SCAT Electronic News 19 November 1999
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SCAT Electronic News 19 November 1999
"SCAT - 40 Years of FAI Free Flight Competition"
Table of Contents
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RCTD and 20 seconds - Tribe
F rules - Brooks
Peter's Numbers and the Rules - King
A little comment - Zeri
Come Back ? - The Tech Sarge
RCTD and 20 seconds
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Author : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
I was initially opposed to the proposals re RCDT, but I have gradually
come round to being a bit more positively inclined; well I was until I
read the Danish rule change proposals!
Changing the existing well established rules because they cannot be
bothered to draft a sensible rule to allow the introduction of RCDT is
just the ammunition many have been seeking to postpone the RCDT idea.
We have tried dropping the 20 second rule already, and it must have lead
to some of the biggest disappointments ever; everyone has suffered the
inexplicable DPR hang-up, the motor cut on launch, the VIT or bunt
failure( witness de Boer's early DT at the World Champs), or in my case,
hanging onto the towline and deliberately smashing an F1A into the
ground when it had unlatched and I couldn't let the line drop off.
Thankfully the 20 sec rule was re-introduced after a couple of years.
I don't know what the historical reason was for introducing the 20 sec
rule in the first place,but whatever it was it surely has not gone away.
Regards
Peter Tribe
F rules
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Author : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The discussion about rules for FAI free flight interests me. Should or
shouldn't radio DT be allowed; will we soon have GPS retrieval systems?
Will 30--or 25 grams of rubber solve the problem. It seems to me that there
is a tremendous mismatch between the rules and the models as they evolve.
John Clapp will subvert the 30 gram rubber rule with a new batch of
rubber that makes May 99 look like limp spagetti, somebody else will find a
new way to twist the wings to get even more time in "still" air, or a new
prop will make everyone else drool.
If this were a shooting competition what we are doing is equivalent
to shooting at a 6 inch circle from 50 paces with laser sighted high tech
weapons if we were to continue to develop models as we are and still use the
existing 3 min. max and flyoffs. Israel showed that perhaps the best
flier/modeler combination ever in F1B can' t do 3 minutes in the wrong air,
and that in a boomer you can max with an empty pizza box.
I wouldn't be surprised to see a proposal someday that suggests that
the next world champs be virtual. If the present rules remain and models
continue to develop we will need telemetry to tell when the model stops
flying because it will be too far away to see, so why fly in reality at all,
wouldn't it make more sense to submit a design to a central computer and let
it decide the winner?
I enjoy watching my models fly. Let's develop a set of paramaters
for models that make that possible, and allow a wider use of available
fields than the handful around the world that are suitable for conditions as
they presently exits.
I would like to see a set of rules developed that reward flying
skills moreso than one's ability to purchase the latest in high tech gear.
As in golf even if you can buy the most expensive clubs on the planet you
still have to be able to hit the ball, and as the players hit the ball
further and further, course designers just add some inconveniently placed
bunkers, or grow the rough longer.
I overheard a recent conversation about rules and technical
development that compared our sport with F1 car racing, suggesting that you
can't stop development, and that's a good thing. Do you really want a FF
world where there are only 2 competitive fliers, and an engine costs a
million and a half dollars?
If it were not for the need to sell cigarette advertising, F1 wouldn't
exist in it's present form, I think.
Let me build or buy a model that is well within the normal range of
the "average" FF modeler, that won't do, or just barely do 3 minutes without
lift, and then let the best "flier" win. To break ties, don't make the max
longer, but make the model even less able to stay in the air, and avoid the
competition turning into a retrieval contest, or a test of the timer's
eyesight.
Probably nobody will agree with me but I had to get it off my chest,
and I am qualified to comment, at least to the extent that I fly the event,
and I can find lift a lot better than I can design or build, and I'll be
damned if I'll spent $1500 on somebody else's toy airplane!!
