THE PICTURES this month are of a Ka 6e that Steve Betts built from a CNC Modellbautechnik kit. The column starts with a description of the museum-quality, built-up Scale kits from CNC Modellbautechnik. Then I'll review two Soaring videos: Lift Ticket from Dave Reese and Endless Lift 3 from Paul Naton. CNC Modellbautechnik makes high-end, built-up glider kits. US distributors of these kits are Endless Mountain Models (John Derstine) in the East and ShredAir (Dieter Mahlein) in the West. In addition to the Ka 6e shown, CNC Modellbautechnik makes a gorgeous Minimoa, an aerobatic glider called the Lo 100. an ASK 18 B, a Scheibe L-Spatz, and a Ka 1. Most are 1/3 scale. All have scale outlines and scale construction. The ribs are cut from birch plywood with a computer numerically controlled (CNC) router. This is much more expensive than laser-cutting. The CNC router does not leave burnt edges like a laser does. The lack of laser burns has aesthetic benefit and makes for stronger glue joints. Most of the CNC kits use scale wing joiners. The scale airfoils have been replaced by modern Quabaeck airfoils to enhance the models' performance. The ribs have tabs on them to allow the wings to be built flat on a board. The tabs are removed after the wing is framed up. The precut shear webs also lock into place. The wooden fuselages have similar building crutches to facilitate fast-building, straight structures. The CNC kits are not cheap. The Ka 6e is currently selling for $1,295. The 5.66-meter Minimoa kit is $1,555. You are paying for the luxury of a well-engineered, fast-building kit. Fast-building is a relative term; the ads state that a kit can be framed up in 150 hours. Scratch-building the same aircraft could easily take 10 times that amount of labor. Check out additional detail pictures and specifications on the ShredAir and Endless Mountain Models Web sites. When Dave Reese asked me to review his first entry into the glider-video market, I was pessimistic. Paul Naton's company, Radio Carbon Art, makes videos of completely professional quality. Could Dave Reese's video compete with those made by Paul Naton? The short answer is, yes. Lift Ticket is in the same league. Dave distilled 50 hours of raw footage into a two-hour video. There is enough good footage on Lift Ticket to make two high-quality videos. Lift Ticket is at the professional level—better than what 99% of the hobbyists can do. It is probably no coincidence that Paul Naton is listed as a contributing cameraman in the Lift Ticket credits. I found the content of Lift Ticket to be pretty exciting. There are many flights with high-wing-loading slope gliders that redefine the word "ballistic." Some use smoke cartridges on the wingtips. See Scott Hewett hand-catch his 26-ounce-wing-loading Higgins F20. Then he dares to catch it inverted. The video shows the failed attempts too. The video features more than a dozen locations in the Western United States, including Mt. Howard, Imnaha Canyon, Dixie Lookout, Abert Rimm, Cape Bianco, and Goose Lake in Oregon. In Washington Dave visited Kiona Butte, Eagle Butte, and Chandler Butte. In California they filmed at the Golden Gate Bridge, Sunset State Park, and many other places. For most slopes in the video. Dave tells where they are and what wind directions they support. The locations are beautiful, and the pilots are fun to watch. The video includes 29 minutes of Scale and Power Slope Scale (PSS). These gliders are scale models of propeller or jet aircraft. Footage is from the 1998 Los Banos South Bay Soaring Society Scale event. Soar Utah '98 at Point of the Mountain and Francis Peak in Utah, and the Inland Slope Rebels' PSS Spring Fest at Cajon Summit in Southern California. A couple of the PSS gliders have onboard sound systems to emulate jet or machine-gun noises. High-speed half pipes and unusual subjects are featured in this segment. There are more cool models than you will see in a year of Sundays at the local slope. Next is a segment on slope combat. Footage is from a Los Banos Bash and Kiona Butte. It includes an interview with Pat Bowman and Joe Wurts. They show the first-ever expanded polypropylene (EPP) glider. Pat is credited with first using EPP for Radio Control (RC) gliders in roughly 1996. The last 42 minutes of the video feature many pilots dynamic soaring (DS) in many locations with many different airplanes. Lift Ticket is currently the best video available to watch and learn the art of DS. By showing all these permutations of people, airplane, and place, it is easy to see the common techniques that are not specific to one variable. DS is where a pilot exploits a wind gradient by flying loops or circles in it. The model goes downwind in the fast air and turns around in the slow air. By carefully choosing the glider's path, great speeds can be reached. In the video, a radar gun is used to show some passes exceeding 170 mph. Joe Wurts (interviewed in this video) is credited with discovering that RC gliders are capable of DS. Several clips show multiple airplanes DS together in eggbeater form. The DS segment of the video was my favorite. The screaming sounds of the airplanes as they tore through the air kept my attention. This video is a must hu\ for the DS footage alone. This must have been a labor of love for Dave Reese. It has more good content than anv glider video I have seen. Great job, Dave! The other video review is for Endless Lift 3 by Paul Naton of Radio Carbon Art. The first Endless Lift was a video diary following Paul as he tried slopes across the country. The second was more of the first, with additional emphasis on cool flying by others. Endless Lift 3 is different in that it is a sampler of "what is new and exciting in RC soaring." Paul has organized this video into chapters— each featuring a different subsport of gliding. Featured first are F5B electric gliders from the F5B World Championships in San Diego, California. If you have not seen this event, high-powered electric gliders are flown for duration, distance, and a landing task. Next is cross-country (XC) RC glider racing at the Montague (California) Cross Country Challenge. As the video says, XC is gaining popularity among jaded thermal-duration pilots. A great deal of strategy and teamwork are required to succeed in XC. Four-time World F3B Champion Daryl Perkins is interviewed about competing at the World Championships. He also shares his desires for the future of slope racing and thermal-duration contests. There is a short segment on DS, including footage of Paul Naton's Speed Runner clocked at 173 mph at Kiona Butte, Washington. Paul also shows how he can DS using pockets of still air on the front side of a slope. Dieter Mahlein of ShredAir shows the guts of a couple high-performance electric gliders. He proceeds to demonstrate how an electric glider can be launched out to fly in otherwise inaccessible locations. The ability to climb out on demand is a great advantage when exploring new slopes. Phil Pearson and Dick Barker explain their part in the history of "discus launching." This method of launching 1.5-meter gliders has completely changed the nature of Hand-Launched Glider contests. There are highlights of the Scale aerotow at Chino, California. This is a small subset of the aerotow footage in Paul's Pro Aerotow video. Next is Alan Cocconi's incredible fly-by-video-camera electric glider. Alan flies it from a video monitor inside his van. He has more navigation and systems information via telemetry than most full-scale light airplanes have in their cockpits. I found Endless Lift 3 to be a cool soaring sampler. Chances arc that you have not seen or tried all the different types of soaring featured in this video. Like all of Paul's videos, it is professional enough for broadcast television. He even sells his work on DVD now! If the subject matter interests you, you are sure to like Paul's videos. I thought we were lucky to have a producer of professional-quality videos target the RC-glider arena; now we have two. AM Sources: CNC kits Western US distributor: ShredAir Box 10093 Eugene OR 97440 (541) 954-6842 (evenings Pacific Time are best) www.shredair.com CNC kits Eastern US distributor: Endless Mountain Models RD#3 Box 336 Gillett PA 16925 (570) 596-2392 www.scalesoaring.net/EMM/rand.htm Lift Ticket video: Reese Productions Box 3607 Santa Cruz CA 95063 (831)475-8662 www.reeseproductions.com/index.html Endless Lift 3 video: Radio Carbon Art Box 2311 Corvallis OR 97339 (541) 752-9661 (10 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific time) www.radiocarbonart.com
Edition: Model Aviation - 2002/10
Page Numbers: 84, 86, 88, 91
