RC Aerobatics
Eric Henderson, <REDACTED>
SINCE I LAST wrote about the NSRCA (National Society of Radio Controlled Aerobatics), it has launched a new Web site: www.NSRCA.org. The "dot org" indicates that it is a nonprofit organization.
The site is based on e-commerce software and will eventually allow membership subscriptions and purchases of hats and decals, etc. Its primary purpose, however, is to be a central location for current and historical Pattern information. There will be consolidated contest calendars, printable calling cards of the current schedules, vendor information, help files on subjects such as running a Pattern contest, and more. The site automatically links to the AMA site to make it even easier to make RC-related inquiries.
Sites such as NSRCA.org coexist with Pattern columns and are very complementary to them. This site should add value to your Pattern experience.
Pattern is a skill challenge and also a test of character and fortitude. I recently witnessed all of those properties when a brand-new airplane crashed when a most-unusual glitch crept into the "system."
George Asteris, the pilot, is well-known as a Pattern builder and designer of the Omen series of Pattern airplanes. His new airplane addressed the more-demanding snap-roll requirements of the latest P-01 FAI schedule.
He needed to recharge his flight pack to do some more testing, so the airplane was put on the fast-charger in his minivan. When he flew the model next, the battery went down, and unfortunately the airplane did an impersonation of a pile driver, destroying itself.
What caused the battery to be low was George's new minivan. Yes, his new minivan! The van, being of the latest design, has electric sliding side doors. During the fast-charging process, George needed something from the van, so he operated the remote electric sliding door. Give a guy a "remote" and what else would you expect?
The fast-charger "noticed" a sudden drop in the available power and said, "Hey diodes! There aren't enough input DC," and defaulted to the trickle-charge rate. Now the fast-charger looked like it had done its job. It had deception on its side, and as far as George could see, it seemed that the charging had been completed. This was a very reliable fast-charger that had done this job hundreds of times before, without failure—or, at least, before motorized-sliding-car-doors. Disaster then followed! (And you have never seen so many Pattern fliers preflight-checking their flight-packs as you now see at our field.)
However, this is only part of the story.
After kicking himself profusely for not doing a preflight battery test, George went home and began to build, and build, and build. George borrowed an unfinished fuselage from an obliging customer who graciously moved back his order. He then cut out some new foam cores and headed for the workbench. In less than two-and-a-half weeks, the model was in the air.
I am constantly impressed and amazed by the resilience of RC pilots in general, and Pattern pilots in particular. Hats off to George and all of the RC pilots like him. Nice recovery!
On Buying Expensive Airplanes
Last month we looked at the buying of expensive airplanes as a route to being competitive. An expensive airplane is really not a requirement to get into Pattern. Sure, I now own some pattern airplanes, but—and it is a big but—these purchases did not happen until I was well on my way through the AMA classes.
If a pilot decides to buy a top-of-the-line Pattern airplane to begin with, it may or may not be good for that specific pilot. However, an increasing number of winners at the local contests are flying what the top pilots fly.
The discouraging effect on the pilot—especially the one considering entry into Pattern—is what most concerns those of us promoting the hobby. It has to be a big negative to see the price of some of the equipment out there.
The message here is to start with what you can handle and afford. You only need a four- or five-channel radio. You are allowed to show up at the field with the "winner's" latest super BrandX 10-channel computer radio, but you don't have to start out that way. Pattern may look like an "equipment war" and the temptation is to believe that you have to buy your way onto the winner's podium. You can avoid this trap for several seasons.
In Formula I car racing and NASCAR® racing, you need top-of-the-line equipment to win. It is definitely true that you need a top-of-the-line Pattern airplane to win the FAI world championship. Nobody could deny that!
It is the same logic with a Formula I car. The difference is that you cannot take a Formula I car and run it in a NASCAR® race; the equipment rules would prevent it.
In Pattern you can take the FAI airplane and fly it in all of the four AMA classes 401–404 (although in 401 they don't allow you to retract the model's landing gear, if fitted with retracts).
Nobody would think of entering a 180-mph oval race with a VW Beetle®, but we do expect RC pilots to enter our contests with a "sport airplane." I think that this is the root of where most of the known problems begin to manifest themselves.
It is only natural that once you get interested in a sport, you go after the best equipment. I have purchased two of the designs that have won FAI and AMA National Championships.
