FREE FLIGHT DURATION - 2001/02
lookING AND leARNING: If you are
like most Free Flighters, you toil in relative
isolation with only limited contact with
like-minded modelers.
That’s all the more reason why you
should take every opportunity at a contest
to examine the work of other modelers.
Study their models up-close, check out the
details, and ask questions. As long as the
modeler isn’t busy getting ready for a
contest flight, most will be more than
willing to show off their handwork.
And the question “How did you do
that?” usually leads into a long discussion
of tools and techniques.
Which models should you look at? Don’t
limit yourself to the events you fly. Many, if
not all, techniques can carry over from one
type of Free Flight (FF) to another.
Don’t limit your attention to the
winning models. There are good ideas
even on the worst-flying models. (And bad
ideas are sometimes used on good-flying
models; you have to use judgment.)
overall appearance is a good place to
start. At the risk of generalizing, most
well-built and well-detailed models are
clean and neat; that doesn’t necessarily
mean an elaborate multicolored tissue-trim
job or fancy graphics.
FREE FLIGHT DURATION - 2001/01
COngrAtUlAtIOns! Junior team
member Austin Gunder of Red Lion PA won
F1J at the Junior World Championships, held
in August in the Czech Republic.
Austin maxed out, then maxed the fiveminute
flyoff round, besting the secondplace
finisher by almost two minutes.
In F1B, David Ellis of Guilford CT also
reached the flyoff, scoring 217 seconds—
only 22 seconds from first place.
Congratulations to the entire team for an
outstanding effort. Thanks also to team
manager George Batiuk, for all his hard
work in developing the Junior program.
Symposium 2000: Each year the National
Free Flight Society (NFFS) publishes a
collection of articles to promote and
encourage the investigation, discussion, and
documentation of technical and theoretical
aspects of Free Flight (FF).
The 2000 Symposium—the 34th edition—
delivers all that and more. The range of essays
in this issue would have been hard to imagine
when the first Symposium was produced
during Lyndon Johnson’s administration.
FF Duration
ON THE DIAGONAL: In the days before carbon fiber and other high-tech materials, building a stiff, warp-resistant wing was a challenge. You could use a sheet-balsa D-box or a completely sheeted wing, but the weight penalty was often more than you, or more accurately the model, could bear. For lightweight structures, the tissue covering offered some increase in torsional stiffness, until it went limp in the rain or on a humid morning. Multispar construction also helped by breaking the wing structure into many small panels.
FF Duration
ON STABS AND STABILITY: Free Right (FF) is a balancing act. The aptly named horizontal stabilizer (stab) is an important component of that balancing act. However, we often take the stab for granted, shimming it up or down to get the glide right and popping it up for dethermalizer (DT), but otherwise paying it little attention. Basically, the stab's job is to hold the wing at the angle that will give the best glide. That's the easy part. When the model is gliding along comfortably, all the stab has to do is
Free Flight: Duration
NEW materials, like any other change, bring new problems-and new possibilities. The technology of Free Flight wing construction is changing rapidly. It's hard to keep up with what's happening with composite construction, carbon fiber, Kevlar, and the other new materials and techniques. Of course, you can bury your head in the sand and keep building the way you have for the last 30 years. But before you do, take a look at some of the ways you can incorporate some of the new materials and techniques into the models you are building. You might be pleasantly surprised. Many of the new structural techniques are actually easier and quicker than conventional balsa-and-tissue structures. And the result will be a wing that's stronger, stiffer, and more warp resistant.