Edition: Model Aviation - 2002/10
Page Numbers: 84, 86, 88, 91
THE PICTURES this month are of a Ka 6e that Steve Betts built from a CNC Modellbautechnik kit. The column starts with a description of the museum-quality, built-up Scale kits from CNC Modellbautechnik. Then I'll review two Soaring videos: Lift Ticket from Dave Reese and Endless Lift 3 from Paul Naton. CNC Modellbautechnik makes high-end, built-up glider kits. US distributors of these kits are Endless Mountain Models (John Derstine) in the East and ShredAir (Dieter Mahlein) in the West. In addition to the Ka 6e shown, CNC Modellbautechnik makes a gorgeous Minimoa, an aerobatic glider called the Lo 100. an ASK 18 B, a Scheibe L-Spatz, and a Ka 1. Most are 1/3 scale. All have scale outlines and scale construction. The ribs are cut from birch plywood with a computer numerically controlled (CNC) router. This is much more expensive than laser-cutting. The CNC router does not leave burnt edges like a laser does. The lack of laser burns has aesthetic benefit and makes for stronger glue joints. Most of the CNC kits use scale wing joiners. The scale airfoils have been replaced by modern Quabaeck airfoils to enhance the models' performance. The ribs have tabs on them to allow the wings to be built flat on a board. The tabs are removed after the wing is framed up. The precut shear webs also lock into place. The wooden fuselages have similar building crutches to facilitate fast-building, straight structures. The CNC kits are not cheap. The Ka 6e is currently selling for $1,295. The 5.66-meter Minimoa kit is $1,555. You are paying for the luxury of a well-engineered, fast-building kit. Fast-building is a relative term; the ads state that a kit can be framed up in 150 hours. Scratch-building the same aircraft could easily take 10 times that amount of labor. Check out additional detail pictures and specifications on the ShredAir and Endless Mountain Models Web sites. When Dave Reese asked me to review his first entry into the glider-video market, I was pessimistic. Paul Naton's company, Radio Carbon Art, makes videos of completely professional quality. Could Dave Reese's video compete with those made by Paul Naton? The short answer is, yes. Lift Ticket is in the same league. Dave distilled 50 hours of raw footage into a two-hour video. There is enough good footage on Lift Ticket to make two high-quality videos. Lift Ticket is at the professional level—better than what 99% of the hobbyists can do. It is probably no coincidence that Paul Naton is listed as a contributing cameraman in the Lift Ticket credits. I found the content of Lift Ticket to be pretty exciting. There are many flights with high-wing-loading slope gliders that redefine the word "ballistic." Some use smoke cartridges on the wingtips. See Scott Hewett hand-catch his 26-ounce-wing-loading Higgins F20. Then he dares to catch it inverted. The video shows the failed attempts too. The video features more than a dozen locations in the Western United States, including Mt. Howard, Imnaha Canyon, Dixie Lookout, Abert Rimm, Cape Bianco, and Goose Lake in Oregon. In Washington Dave visited Kiona Butte, Eagle Butte, and Chandler Butte. In California they filmed at the Golden Gate Bridge, Sunset State Park, and many other places. For most slopes in the video. Dave tells where they are and what wind directions they support. The locations are beautiful, and the pilots are fun to watch. The video includes 29 minutes of Scale and Power Slope Scale (PSS). These gliders are scale models of propeller or jet aircraft. Footage is from the 1998 Los Banos South Bay Soaring Society Scale event. Soar Utah '98 at Point of the Mountain and Francis Peak in Utah, and the Inland Slope Rebels' PSS Spring Fest at Cajon Summit in Southern California. A couple of the PSS gliders have onboard sound systems to emulate jet or machine-gun noises. High-speed half pipes and unusual subjects are featured in this segment. There are more cool models than you will see in a year of Sundays at the local slope. Next is a segment on slope combat. Footage is from a Los Banos Bash and Kiona Butte. It includes an interview with Pat Bowman and Joe Wurts. They show the first-ever expanded polypropylene (EPP) glider. Pat is credited with first using EPP for Radio Control (RC) gliders in roughly 1996. The