e., the order of finish, the presence/absence of cuts (flying inside the pylon poles), and the elapsed times for each heat. Human error can occur, but the officials' jobs are actually cut-and-dried.
For a full description of racecourse personnel duties, see Addendum A to the RC Pylon Racing section of the AMA rule book. It's available online at www.modelaircraft.org/templates/ama/PDF-files/Rulebook/rc-pylon.pdf.
The competition comes down to the following: go fast and you'll earn more points; go slow or cut and you won't. It's as simple as that.
- It's not that expensive.
Most local racing involves off-the-shelf sport engines, such as the Thunder Tiger Pro .40, which retail for $100 or less. Even high-zoot Nats power plants (Nelson or Jet .40s, primarily) represent a $350 investment that will last for several seasons if properly cared for. Airplanes range from the $130 Jomar Predator and Great Planes Viper 500 all-wood ARFs up to $400 composite ready-to-fly models. And if you're willing to scratch-build, you can get by for less than $50 in materials for a race-legal, competitive Quickie 500 (Q-500) model.
Compare this to the equipment cost of any other motorsport—such as $300 for a set of go-kart tires that last one day—and you can see why RC pylon represents a good deal for your entertainment dollar.
While I'm on the subject I'll mention some of the midrange Q-500 models. In prebuilt wood for $200, Lee Ungler (623) 695-1206; E-mail: [email protected] offers The Force, and Pete Reed (603) 532-8965; E-mail: [email protected] sells the Intimidator.
Going up the scale a bit to $299 is the all-composite, conventional-tail ShotGum from Darrol Cady ([email protected]; Web site: www.darrolcady.com) and at $350 the INN-KS with V-tail and as many as four colors of paint by Martin Hoppe (425) 820-9184.
Other sources for airplanes and hard-to-find goodies are posted on Drew Telford's web site—http://home.san.rr.com/thredpages/—and Don Stegall's Pylon World at www.pylonworld.com/.
Why your club should add racing to next season's calendar
Now for this month's second special topic: Why should your club add racing to next season's calendar?
- It's fun.
Again, fun is Job 1. Don't think you have to go with the Nats classes; there's a host of equipment formulas listed on Pylon World or you can invent your own. Hand-launched, electric-powered, short-course, two-pole—you name it; it's been done.
I caution you to think through what sort of expense, or "tech," your rules allow for the most serious competitor your event is expected to show up. If it's unaffordable or unobtainable by everybody else, consider writing in a limitation so that one person doesn't dominate the class.
- It's educational.
See "It makes you a better pilot" and "It makes you a better craftsman" in the preceding. The Academy of Model Aeronautics began as, and still strives to be, an educational organization—as the word "Academy" implies. AMA-chartered clubs help fulfill this purpose by occasionally encouraging activities that go beyond the ordinary.
- It brings publicity and prestige.
There's an aura associated with a big, annual event such as the (Toledo) Weak Signals' Silver Cup for Quarter 40 (Q-40) or the (Phoenix) SpeedWorld R/C Flyers' Winterfest for Q-500. Other names and places come to mind, some legendary, including Tangerine, Rough River, Whittier, and Sepulveda.
A great deal of club pride and cohesion—and not to mention local community support of events—comes by association with such events. Since the Nats is perennially located in Muncie, Indiana, rather than traveling around the country, the way is clear for any club that desires that sort of visibility to host a "name" contest.
The National Miniature Pylon Racing Association (NMPRA) offers expertise and even financial support, in conjunction with longtime sponsors JR and PowerMaster fuels, through its Gold Cup Q-40 program. For details, log on to www.nmpra.org. The NMPRA site also provides free matrix/scoring software and other useful information for hosting clubs.
This concludes my special-edition racing coverage. Until next time, keep the shiny side up and I hope you had a joyous holiday season!
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
