RC Pylon Racing
Duane Gall, 1267 S. Beeler Ct., Denver CO 80231; E-mail: [email protected]
RACING LINKS: No, it's not a new addition to the Masters golf tournament. It's a directory of sites for the increasing number of modelers who have home computers with Internet access, collected on a free and voluntary basis by Don Stegall under the name of Pylon World (www.pylonworld.com). Don writes:
"Don't know if you've visited Pylon World lately, but a fair amount of new stuff has been added. Check out the News section for the more significant additions: www.pylonworld.com/news.htm.
"The plans for the Portable Pylon are now online at www.pylonworld.com/pylon/course_equipment/portable_pylon/portable_pylon.htm.
"RCPRO (RC Pylon Racing Organization) is in membership drive mode and is growing. Right now it's at about 50% sport racers, 25% electric racers, and 25% NMPRA (National Miniature Pylon Racing Association) members.
"I'm finding AT-6 racing based on the Rich Uravitch AT-6 all over the place, although many don't have Web sites. I created a site for the North Carolina group at www.pylonworld.com/organizations/saffo_pras/saffo_pras.htm. They have a series of nine races this year, approximately one per month.
"The state of Pylon Racing seems to be much better than was recognized last year. AMA racing may have been down, but events are making a comeback. The [Lanier] Predator has had a positive effect, especially for ARFers and the newcomers.
"Pylon World typically has 200-300 visitors a day, with 2,000-8,000 page views. In my opinion that's a lot for a racing-only Web site, and I believe it's one sign that RC Pylon is going strong.
"We also have new forums as of the start of the year at www.rcuniverse.com/forumsdisplay.php?s=&forumid=55&referrerid=1119. I have started a thread called 'Pylon Racing Code of Conduct' at www.rcuniverse.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18471&forumid=121&referrer....
"We also have a Racing Club Roster forum where people can add their club and any other info they want about their club's racing activities. The forums are really kicking ... there have been threads on making composite wings, and many other positive topics ... it is not a boxing forum. Make sure you set the view to the beginning, or you will miss a lot of interesting threads.
"At first I had to do a lot of digging for information, researching, and following leads. Now that more people know about Pylon World, more information is being sent to me, but we can always use more and make every effort to get it online as soon as possible. Please send any Web site links, product info, E-mail addresses, phone numbers, addresses, event info, or other Pylon-related information to the E-mail address listed on Pylon World."
If there's another like-minded individual at the field with a similar airplane, you've already got the makings of a local racing circuit
But that still leaves approximately 98% of the land area in the continental US without any nearby racing activity. If you live in that 98%, basically all you can do is buy a cool-looking Almost Ready to Fly (ARF), stick on an oversize engine in it, and content yourself with wild aerobatics and an occasional high-speed pass at the local field on Sunday afternoons.
If there's another like-minded individual at the field with a similar airplane, you've already got the makings of a local racing circuit. But what if one of you is using a much bigger engine than the other? What if one of you has retractable landing gear? To keep the competition from being entirely lopsided (i.e., boring), there needs to be a few basic agreements about hand wave. Those agreements collectively make up what we call a rule "formula."
Last month I identified the original sin of the 1965 Goodyear/F1 formula as omitting, or having "simplified" out, those features that would have kept the models similar enough to ordinary sport airplanes to blend into a Sunday-afternoon flying session at the local field, much as the IMAC (International Miniature Aerobatic Club) and MiniMAC aerobatic models do today. Only a fraction of those models are ever entered in competition, yet they are seen and admired every weekend when flown for sport. Qualifying models are easy to find, easy to fly, and new pilots line up to try them.
Racing models don't enjoy the same broad acceptance, but it doesn't have to be that way. The fact is that we allowed them to mutate into specialized "beasts" early on, through a sort of Darwinian selection that focused too much on the task of racing and not enough on survival of the species. Longtime racer Bob Dible recalls:
"After the introduction of the F1 rules, a few preliminary races were held and interest in the concept spread like wildfire. All the magazines in the late '60s featured RC Pylon in articles, advertisements, and promotion. It was our golden age, with huge numbers of people giving the event a try—even at a time when radios were primitive, expensive, and unreliable.
"Unfortunately, the seeds of destruction were sown with the early success. As last month's column points out, the event..." quickly moved away from the abilities of the average sport pilot and racing withered to the rather limited state in which we find it today. Unless a successful sporting event emerges, it is unlikely that organized racing will ever occupy more than a very small niche again."
Why Be Normal? Since the initial decline of F1, there have been occasions to create a "successful sporting event." However, most of these attempts didn't challenge the original, faulty paradigm of F1 itself.
Instead, they simply copied it on a smaller scale and/or required the use of cheap, low-output sport engines—which, of course, the manufacturers were only too happy to "improve" once a market niche was established. At that point, the cost and horsepower tripled, the airspeed doubled, and the new people disappeared.
Therefore, I suggest a radical rethink of the whole concept of a racing class. With a little indirection, let's not rush headlong once more down the well-worn path to you-know-where. Instead, let's choose the destination and trace a path backward to where we are now. What do we want that destination?
1) Be-normal flyers. This means realistic airframes. In a world of ARFs, there's no need to limit ourselves to a balsa box—and no problem including detailed specs, because commercial manufacturers will make it their business to read and follow them if a national market develops.
2) Affordable engines. This means a roomy airplane that takes standard radio gear, doesn't cost too much, and has enough airframe drag to soak up the horsepower of item 3 that follows.
3) Street-tuned engines. An engine in the $75-$150 range that, like the popular Quickie 500 (event 428) shows that, like it or not, we will end up with $350 engines that generate six to seven horsepower per cubic inch, run within a few rpm of each other right out of the box, and can survive all but the worst crashes—even in a so-called "entry-level" event. So let's just relax and enjoy it.
4) Minimalist rules. These are needless baggage for the actual task of racing in a contest. But without them, the model cannot be started in the pits and taxed into position for takeoff. Instead, the pilot and caller must ask other modelers to clear the runways so they can start up and launch for a testflight. Even the most patient of scullers get tired of the, whether they are willing to say it to your face or not.
5) Sensible specs. No gear-doors, no retractable stuff, fixed tailwheels, no fancy trim arrangements. "Razor or rubber" has less drag in the air, but it
breaks airplanes on the ground when you run off into the potatoes.
A Modest Proposal: Last month I had good things to say about the Great Planes Shoestring 60 ARF. There's also an R/F replica of the F1 Midget Mustang in approximately the same size, produced by World Models, and by the time you read this I hope to have completed flight testing on a Little Ton.
These are reasonably priced, not-too-huge models that look like full-scale F1 racing airplanes, fly well, land gently, can taxi and take off on grass fields, and go fast enough to be interesting when powered by a two-stroke .91 cubic-inch engine. If you think racing is cool, this is the kind of thing you'd probably choose for a sport model anyway. And it reflects the current state of the art in high-performance sport airplanes—much as Jerry Nelson's .40-powered F1 R lives represented the state of the art in 1965.
If anyone out there is even thinking about organizing a fly-in or a contest for these, I respectfully request that you E-mail me for a copy of the full text of a rule formula Bob Dible and I have put together in anticipation of such an effort. It has been very carefully thought through to try to plug a few loopholes before your buddies charge through them in a flying wedge. If it turns into a racing event, great. And if not, no harm and no foul. It's a no-lose proposition.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