last 42 minutes of the video feature many pilots dynamic soaring (DS) in many locations with many different airplanes. Lift Ticket is currently the best video available to watch and learn the art of DS. By showing all these permutations of people, airplane, and place, it is easy to see the common techniques that are not specific to one variable. DS is where a pilot exploits a wind gradient by flying loops or circles in it. The model goes downwind in the fast air and turns around in the slow air. By carefully choosing the glider's path, great speeds can be reached. In the video, a radar gun is used to show some passes exceeding 170 mph. Joe Wurts (interviewed in this video) is credited with discovering that RC gliders are capable of DS. Several clips show multiple airplanes DS together in eggbeater form. The DS segment of the video was my favorite. The screaming sounds of the airplanes as they tore through the air kept my attention. This video is a must hu\ for the DS footage alone. This must have been a labor of love for Dave Reese. It has more good content than anv glider video I have seen. Great job, Dave! The other video review is for Endless Lift 3 by Paul Naton of Radio Carbon Art. The first Endless Lift was a video diary following Paul as he tried slopes across the country. The second was more of the first, with additional emphasis on cool flying by others. Endless Lift 3 is different in that it is a sampler of "what is new and exciting in RC soaring." Paul has organized this video into chapters— each featuring a different subsport of gliding. Featured first are F5B electric gliders from the F5B World Championships in San Diego, California. If you have not seen this event, high-powered electric gliders are flown for duration, distance, and a landing task. Next is cross-country (XC) RC glider racing at the Montague (California) Cross Country Challenge. As the video says, XC is gaining popularity among jaded thermal-duration pilots. A great deal of strategy and teamwork are required to succeed in XC. Four-time World F3B Champion Daryl Perkins is interviewed about competing at the World Championships. He also shares his desires for the future of slope racing and thermal-duration contests. There is a short segment on DS, including footage of Paul Naton's Speed Runner clocked at 173 mph at Kiona Butte, Washington. Paul also shows how he can DS using pockets of still air on the front side of a slope. Dieter Mahlein of ShredAir shows the guts of a couple high-performance electric gliders. He proceeds to demonstrate how an electric glider can be launched out to fly in otherwise inaccessible locations. The ability to climb out on demand is a great advantage when exploring new slopes. Phil Pearson and Dick Barker explain their part in the history of "discus launching." This method of launching 1.5-meter gliders has completely changed the nature of Hand-Launched Glider contests. There are highlights of the Scale aerotow at Chino, California. This is a small subset of the aerotow footage in Paul's Pro Aerotow video. Next is Alan Cocconi's incredible fly-by-video-camera electric glider. Alan flies it from a video monitor inside his van. He has more navigation and systems information via telemetry than most full-scale light airplanes have in their cockpits. I found Endless Lift 3 to be a cool soaring sampler. Chances arc that you have not seen or tried all the different types of soaring featured in this video. Like all of Paul's videos, it is professional enough for broadcast television. He even sells his work on DVD now! If the subject matter interests you, you are sure to like Paul's videos. I thought we were lucky to have a producer of professional-quality videos target the RC-glider arena; now we have two. AM Sources: CNC kits Western US distributor: ShredAir Box 10093 Eugene OR 97440 (541) 954-6842 (evenings Pacific Time are best) www.shredair.com CNC kits Eastern US distributor: Endless Mountain Models RD#3 Box 336 Gillett PA 16925 (570) 596-2392 www.scalesoaring.net/EMM/rand.htm Lift Ticket video: Reese Productions Box 3607 Santa Cruz CA 95063 (831)475-8662 www.reeseproductions.com/index.html Endless Lift 3 video: Radio Carbon Art Box 2311 Corvallis OR 97339 (541) 752-9661 (10 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific time) www.radiocarbonart.com
