Radio Control Soaring - 2010/11

130 MODEL AVIATION
[[email protected]]
Radio Control Soaring Lee Estingoy
Also included in this column:
• USA brings home serious
hardware from 2010 FAI
F5B World Champs
The entire US contingent at the 2010 FAI F3J World
Championship in Arbois, France. The Americans were incredibly
successful at the event. Brendon Fraser, Michael Knight, and
Connor Laurel won the overall Junior team award, and Daryl
Perkins won the Senior individual title.
Too many Soaring events?
Senior team member Cody Remington leans against the
monofilament towline before launching Daryl’s Icon 2 in the
winning flight of the flyoff portion of the competition.
F3J pilots score a point for every second the sailplane is in the air, up to a
maximum of 15 minutes. Time on tow and time in the air after the window
closes is subtracted from the total. Daryl flew a 14:58.99 and made a 99-point
landing. That’s almost as close to perfection as it comes.
The FAI F3J World
Championship trophy will
live in Arizona with Daryl
Perkins for the next
two years. This
was his first win
in F3J, but he
has won the F3B
event four times.
HELLO. MY NAME is Lee and I’m a
Soaring addict. The staff at the clinic is a
bit shorthanded because of budget
cutbacks, so they gave me a bus ticket out
of town for a while. My AMA editors are
clearly unhappy that they can’t reach me at
the clinic; I’ve been doing my best to avoid
them.
I figured I’d hide out in plain
(“plane”) site at the IRCHA
(International Radio Controlled Helicopter
Association) Jamboree and then at the FAI
F5B/F5D World Championships. Both
were held at the AMA site, which is
definitely the last place they’d look for me.
They aren’t buying my texts that good
things come to those who wait; I hope
you’ll agree that Soaring columns don’t get
much better than what follows.
Representatives from many international
Soaring addiction groups attended the FAI
F5B Championships in Muncie, Indiana,
August 20-25, and we compared notes.
They all use a form of electric shock-andwhoa
therapy to get their fixes. These fliers
run anywhere from 5,000 to 7,000 and
more watts of power into their sailplanes
and then drive the models around the sky
like they stole them.
This goes on for approximately 3
minutes, and then the pilots blip the motor
for a second or two—really all they need as
the sailplanes easily accelerate to 100
meters per second vertically. If my math is
correct, that’s a climb rate of approximately
223.693629 mph straight up.
They can bang off a 10-minute Thermal
Duration task with only a short blip. Total
motor run for the whole round is roughly 18
seconds.
These fliers also have helpers, whose
job it is to flinch and say “whoa” every
time the pilots light one of the aircraft off.
They all seem happy. I can’t do justice to
the event in this column, so stay tuned for a
proper report in another issue.
You might remember my visits, featured
11sig5.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 9/23/10 10:19 AM Page 130
November 2010 131
I still can’t understand why more women don’t dig RC. How can they go wrong cruising
the Indiana countryside in chase cars derived from Fiats, with studly pilots such as Rick
Lederman, Marc Gellart, and Skip Miller and their gorgeous Cross Country sailplanes?
Lee is envious of Rick Lederman’s stunning Ferrari California. Michael Ramsey photo.
Soaring icon Skip Miller won both the
Thermal Duration and Cross Country
events at the 2010 AMA Nats. His trophy
collection spans four decades—maybe
even five.
in this column, with Daryl Perkins, who
was leaving for France as part of the US
F3J team, and Skip Miller, who was
headed to the AMA Nats. Both have
(certainly had their share of my editors’
ink) earned another appearance in the
column.
The AMA team did a great job of
covering the Nats on a daily basis with
NatsNews. Skip won Thermal Duration
and Cross Country this year. He even had a
few words to spare for the readers, so
check out the coverage on the AMA Web
site.
I’ve saved the best for last. Daryl
Perkins has won another big one; he is now
the reigning F3J World Champion in what
was “only” his first F3J championship. He has
earned four FAI F3B World Championships.
Daryl was kind enough to share some
thoughts about the event with me, and they
follow.
LE: What was most memorable for you at
this event?
