Author: Lee Estingoy
Edition: Model Aviation - 2011/09
Page Numbers: 113,114,115,116
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Traditional winches are never out of style!

Lee Estingoy [[email protected]]

My family took a brief holiday in the Rockies during Memorial Day weekend this year. The annual Rocky Mountain Soaring Association (RMSA) F3J in the Rockies contest happened to be held that same weekend on the outskirts of Denver.

Late Friday night, I checked the weather forecast for the Denver area and the experts predicted nasty weather with good chances for precipitation and high winds. I didn't bother to set the alarm. I wasn't in a hurry to make the 90-minute drive to the event, just for a chance to huddle in the rain under a flapping tarp.

Saturday morning broke beautiful in the mountains, despite the forecast, so I made the trip. I'm glad I didn't listen to the weather experts and plan something else. The people at this gathering are great, and a well-run F3J event is truly something to behold.

It is much more of a spectator sport than many other RC contests. The launches and landings are simultaneous. There's little doubt who's flying well and who's about to miss his or her time.

The RMSA members have the event down to a science; even the scorekeeping was done on a web application running on the competitors' cellular phones out at the field. Nobody had to turn scorecards in, and nobody had to transcribe them.

F3J teams traditionally require a large number of assistants, since each of the airplanes is towed aloft by two other members of the team.

The FAI World Championships are held every two years; 2011 is an off year. The US F3J group plans to select its team members at the trials next year. Winches will be used. The 2011 F3J in the Rockies event was run without tow teams. Instead, "official" F3J winches, calibrated to a standard electrical load, were used.

As always, there was much anxiety about the change. The best argument I heard was that the European competitors feel the US teams just don't get it—now there's a surprise. They feel that having larger groups of participants for two-man tows creates better camaraderie, especially during the après-soaring events in the evening. Either way, complexity and hardware are the name of the game in F3J.

ALES (Altitude Limited Electric Soaring) development

Let's shift gears a bit. Complexity is fine for F3J, but it differs from the futuristic forecasts that I am hearing from a number of the US experts and vendors. It seems that many Europeans are also getting tired of hauling winch gear around and that they are now pursuing an "F5J" unofficial format using (the horror!) electric-launched sailplanes. The category is now known as ALES, which stands for Altitude Limited Electric Soaring.

Dave Register was kind enough to offer an overview of the ALES developments. There are many soaring groups that have looked at the "winch-in-the-nose" concept for thermal duration events. A few years ago it was obvious that my skills in Disc Launch Glider (DLG) were diminishing (well, relatively speaking, they weren't much to start with) and lugging around a winch is bothersome when you fly solo. Since one of my destinations was Albuquerque, New Mexico — which has a great DLG series — and one of my old flying buddies was Dale Nutter, I got wind of the Outrunner class that the Albuquerque Soaring Association (ASA) had sponsored for several years.

The trip out there last fall found Buzz Averill adopting a format that used a limiter switch with a preprogrammed altitude or time for launch (whichever came first). Talking with Dale, Buzz, and Bruce Twining got the adrenaline pumping, and the more the concept was analyzed on the drive back, the better it sounded.

At that point, Buzz was organizing a group purchase of the 2BASIC altimeter switches. I got onboard and have been hooked ever since. Meanwhile, a number of other fliers had been using other devices.

The ZLog, which provided a motor cutoff at a preset altitude, seemed to be quite popular. I don’t believe these devices incorporate the clock function. Those using the ZLog said it would be great to have a time cutoff to level the playing field a bit.

Randy Brust at Soaring Circuits — which makes the RAM altimeters — was also working on such a device and began providing prototypes for evaluation to a few pilots in the US and abroad throughout late 2009 and early 2010.

On the other side of the world in Slovakia, Palo Lishak was creating rules for an event that predated the US ALES effort by several years. Palo’s leadership appears to have spurred the development of the 2BASIC switch and other similar devices to facilitate this general flying format in Europe and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the British Model Flying Association (BMFA) had grasped the Slovakian concepts and published a set of rules to formalize a contest circuit in the United Kingdom. With this description in hand, the Altitude Limited eSoaring format in Great Britain has been rapidly growing during the past several years.

It had become so popular that Palo sponsored a World Championship event for Altitude Limited Soaring. While here in the US, ASA members received their switches, Soaring Circuits perfected the CAM, and Tom Kallevang lobbied the League of Silent Flight (LSF) to add the Altitude Limited format to the Nats as a provisional event. Things were starting to pick up.

And that's where we were in the beginning of 2010. The general concept for ALES in the US was being ironed out. ASA formulated its rules as an outgrowth of its Outrunner Limited Motor Run (LMR) experience. These rules closely parallel the BMFA description of the event.

At essentially the same time, discussions were being held among Tom Kallevang, Ed Franz, Randy Brust, and a few others about the possibility of sponsoring a provisional event at the Nats in Muncie, Indiana. Tom's support from LSF was instrumental in adding it to the schedule.