Edition: Model Aviation - 2002/10
Page Numbers: 84, 86, 88, 91
THE PICTURES this month are of a Ka 6e that Steve Betts built from a CNC Modellbautechnik kit. The column starts with a description of the museum-quality, built-up Scale kits from CNC Modellbautechnik. Then I'll review two Soaring videos: Lift Ticket from Dave Reese and Endless Lift 3 from Paul Naton. CNC Modellbautechnik makes high-end, built-up glider kits. US distributors of these kits are Endless Mountain Models (John Derstine) in the East and ShredAir (Dieter Mahlein) in the West. In addition to the Ka 6e shown, CNC Modellbautechnik makes a gorgeous Minimoa, an aerobatic glider called the Lo 100. an ASK 18 B, a Scheibe L-Spatz, and a Ka 1. Most are 1/3 scale. All have scale outlines and scale construction. The ribs are cut from birch plywood with a computer numerically controlled (CNC) router. This is much more expensive than laser-cutting. The CNC router does not leave burnt edges like a laser does. The lack of laser burns has aesthetic benefit and makes for stronger glue joints. Most of the CNC kits use scale wing joiners. The scale airfoils have been replaced by modern Quabaeck airfoils to enhance the models' performance. The ribs have tabs on them to allow the wings to be built flat on a board. The tabs are removed after the wing is framed up. The precut shear webs also lock into place. The wooden fuselages have similar building crutches to facilitate fast-building, straight structures. The CNC kits are not cheap. The Ka 6e is currently selling for $1,295. The 5.66-meter Minimoa kit is $1,555. You are paying for the luxury of a well-engineered, fast-building kit. Fast-building is a relative term; the ads state that a kit can be framed up in 150 hours. Scratch-building the same aircraft could easily take 10 times that amount of labor. Check out additional detail pictures and specifications on the ShredAir and Endless Mountain Models Web sites. When Dave Reese asked me to review his first entry into the glider-video market, I was pessimistic. Paul Naton's company, Radio Carbon Art, makes videos of completely professional quality. Could Dave Reese's video compete with those made by Paul Naton? The short answer is, yes. Lift Ticket is in the same league. Dave distilled 50 hours of raw footage into a two-hour video. There is enough good footage on Lift Ticket to make two high-quality videos. Lift Ticket is at the professional level—better than what 99% of the hobbyists can do. It is probably no coincidence that Paul Naton is listed as a contributing cameraman in the Lift Ticket credits. I found the content of Lift Ticket to be pretty exciting. There are many flights with high-wing-loading slope gliders that redefine the word "ballistic." Some use smoke cartridges on the wingtips. See Scott Hewett hand-catch his 26-ounce-wing-loading Higgins F20. Then he dares to catch it inverted. The video shows the failed attempts too. The video features more than a dozen locations in the Western United States, including Mt. Howard, Imnaha Canyon, Dixie Lookout, Abert Rimm, Cape Bianco, and Goose Lake in Oregon. In Washington Dave visited Kiona Butte, Eagle Butte, and Chandler Butte. In California they filmed at the Golden Gate Bridge, Sunset State Park, and many other places. For most slopes in the video. Dave tells where they are and what wind directions they support. The locations are beautiful, and the pilots are fun to watch. The video includes 29 minutes of Scale and Power Slope Scale (PSS). These gliders are scale models of propeller or jet aircraft. Footage is from the 1998 Los Banos South Bay Soaring Society Scale event. Soar Utah '98 at Point of the Mountain and Francis Peak in Utah, and the Inland Slope Rebels' PSS Spring Fest at Cajon Summit in Southern California. A couple of the PSS gliders have onboard sound systems to emulate jet or machine-gun noises. High-speed half pipes and unusual subjects are featured in this segment. There are more cool models than you will see in a year of Sundays at the local slope. Next is a segment on slope combat. Footage is from a Los Banos Bash and Kiona Butte. It includes an interview with Pat Bowman and Joe Wurts. They show the first-ever expanded polypropylene (EPP) glider. Pat is credited with first using EPP for Radio Control (RC) gliders in roughly 1996. The