The way I beat cabin fever is to get out and fly. My Baby-O (47-inch Osiris) was bought specifically for winter flying. Arriving at the field with charged batteries and a fully assembled airplane is a time saver.
When I remember, I mount an (unplugged) battery in the airplane before leaving the workshop. The idea is to get six flights in before freezing.
With an eye on flying Advanced, I’ve been working on some of the Advanced maneuvers. A typical winter practice begins with flying end-to-end straight and level, concentrating on turn-around maneuvers and wind correction, and progressing quickly into using half loops on the ends for inverted practice.
The next flights add centered maneuvers. The last flights are the “let’s try something” flights. Sometimes I’m cold and ready to go home; on these days “something” becomes nothing more than (wind corrected) strafing runs back and forth down the runway.
The whole excursion takes a couple of hours. These quick trips help me become accustomed to flying in a variety of wind and light conditions with the added benefit of keeping the fingers moving. Plus, flying is just plain fun!
A tip from the National Society of Radio Controlled Aerobatics (NSRCA) president, Jim Quinn: small, freshly flown batteries make excellent glove warmers.
Computer Numerical Control Router
Pavel Safarik began building and flying models as a boy in his native Czech Republic. Now living and flying here in the Northwest with his son, Alexander, Pavel not only builds his own aircraft designs, he builds the tools used to fabricate their parts and pieces.
Pavel’s family moved from the Czech Republic to Austria in the late 1980s, where Pavel found a group flying F3A Aerobatics. His new best friend quickly became a Webra 61LS as he transitioned from flying sailplanes to flying F3A Aerobatics. He was frequently coached by the likes of Helmut Danksagmüller.
Pavel’s entry into RC Aerobatics coincided with when eastern Europeans began attending western European contests. Having lived in both eastern and western Europe, Pavel became the de facto interpreter at contests, translating between Czech and German. During this time Pavel met Hanno Prettner for a second time and discovered him to be not only a great Pattern flier, but a person who freely exchanged information.
For financial reasons, the (new) unlimited engine displacement rule change forced Pavel away from Aerobatics. Pavel began fabricating his own molds in earnest. He vacuum-formed sailplane parts using a vacuum pump he made from refrigerator parts.
Later in life, after finding a lack of sailplane activity near his new home of Seattle, Pavel’s attention again focused on RC Aerobatics. He entered his first US Pattern contest in June 2005.
Not satisfied with the accuracy of using traditional plugs and molds, he created several plans for a homebuilt computer numerical control (CNC) machine, but none resulted in a machine being built.
In 2010, Pavel purchased a complete CNC router kit from CNCRouterparts.com. The model he bought is capable of four-axes control.
Pavel’s next challenge was to control the tool. After many frustrating hours and finding help on CNC forums, he was successfully using Mach3 software. The CNC itself is controlled using the parallel port generally found on older PCs. He swapped the PC bought specifically for his CNC machine with an old PC Alexander used. Lucky Alexander!
Alexander soloed in 2007 at age 11. In 2008, he flew in his first contest. Since then Alexander has moved up class after class. Skipping the Masters class, he is currently flying F3A, where he routinely beats all comers.
In a future column I will look at Pavel’s newest F3A design.
Sportsman of the Month
At the District VIII Championships in 2010, there was a Sportsman pilot who had airplane troubles all day. He wasn’t around the second day and didn’t attend the 2011 event.
Early Sunday morning at the 2012 Championships, while cooking my oatmeal, a fellow contestant asked me if I write the “RC Aerobatics” column in MA. I said yes and the conversation flowed from there.
His name is Greg Noyce. Two years earlier he was the Sportsman pilot whom I noted was having airplane trouble. Undeterred by his first contest experience, Greg entered the 2012 District VIII Championships, where he completed all six rounds, ending with a respectable second-place finish behind District VIII Sportsman champion Dick Matson.
Let’s wish Greg a big “Pattern welcome!”
Sportsman of the month, Greg Noyce, is ready for round five on Sunday morning in Richland, Washington. His score sheets are in the rudder hinge line. The rendition of Pavel’s newest design, which is code named “Condor.” Blue and green pieces will be fabricated. Pavel Safarik, is shown in Redmond Oregon, with his own-designed Sting-BI. The CNC tool nearing the end of rough in. The mold for the cowl half took three weekends to create. It takes 34 hours roughing, with 9 hours of finishing time to go from blank (on right) to the finished mold (on left). The exploded view of the mold and piece that will be fabricated from it.