If I was beginning today, I would do it very differently. There were very few off-the-shelf purchases that I could have made in those halcyon days!
Things have really changed. There are a large number of airplanes that will be very competitive, especially in the first two competition classes of Pattern. Here are just a few of the airplanes that I know of and also saw by thumbing through the major RC magazines. The most-expensive model that I saw was $400; the least-expensive was $99. All are basically ARFs. The list is in no special order, and could easily be expanded with a little research.
- Cermark Javelin-45 — four-channel, fixed gear, for a .45 two-stroke.
- Hobbico Spectrum .40 — four-channel, .45 two-stroke.
- Great Planes Tracer.
- Hangar 9 CAP 232 — four-channel, 1.20 four-stroke.
- Airborne Breitling CAP 232 — .40–.70.
- EPIC RC Extra 300S and CAP 21 — .46–.60 two-stroke.
- World Model Manufacturing Co., Tai Ji series — Tai Ji-40 for .40–.46, and Tai Ji-60 for 60 to 120 four-stroke.
- Quadcortech and Gator Giles 300 ARCs for 140 four-stroke.
- Airborne and World Models Super Chipmunk — come with retracts installed and flaps. With an O.S. .91 you would be competitive; with a YS .91 it can roll vertically out of sight.
- CAP 232 from Yellow Aircraft — suitable engines include large two-strokes and Enya 1.55, Saito 1.80, and the inevitable YS 1.40. The CAP looks like a Scale airplane, but is also a good shed-capable Pattern airplane. It is an excellent ARF that would be hard to build better than what comes out of the box.
All of the above, and many more that I did not intentionally leave out, will get you to the contest flightline with only a few days of "construction." After a season or so you can then decide to buy that "Formula I winner."
The Stall Turn: Pre-Pattern Challenge
The Stall Turn is a misnomer at best.
The airplane is pointed straight up until it is stopped (or, as it is commonly referred to, stalled). It is then rotated 180° around its approximate center with rudder action. Then it comes back down approximately the same line that it went up; a good Stall Turn will look like the airplane has gone up and down on the same vertical line. A pattern Stall Turn allows the pilot up to half a wingspan deviation from the line taken to go up.
The most-common error that pilots make is to bring the throttle to idle and wait until the airplane comes to a stop. Quite often, the Stall Turn part flops over, or the airplane even slides backward; once the prop's thrust is gone, only airspeed will make the rudder effective. Without airspeed, there is no steerage, and you only have gravity left.
You can do a Stall Turn this way. This makes it very hard to tell a pilot who has been "getting" a Stall Turn that he or she is not doing it right. This is usually because they have been putting in the rudder while there is still some air passing over it, or have been leaning the airplane slightly.
There is another way that gives more-accurate and more-predictable Stall Turns:
Try reducing the throttle to roughly one-third or one-quarter and hold the vertical line until the airplane almost stops. Unless you have a very powerful engine, the airplane will not continue to climb.
As the airplane comes to a stop, you can apply rudder. The airplane will react, because air is still being blown over the rudder. As the airplane starts to rotate—and not until it does—pull back the rest of the throttle.
Now the airplane will drop nose-down and will not perform a wingover. With this technique you can make the model do a Stall Turn in either direction with certainty. But you still have to deal with wind.
Because you are required to draw a line in the sky, and not just simply point the fuselage straight up, you have to apply wind correction.
In a headwind, you will need to lean the nose into the wind. The lean is increased as the climb speed decreases. The stall then takes place with the airplane leaning into the wind. This is where the throttle you kept in begins to help considerably. The rudder will be effective and will drive the airplane through the stall, despite the attempts by gravity to mess up your maneuver.
When the stall has to be performed in a crosswind, the rudder is applied as the airplane climbs. This leans the airplane into the stall, and prevents the pilot from executing a full 180° rotation. This is okay, because the Stall Turn only requires the pilot to rotate the airplane; the wind-correction rule overrides the rotation requirement. In fact, a really skilled pilot will stop the rotation short of the vertical to begin wind-correction for the down line.
The helpful thing about leaning into a crosswind is that you almost never fail to get a "stall" from the airplane. The judging is severe to be sure; if the pilot goes too far, then a snap or a flat spin will also get a zero for this maneuver.
Grab your buddy again, and get him/her to tell you if the model is going straight up and straight down. Then go and nail a guaranteed Stall Turn—every time.
"Kick some rudder, folks!" MA
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