last 42 minutes of the video feature many pilots dynamic soaring (DS) in many locations with many different airplanes. Lift Ticket is currently the best video available to watch and learn the art of DS. By showing all these permutations of people, airplane, and place, it is easy to see the common techniques that are not specific to one variable. DS is where a pilot exploits a wind gradient by flying loops or circles in it. The model goes downwind in the fast air and turns around in the slow air. By carefully choosing the glider's path, great speeds can be reached. In the video, a radar gun is used to show some passes exceeding 170 mph. Joe Wurts (interviewed in this video) is credited with discovering that RC gliders are capable of DS. Several clips show multiple airplanes DS together in eggbeater form. The DS segment of the video was my favorite. The screaming sounds of the airplanes as they tore through the air kept my attention. This video is a must hu\ for the DS footage alone. This must have been a labor of love for Dave Reese. It has more good content than anv glider video I have seen. Great job, Dave! The other video review is for Endless Lift 3 by Paul Naton of Radio Carbon Art. The first Endless Lift was a video diary following Paul as he tried slopes across the country. The second was more of the first, with additional emphasis on cool flying by others. Endless Lift 3 is different in that it is a sampler of "what is new and exciting in RC soaring." Paul has organized this video into chapters— each featuring a different subsport of gliding. Featured first are F5B electric gliders from the F5B World Championships in San Diego, California. If you have not seen this event, high-powered electric gliders are flown for duration, distance, and a landing task. Next is cross-country (XC) RC glider racing at the Montague (California) Cross Country Challenge. As the video says, XC is gaining popularity among jaded thermal-duration pilots. A great deal of strategy and teamwork are required to succeed in XC. Four-time World F3B Champion Daryl Perkins is interviewed about competing at the World Championships. He also shares his desires for the future of slope racing and thermal-duration contests. There is a short segment on DS, including footage of Paul Naton's Speed Runner clocked at 173 mph at Kiona Butte, Washington. Paul also shows how he can DS using pockets of still air on the front side of a slope. Dieter Mahlein of ShredAir shows the guts of a couple high-performance electric gliders. He proceeds to demonstrate how an electric glider can be launched out to fly in otherwise inaccessible locations. The ability to climb out on demand is a great advantage when exploring new slopes. Phil Pearson and Dick Barker explain their part in the history of "discus launching." This method of launching 1.5-meter gliders has completely changed the nature of Hand-Launched Glider contests. There are highlights of the Scale aerotow at Chino, California. This is a small subset of the aerotow footage in Paul's Pro Aerotow video. Next is Alan Cocconi's incredible fly-by-video-camera electric glider. Alan flies it from a video monitor inside his van. He has more navigation and systems information via telemetry than most full-scale light airplanes have in their cockpits. I found Endless Lift 3 to be a cool soaring sampler. Chances arc that you have not seen or tried all the different types of soaring featured in this video. Like all of Paul's videos, it is professional enough for broadcast television. He even sells his work on DVD now! If the subject matter interests you, you are sure to like Paul's videos. I thought we were lucky to have a producer of professional-quality videos target the RC-glider arena; now we have two. AM Sources: CNC kits Western US distributor: ShredAir Box 10093 Eugene OR 97440 (541) 954-6842 (evenings Pacific Time are best) www.shredair.com CNC kits Eastern US distributor: Endless Mountain Models RD#3 Box 336 Gillett PA 16925 (570) 596-2392 www.scalesoaring.net/EMM/rand.htm Lift Ticket video: Reese Productions Box 3607 Santa Cruz CA 95063 (831)475-8662 www.reeseproductions.com/index.html Endless Lift 3 video: Radio Carbon Art Box 2311 Corvallis OR 97339 (541) 752-9661 (10 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific time) www.radiocarbonart.com
