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Category: Archive 2015

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1. It's called progress ...
2. SEN Mailbox

I’ve heard from various aero model sportsmen that in the computer (I don’t have one) there are some strange and somewhat bizarre ideas to change some rules for F1A, F1B and F1C. The reasons appear, for the most part that models have too much performance.

I like to think of free flight as akin to golf, you get the object you launch to go as far as possible and then try to find it!

Over the years both sports have improved dramatically. Now in the PGA and other major golf events the winners always win with scores way under par (no golfer will have to get this explained by someone who does). However one doesn’t read in Golf Digest (top golf magazine) letters from readers (golfers and non golfers) who say that because the top guys are hitting the ball twice as far as they did 50 years ago, that carbon shafted and headed golf clubs should go back to hickory and persimmon ones. Or, that the golf ball should be made larger because it is going too far. Or, shorten the length of the club. I’m afraid the days of Jack Nicholas and Arnold Palmer are over, Rory McIlroy is here.

In Free Flight, particularly in the FAI classes, F1A, F1B, and F1C the days of wire frames, slick covering and banana oil gave way to balsa wood frames, jap tissue covering and dope produced the likes of Linder, Korda and Seelig. Those days are over.

Carbon and electronics and the likes of Danier, Andrukov and Babenko are here with spectacularly performing aircraft. It’s called progress. Get used to it. Leave the rules alone.

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