Shortly after that, an ad hoc group (the previously mentioned, plus Denny Maize and me) started discussing provisional rules for the Nats and settled on a short-term description based largely on the BMFA example. The excitement of running a new event at Muncie inspired Denny Maize to sponsor the first full, two-day ALES contest in June in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

This Polecat contest was well-attended. Roughly 20 pilots flew in two classes.

The rules used at the Polecat event seemed to work well and were also used in Muncie. Official-length scoring tapes were made and approximately 19 of us came to Muncie for the contest. The Muncie experience went well.

The next stop on the US ALES circuit was Albuquerque for two days of fun (in the sun this time!) at the sod farm. The ASA rules are slightly different from those used at the Nats (mostly in the window timing and landings), but the contest's intent and character is essentially the same.

The contest drew roughly 20 people in each of the two classes. ASA flew the ALES format with 2.3-meter and under, and Open class events. Several pilots flew their 2.3-meter aircraft in Open and brought home hardware in both classes.

To wrap up the season, the Dayton Area Thermal Soarers (DARTS) club enlisted Ed Franz to CD a one-day ALES event in October. Inclement weather blew through, but 15 pilots were able to fly three rounds before the cold front tried to wipe them out. As with the previous contests, no clear dominance by any size airplane or power plant was seen. Radians were competitive, and everything from 2-meter models to 3.5-meter e-AVAs competed.

I asked Tom Kallevang to weigh in on the subject.

Interview with Tom Kallevang

LE: During the winter of 2010, Ed Franz, Dave Register, Randy Brust, and Denny Maize asked me to look at a set of rules for a "Winch-in-the-Nose" Electric Soaring event. I reviewed the rules that had been created so far, applied my "Keep It Simple Stupid" (KISS) principles and experience as AMA/LSF event director positions for both Soaring and Electric Soaring Nationals, and made some small changes so the rules were closer to the USA format rules than the FAI-type British BMFA rules.

TK: The event has taken on a life of its own. So far this year, we know of 18 separate contests. That's quite a growth rate for a new event.

LE: What's the hardware requirement?

TK: The hardware consists of a very basic altimeter device that shuts the motor down once the model reaches 200 meters above the ground or after 30 seconds, whichever comes first. Some units are programmable for 50, 100, 150, and 200 meters. One device uses rate-of-climb to turn off the motor ahead of reaching the programmed altitude, but at this point we have not seen a particular need for this complication in the device.

By using an altitude-limiting device, each model ends the climb phase of the task at essentially the same altitude. Everything from high-powered composites to foam Radians are competitive in this event.

LE: Can pilots bend the rules with lighter setups or zoom launches?

TK: From what we have seen since these rules have been adopted, there has not been any advantage to a highly powered climb system. Since it takes power to get such climb rates, motors, gearboxes, and batteries must be heavier. That weight impacts the soaring capability of the model.

Because all models must be released within the first 10 seconds of the task window, climbing to 200 meters in 5 seconds means you must thermal for 20-plus seconds longer than a model that takes 25 seconds to get to that same 200 meters of altitude.

In practical testing and contest conditions so far, this hasn't been an issue. The rules allow the CD to enforce a possible violation of the launch height by requiring a contestant to relaunch the model with a self-contained altimeter to verify compliance with the launch target. This allows the CD to validate that the limiter device has not been tampered with to allow greater launch heights.

LE: Why was it developed, and is it meeting those goals?

TK: By limiting the initial altitude for all participants, you remove the necessity of the overpowered drive systems that are so prevalent in the LMR events. Such events are characterized by many as "eyesight" events.

Modelers are getting so high in the 30-second motor runs with climb rates of 6,000 feet per minute or more, that the contestants' ability to see and control their model at the end of the climb phase is difficult. By considering the drive system to simply be a "winch-in-the-nose," we hope to refocus the task on thermalling skills.

You can think of ALES as a gateway Electric Soaring event for the soaring "purists." It's an event that the regular string-launched soaring pilots can participate in without needing a large amount of money for motors, propellers, speed controls, and batteries. As I stated before, the original Radian foamie has been competitive.

LE: How many contests are held per year? Can you list any?

TK: As I stated, there were four contests in 2010, and there are approximately 18 planned for this year. See the RCGroups thread listed in "Sources" for specifics.

LE: Where is the hardware available and how much is it?

TK: There are several units available as far as I know at this time: Soaring Circuits CAM (US), about $50; 2BASIC (Slovakia), about $130; and Shread-RC, about $50. See the "Sources" listings for more information.

So there you have it: multiple weather reports offer vastly different forecasts for the direction of the contest format. Any way you look at it, it still appears the sun is shining for those who want to participate in soaring events.

Go fly! LE

Sources:

Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.