RADIO CONTROL SCALE AEROBATICS
Mike Hurley, 11542 Decatur Ct., Westminster CO 80234; E-mail: [email protected]
IN THE LAST column I talked with new International Miniature Aerobatic Club (IMAC) competitor Chuck Hobart. I thought it would be nice to get an idea of what new people coming into the sport are going through. For those of you just starting to think about competition, I'll bet you can relate to how Chuck feels, and this can give you the chance to see that you're not alone.
For those of us who have been competing for a while, here's a chance to relate to what the new guys are experiencing and maybe spend a little more time helping them out. I know they all appreciate it. Let's see how Chuck's first couple of contests turned out.
"You've competed in two IMAC contests now. Tell us some of your impressions."
"About seven or eight years ago I looked into flying in Pattern competition. I went to a couple of meets in my area and found the competitors to be very secretive and standoffish. Nobody wanted to help. I felt like nobody wanted me there and nobody wanted to talk to me. Needless to say, I stayed away from competition for a long time because of that experience.
"I was a little worried about that with IMAC, but it certainly has turned out to be exactly the opposite. I felt appreciated, I felt wanted, everyone was willing to lend a hand, and there were no secrets. Talking with my buddy up in Idaho, he agrees with me. Everybody he's met that's connected with IMAC are good people, willing to help. Everybody's glad that we're there. It's just a nice experience."
"Did you feel like you were prepared to fly?"
"Well, I thought I was. My biggest problem was my nerves. The second meet was a lot better than the first one, and I was able to settle down quite a bit and do slightly better."
"I thought that you improved greatly."
"I saw an improvement myself. There were some of the maneuvers I thought I did well—not perfect, but well. And I saw some problems that I've got to work on. But in general, I saw an improvement and I felt good.
"I had a few problems with my airplane and I really felt bad about it. It bothered me because I thought my plane was prepared. I got some help to fix the problems and some advice to add more or less exponential which made the plane fly better."
"In regards to the contest and what you were expecting, were there any surprises?"
"Calling another class was my first experience with an Unknown, and when I move up a class I'm gonna be terrified of that! Wow!"
"What's next for you? Will you compete again?"
"Definitely. I am really looking forward to the contest next month, and I'll finish the whole local schedule to complete the season. I'm going to call this my training year. And I've got an idea for a new plane for next year; I'm going to upgrade a little bit. If I were to finish much better this year I would consider Sportsman next year. It's my expectation that I'll take it a little more serious next year."
Thanks to Chuck for letting me follow him around and bug him during these first contests. I wish him all the best in his upcoming competitions.
Which airplane for 3-D?
On almost a weekly basis it seems I'm asked about what airplane to buy/build for a beginning 3-D model. Many have a preconceived idea of what they want to get, and when they do they often buy the wrong airplane. I'll tell them my recommendations; they have a hard time letting go of their expectations.
I thought it might be helpful to share my own ideas for putting together a good 3-D aircraft that will be reliable, performance oriented, and easy to learn 3-D with. And, hey, in the process you should have a pretty decent precision aircraft too!
Most pilots want to start out with a .25-.32 or approximately .70- to .84-inch airplane. The cost is lower, it's easier to store and transport, and it's certainly more within the comfort zone when it comes to big airplane imitation. But when you limit yourself to a model this size, you are making a compromise. Smaller airplanes are exceptionally harder to learn any 3-D with; therefore, it's a mistake to start with these smaller airplanes for anyone who wants to try 3-D.
For a beginning 3-D airplane I recommend staying with something that has a wingspan of roughly 95 inches or larger. Following are my personal picks for a good first 3-D aircraft.
Airframes: There are tons of good Scale Aerobatic (SA) airplanes to choose from in the 33-35% range. Many of them are Almost Ready to Fly (ARFs), and the ARFs of this size are reasonably built and have excellent designs for 3-D performance. They offer the best value in the SA group of airplanes because of the building time saved, the quality, and the finishes versus the cost.