DP: From a personal satisfaction level, I
was able to accomplish a lot at this World
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Championships. I flew 12 rounds of prelims
without dropping any time in very tough
conditions, and I actually won the
preliminaries. That’s supposed to be a badkarma
thing going into the flyoffs, as no one
who has ever won the prelims has won the
Worlds.
Going into the flyoffs, I had never flown a
round in the 14:58 times. Well, I knew I had
to tighten up, and I was able to actually
average 14:58.1 and 99 points per landing
(excluding the throw-out round).
One round I went 14:58.99 with a 99-
point landing. That’s a personal best for me.
What a time to pull it off!
LE: Wait a minute—a 14:58.99? That means
out of a 15-minute window you used a total of
1.01 seconds for both the tow and landing.
How high does a 1-second tow put you?
DP: Maybe 100 feet.
LE: Did you see a thermal at the end of the
line?
DP:We had a read most of the time, but
those are just educated guesses with no
markers in the air. On one flight I got to about
1- to 11/2-span altitude before popping and
taking it out.
On the last flight we took a short tow at
9:15 in the morning to go 15 minutes; there
was air working, but the inversion was at
about 250 feet. So it would spit you out the
top and turn to sink. I worked four or five
thermals on the last flight. Most took a much
longer tow.
LE: Any thoughts on where the airframes are
headed?
DP: Airframes are just getting lighter, stiffer,
and stronger—to a point. Mass is your enemy
for a short tow in F3J.
Models will be getting more and more
specialized for the short tows, but these
ultralightweight models will not take full
gorilla tows. Proper airframe choice per
round will become critical.
All of the models in the flyoffs were so
close in performance. I would give a slight
edge to the Icon 2 and then the Supra Pro.
LE: Care to comment on any standout
performances among the pilots in your
rearview mirror?
DP: The top five or six pilots in the flyoffs
were absolutely awesome. Philip Kolb
[Germany] is just solid and consistent. I
would guess he is the “winningest” pilot
on Eurotour right now. He will win a WC
someday.
Arend Borst [Canada] is a past F3J WC
and was well in the hunt. What can you say
about Joe Wurts? Arguably the best allaround
Soaring pilot ever. It just wasn’t his
day.
Carl Strautins from Australia gets the
most improved pilot award. I met Carl at an
F3B World Championship many years ago,
and he was just a little kid. I had no idea just
how talented he had become.
Benedikt Feigl [Germany] just puts up
amazing score after amazing score. He
should; he was the 2008 F3J World Champ
and is an amazing stick.
On any given day, any one of us could
have taken top honors. On this day, I was the
fortunate one.
LE: Care to take us out with some final
words?
DP: The best thing about F3J is that it is a
team sport. The pilot has the easy job. The
support given to me by the US team was
huge.
I need to thank Frankie Burnoski, Phil
Barnes, Chris Keller, Dave Kalomen, and
Rick Helgeson for thanklessly giving up two
weeks to cut and check lines, pound stakes,
tow models, pull more line tension than you
can possibly imagine, and end up landing on
their noses at the end of a tow.
I need to thank Mike Verzuh for taking
on the thankless task of managing the team,
the funds, our flights, the organizers, etc.
Rich Burnoski and Cody Remington [the
other US team pilots] are the best teammates
anyone could dream of. I have become quite
good friends with both.
Huge thanks to Cody Remington! I
would not be world champion today if it
weren’t for Cody’s calling and throwing.
This kid can hold so much line tension it’s
insane. And his calling and air-reading skills
are second to none. He’s also the most
talented stick I’ve ever seen, and he will be
F3J World Champion one day.
And thanks to all of you for the support
given to the US teams. We can’t do any of it
without you.
Daryl has agreed to sign almost anything
you slide under his Sharpie, to raise funds
for the 2012 title defense in South Africa.
Get your loose bills, wings, or underwear
ready for him at the next event. MA
Sources:
NatsNews
http://bit.ly/1if8c
AMA 2010 Nats official scores:
http://bit.ly/b3a1ZP
League of Silent Flight
www.silentflight.org
132 MODEL AVIATION
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