RADIO CONTROL SOARING
Mike Garton, 506 NE 6th St., Ankeny IA 50021; E-mail: [email protected]
IN THIS MONTH'S column are a couple of hard-to-find sources, a correction, a commendation, event coverage, a contest plug, and a useful Web site. It's kind of like a Soaring stew.
Retrieval Pole Source
In the November column, I mentioned that the Baltimore Area Soaring Society (BASS) had a 50-foot "lineman's" pole for retrieving gliders from trees.
The item is a Hastings Telo-pole, product code E1-150, and it is intended for power line-repair crews. For retrieving airplanes, a rope with a noose is fixed to the end. The tail of the glider is lassoed, and the model is lowered down.
The pole telescopes down to 64 1/4 inches for storage. Weight is listed as 16 pounds. The price seems steep at $342.95, but a typical six-servo glider costs double that amount. The pole should pay for itself on the first or second airplane retrieval. It is also much cheaper than falling from a tree!
Book-Buying Trouble
I received a couple of E-mails asking where to buy Martin Simons' book, Model Aircraft Aerodynamics, fourth edition.
I thought the big bookstores could get any book, but my favorite bookstore, Amazon.com (USA), won't carry books from that publisher. Martin informed me that the book should be available at Barnes & Noble bookstores, but the last time I checked, that store still did not list the book.
The only source from which I was able to obtain the book was the Web site for the United Kingdom version of Amazon.com. Including shipping from Europe, it was only about $25, and it arrived within 10 days.
I heartily recommend this as the best introductory aerodynamics book available.
Setting the Record Straight
The Terminator Hand-Launched Glider was designed by Denny Maize and Bill Grenoble of the Broken Arrow R/C Soaring Squadron. This club is located in south central Pennsylvania.
According to Denny, many people have made large contributions to the project. Joel Foner, Webmaster of the Charles River Radio Controllers, put the construction article online.
Ohio Valley Soaring Series (OVSS)
The Ohio Valley Soaring Series (OVSS) was started in 1998. It was formed to increase Soaring participation in the upper Midwest.
Pilots compete in the series by attending at least four of the six contests. The scores from Unlimited class at each contest are normalized, and each pilot's four best scores count in the series.
In 1999, the six contests included:
- Cincinnati Soaring Society's Memorial Contest
- League of Flight by Thermals' (LOFT) Weekend
- AMA Nationals
- Dayton Area Thermal Soarers' Man-on-Man Challenge
- Bluegrass Soaring Society's Mid American Championships
- LOFT/OVSS Fall Round Up
Marc Gellart tells me what changes and additions might be made to the 2000 schedule.
Consistent flying is required to win the season championship. The 1999 OVSS season champion is Mike Remus, of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Mike's average score for four contests was 999 of 1,000 points.
Mike and his wife Peg are a consistent feature at most of the contests in the Ohio Valley. They work as a team; Peg is the timer for most of Mike's flights. He flies a Grand Esteem. Congratulations, Mike, on your fine flying.
The LOFT/OVSS Round Up was a first-time event in 1999, held at the AMA site in Muncie, Indiana. Nearly 100 entries flew Rudder-Elevator-Spoiler (RES) and Unlimited in man-on-man competition. The 2000 event will be held September 2-3.
For more information on the Fall Round Up or the OVSS Series, contact Marc Gellart. (His contact information is at the end of the column.)
Cincinnati Soaring Society — Sailaire One-Design Contest
The Cincinnati Soaring Society puts on a Sailaire One-Design Contest each September. Rudy Siegel and Mike O'Donnell sent in some nice pictures and facts from the 1999 event, at which an additional Nostalgia class was added to the roster. A minimum wingspan of 110 inches was put on the Nostalgia class. The Sailaire and Nostalgia classes are consistent with the "big floater" theme.
The Sailaire was first kitted in 1976. It has a flat-bottom airfoil, a 149-inch wingspan, and 1,643 square inches of wing area. Some Sailaire owners have been known to say that it is the best thermaling glider ever designed.
The CSS contest has 15-minute target flight times, and runway landings to accommodate these big floaters. The contest is laid-back, with "fun" being the highest priority.
Rudy Siegel won the Sailaire class, followed by Paul Siegel and Barry Anderson. The father/son team of John and Jeffrey Measamer placed first and second in Nostalgia class, flying the same Viking model. Paul Siegel was third with his Paragon.
Hand-Launch Contest Plug — Old Buzzard's Sunbird Classic
Ray Hayes asked me to plug an upcoming Hand Launch contest: the Old Buzzard's Sunbird Classic will be held Friday, February 4 in Phoenix, Arizona. The one-day contest is the day before the Southwest Classic. The Sunbird Classic is being held to honor one of the founders of Radio Control (RC) Hand-Launched Glider (HLG) flying: Dave Thornburg.
Dave was probably the first person to hold an RC HLG contest, approximately 25 years ago. He also designed the popular Bird of Time glider, and wrote Old Buzzard's Soaring Book, which I highly recommend. Dave plans to attend the contest.
This Hand-Launch contest is unusual because one of the classes that will be flown is HLGs. Dave designed the Sunbird, which was featured in the April 1980 Model Builder magazine. It is often credited as being the first practical HLG. A modernized Sunbird kit has recently been introduced by Ray and his company, Sky Bench Aerotech.
The second class uses the original rules that Dave created 25 years ago. If you can throw it, you can fly it; some call this "Unlimited Hand Launch."
I attended a couple of contests with this flavor of Hand-Launch rules in the early 1980s. The winners are usually young, strong men with large, yet light airplanes. Unlimited Hand Launch was neat to see, and very macho for the contenders. Unfortunately, it discourages those who can't throw a large glider. It will be interesting to see if anyone designs a larger specialty aircraft for this event.
For information on how to register for this event, follow the Web link or call Ray Hayes.
Soaring Link of the Month
The Intellicast.com Web site has a wind forecast page. (The Web address is listed at the end of the column.) I have been using this page all year, and have found it very useful.
The television weather forecasters in my area rarely make wind forecasts more than a half-day ahead. And when they do make a forecast, it is vague.
I think the TV weather people know much more than they tell us. They have access to computer models that predict the near-term weather fairly well. The problem is that they have to average the forecast across their entire television viewing region, and over a day's time.
The Intellicast wind forecast does not have this averaging problem. The user specifies the time of day. The Web page shows your wind speed and direction on a map. You can choose to look at several times to see how the winds will change.
Looking two days ahead, the wind forecast has been pretty accurate. Looking one day ahead, the tool has been right roughly 95% of the time. The wind-speed predictions have been very accurate. The directional accuracy suffers when a swirling low-pressure system is close by.
The times on the legend are Eastern. You can also look at temperature and precipitation forecasts from this page.
MA
If you can provide a clearer scan of the rest of the page, I'll finish the transcription exactly as printed.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