The ARFs I like are Hangar 9's 33% CAP 232 (if you can still find one; I believe they have ended that production run) and 33% Sukhoi SU-31, and Aeroworks' 33% Extra 300L, 33% Extra 300LX (yes, this airplane is now available as an ARF), and new 35% Katana. Aeroworks also has a budget-minded 31½- to 32-inch Edge 540T in the works; I'll detail this model further in a future column. I also like the RadioMaster 35% Extra 300LX and the FiberClassics 31½- and 33% 300SX.
If you want to scratch build, I've designed a 35% Extra 300LX that is very good at 3-D and precision. It is due to be published in the January 2003 issue of this magazine. Kits I like are Carden's 35% Edge 540 and 33% CAP 232, and any 31-35% Aeroworks kit; the 33% Extra, the 31% Sukhoi, or the 33% Edge 540T; all are excellent aircraft. There are certainly other airplanes that fit into this category, but these are the ones I can recommend.
Engines: Choosing an engine is difficult because there are so many and some of them are heavily advertised in the magazines. I'm very picky about the one I use because there's nothing I hate more than spending the day futzing with the airplane instead of flying!
One thing you want to keep in mind is that the weight of the engine should be the determining factor in your choice — not the displacement. If a 100cc engine weighs the same as an 80, I go for the 100, even if it's not within the airplane manufacturer's recommendations! But you must be very careful not to overpower or underweight the airframe. Some of the smaller engines such as the ZDZ 80 single — even though it has great power — can be too light for some airframes, and you can end up with a model that needs more weight.
My engine recommendations for the preceding airframes are the Desert Aircraft DA-100, the 3W-100, the BME-100, and the ZDZ 80 single and twin. With the exception of one engine I stay with twins. I've also picked (again with one exception) only engines that have electronic ignition — those that have been designed for the starter for our application. The design of these engines makes them superior for what we want to do with them. They are built with light weight in mind, and they have been designed and ported to optimize their powerband that fits our application.
My favorite for any of the above airplanes is the DA-100 for its lightweight, reliability, power, and DA's excellent customer service. Does it seem like I'm forgetting a lot of engine manufacturers?
Radios: I'm a firm believer in sticking with the name brands — things we know have had extensive R&D in their design and are backed by companies that can and will stand behind their products. I recommend staying with JR, Futaba, or Airtronics.
You will not have the ability to extensively program your radio in time you will learn to use mixing, for trimming out crowd coupling, flight modes, or conditions for different scenarios or even separate maneuvers, and you will come to rely on features such as VTR and exponential for precise control or while flying at extreme 3-D rates. JR's 10DX and Futaba's 9Z and 9C top the list, but radios such as the Airtronics 9SX4, Futaba's new 9C, and the JR 8103 offer exceptional value in a radio that gives you many usable features.
Servos: Everybody wants to go with the new digital servos, but digitals do make things a little more complex when gearing becomes the one servo to run a single control surface. Let's not forget that there are some very capable analog servos that offer precision, reliability, and high torque without the use of digitals; each other when ganged together. I like JR's 2751 and Airtronics' 9453SE2.
If you absolutely have to go with a digital servo, my recommendation is the JR DS8411. But to make things work a whole lot better when they're needed to be ganged to one control, use the new matchbox from JR to program the servos to work in tandem. (I'll have a more in-depth report on matchboxes in an upcoming column.) One avenue to make things less complicated is to use analog servos for the primary surfaces that cannot be mixed together (such as on ailerons), and go with digitals for the other surfaces, using your radio to mix the rudder or elevators.
Without getting ridiculously in-depth, any combination of the preceding should result in a 3-D-capable airplane that will jump-start the learning process and have you flying elevators, harriers, and waterfalls in a short time! If you have a topic that you would like to cover more completely, drop me an E-mail and let me know. I'll do my best to get it into an upcoming issue.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