Edition: Model Aviation - 2002/10
Page Numbers: 84, 86, 88, 91
THE PICTURES this month are of a Ka 6e that Steve Betts built from a CNC Modellbautechnik kit. The column starts with a description of the museum-quality, built-up Scale kits from CNC Modellbautechnik. Then I'll review two Soaring videos: Lift Ticket from Dave Reese and Endless Lift 3 from Paul Naton. CNC Modellbautechnik makes high-end, built-up glider kits. US distributors of these kits are Endless Mountain Models (John Derstine) in the East and ShredAir (Dieter Mahlein) in the West. In addition to the Ka 6e shown, CNC Modellbautechnik makes a gorgeous Minimoa, an aerobatic glider called the Lo 100. an ASK 18 B, a Scheibe L-Spatz, and a Ka 1. Most are 1/3 scale. All have scale outlines and scale construction. The ribs are cut from birch plywood with a computer numerically controlled (CNC) router. This is much more expensive than laser-cutting. The CNC router does not leave burnt edges like a laser does. The lack of laser burns has aesthetic benefit and makes for stronger glue joints. Most of the CNC kits use scale wing joiners. The scale airfoils have been replaced by modern Quabaeck airfoils to enhance the models' performance. The ribs have tabs on them to allow the wings to be built flat on a board. The tabs are removed after the wing is framed up. The precut shear webs also lock into place. The wooden fuselages have similar building crutches to facilitate fast-building, straight structures. The CNC kits are not cheap. The Ka 6e is currently selling for $1,295. The 5.66-meter Minimoa kit is $1,555. You are paying for the luxury of a well-engineered, fast-building kit. Fast-building is a relative term; the ads state that a kit can be framed up in 150 hours. Scratch-building the same aircraft could easily take 10 times that amount of labor. Check out additional detail pictures and specifications on the ShredAir and Endless Mountain Models Web sites. When Dave Reese asked me to review his first entry into the glider-video market, I was pessimistic. Paul Naton's company, Radio Carbon Art, makes videos of completely professional quality. Could Dave Reese's video compete with those made by Paul Naton? The short answer is, yes. Lift Ticket is in the same league. Dave distilled 50 hours of raw footage into a two-hour video. There is enough good footage on Lift Ticket to make two high-quality videos. Lift Ticket is at the professional level—better than what 99% of the hobbyists can do. It is probably no coincidence that Paul Naton is listed as a contributing cameraman in the Lift Ticket credits. I found the content of Lift Ticket to be pretty exciting. There are many flights with high-wing-loading slope gliders that redefine the word "ballistic." Some use smoke cartridges on the wingtips. See Scott Hewett hand-catch his 26-ounce-wing-loading Higgins F20. Then he dares to catch it inverted. The video shows the failed attempts too. The video features more than a dozen locations in the Western United States, including Mt. Howard, Imnaha Canyon, Dixie Lookout, Abert Rimm, Cape Bianco, and Goose Lake in Oregon. In Washington Dave visited Kiona Butte, Eagle Butte, and Chandler Butte. In California they filmed at the Golden Gate Bridge, Sunset State Park, and many other places. For most slopes in the video. Dave tells where they are and what wind directions they support. The locations are beautiful, and the pilots are fun to watch. The video includes 29 minutes of Scale and Power Slope Scale (PSS). These gliders are scale models of propeller or jet aircraft. Footage is from the 1998 Los Banos South Bay Soaring Society Scale event. Soar Utah '98 at Point of the Mountain and Francis Peak in Utah, and the Inland Slope Rebels' PSS Spring Fest at Cajon Summit in Southern California. A couple of the PSS gliders have onboard sound systems to emulate jet or machine-gun noises. High-speed half pipes and unusual subjects are featured in this segment. There are more cool models than you will see in a year of Sundays at the local slope. Next is a segment on slope combat. Footage is from a Los Banos Bash and Kiona Butte. It includes an interview with Pat Bowman and Joe Wurts. They show the first-ever expanded polypropylene (EPP) glider. Pat is credited with first using EPP for Radio Control (RC) gliders in roughly 1996. The last 42 minutes of the video feature many pilots dynamic soaring (DS) in many locations with many different airplanes. Lift Ticket is currently the best video available to watch and learn the art of DS. By showing all these permutations of people, airplane, and place, it is easy to see the common techniques that are not specific to one variable. DS is where a pilot exploits a wind gradient by flying loops or circles in it. The model goes downwind in the fast air and turns around in the slow air. By carefully choosing the glider's path, great speeds can be reached. In the video, a radar gun is used to show some passes exceeding 170 mph. Joe Wurts (interviewed in this video) is credited with discovering that RC gliders are capable of DS. Several clips show multiple airplanes DS together in eggbeater form. The DS segment of the video was my favorite. The screaming sounds of the airplanes as they tore through the air kept my attention. This video is a must hu\ for the DS footage alone. This must have been a labor of love for Dave Reese. It has more good content than anv glider video I have seen. Great job, Dave! The other video review is for Endless Lift 3 by Paul Naton of Radio Carbon Art. The first Endless Lift was a video diary following Paul as he tried slopes across the country. The second was more of the first, with additional emphasis on cool flying by others. Endless Lift 3 is different in that it is a sampler of "what is new and exciting in RC soaring." Paul has organized this video into chapters— each featuring a different subsport of gliding. Featured first are F5B electric gliders from the F5B World Championships in San Diego, California. If you have not seen this event, high-powered electric gliders are flown for duration, distance, and a landing task. Next is cross-country (XC) RC glider racing at the Montague (California) Cross Country Challenge. As the video says, XC is gaining popularity among jaded thermal-duration pilots. A great deal of strategy and teamwork are required to succeed in XC. Four-time World F3B Champion Daryl Perkins is interviewed about competing at the World Championships. He also shares his desires for the future of slope racing and thermal-duration contests. There is a short segment on DS, including footage of Paul Naton's Speed Runner clocked at 173 mph at Kiona Butte, Washington. Paul also shows how he can DS using pockets of still air on the front side of a slope. Dieter Mahlein of ShredAir shows the guts of a couple high-performance electric gliders. He proceeds to demonstrate how an electric glider can be launched out to fly in otherwise inaccessible locations. The ability to climb out on demand is a great advantage when exploring new slopes. Phil Pearson and Dick Barker explain their part in the history of "discus launching." This method of launching 1.5-meter gliders has completely changed the nature of Hand-Launched Glider contests. There are highlights of the Scale aerotow at Chino, California. This is a small subset of the aerotow footage in Paul's Pro Aerotow video. Next is Alan Cocconi's incredible fly-by-video-camera electric glider. Alan flies it from a video monitor inside his van. He has more navigation and systems information via telemetry than most full-scale light airplanes have in their cockpits. I found Endless Lift 3 to be a cool soaring sampler. Chances arc that you have not seen or tried all the different types of soaring featured in this video. Like all of Paul's videos, it is professional enough for broadcast television. He even sells his work on DVD now! If the subject matter interests you, you are sure to like Paul's videos. I thought we were lucky to have a producer of professional-quality videos target the RC-glider arena; now we have two. AM Sources: CNC kits Western US distributor: ShredAir Box 10093 Eugene OR 97440 (541) 954-6842 (evenings Pacific Time are best) www.shredair.com CNC kits Eastern US distributor: Endless Mountain Models RD#3 Box 336 Gillett PA 16925 (570) 596-2392 www.scalesoaring.net/EMM/rand.htm Lift Ticket video: Reese Productions Box 3607 Santa Cruz CA 95063 (831)475-8662 www.reeseproductions.com/index.html Endless Lift 3 video: Radio Carbon Art Box 2311 Corvallis OR 97339 (541) 752-9661 (10 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific time) www.radiocarbonart.com