Jim Brooks
Peter's Numbers and the Rules
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Author : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Dear Roger,
I am in total agreement with Mike Woodhouse' comments on all these wild ideas
about emasculating FAI performance, (F1B in Particular). I was
horrified to read Mike Bull's article in the recent AMI magazine. He seems
to want to fix the rules so that people can fly an open rubber model in an
F1B comp. !!! He proposes we should penalise anyone wanting to fly a modern,
gadget Wake to such an extent that a big mulvehill size model would be
allowed to compete on equal terms in the hope it would encourage many more
flyers to compete. I don't want to enter any fruitless argument about FAI,
in general but, as an F1B flyer, I take exception to his idea to penalise the
gadgets on an F1B, as follows:
Mike suggests that if you want to use gadgets you must reduce your rubber
weight as follows.
DT only 40gms of rubber
1 additional function 35gms
2 additional function 30gms
3 additional function 25gms
4 additional function 20gms (typical AA style Wake)
He claims you can 'tune' the rules to even out performance.
He certainly needs to do that !!!!!
I have done some computer simulations on the results of these rules. (Any
sceptics of the computer should note that this is one area where you can get
a pretty accurate model with a simulation), see below.
First let me remind everyone, if that were necessary, that only a few years
ago the Canadian F1B team were flying models with only DT and were doing
comparable times with the very best 'gadget' models !!!!!! If this
doesn't blow the wild theories about the huge performance increase of gadget
Wakes, I don't know what does. Also Bror Eimar seemed to find no
disadvantage in using neither DPR, nor even Instant release, when he came
high up in a fairly recent Championship event !!! Let's face it, the
improvements in performance have come largely from better trimming, (gadget
or non gadget), and from the power of modern Tan 2 rubber.
Now take a look at these figures for the results of Mike Bull's 'finely
tuned' (sic), rule changes.
(I have based the times on a full gadget model with only 26 strands of 3mm
Tan 2. The VIT timing case is to show at what time the model ceases to climb
vertically. If you reduce the 40gm non gadget model's time by about 10%, I
believe that is a conservative estimate of the full potential of such a model
in the hands of an expert flyer. The other gradations in gadgetry are
meaningless, in my humble opinion.)
RUBBER WT. DURATION MOTOR RUN HEIGHT (FT) Approx. VIT Timing
40gms 398 secs (*) 55 secs 398 ft 4.5 secs
35gms 327 50 291 4.0
30gms 282 43 252 3.8
25gms 206 31 206 2.7
20gms 124 18 112 1.6
NOTES
(*). For 40gm 'non gadget mod', knocking off 10% would still give a
duration of ca
360sec !!!!
CONCLUSIONS:
1. If you really must go down this route, a far more reasonable levelling
of the playing field between models would be to penalise a model, with any
number of gadgets, by reducing the rubber weight by about 2 to 3 gmms at most
!!!
2. The results show that, (keeping to the current stae of the art F1B's),
we could reduce the rubber weight to 30 gms, maybe uping the overall flying
wt. to 235gms and still have a model which could be described as a modern F1B
with a potential duration reduced from ca 5.5mins to ca 4.0 to 4.5 mins. The
model should still have enough of a burst to make VIT etc useful. However,
when we drop down to 25 or 20 gms the model would not any longer be an F1B
worthy of the name. The very short burst, (1.5 to 2.5, probably less in
practice), would many gadgets of doubtful usefulness.
3. The idea of an unrestricted surface area, which Mike Bull suggests, would
increase even more the performance of the 40gm non gadget model and although
he proposes this should apply to all models, it would not effect the outcome
as far as rubber wt is concerned except to make the use of gadgets even less
warranted, as a light, large and comparatively structurally weak model,
would be the way to go. If I had the choice of trying to do 7 mins in the
fly off under his proposed rules, I like any serious modeller, would have to
fly a virtual 'open rubber 'model. Mike and his FAI hating friend's aims
are obvious.!!
Do away with FAI models !!
OK, but how many FAI flyers want this, and outside the U.K. and the U.S.A.,
how many modellers even fly anything but FAI models??
4. As has been said so many times before, If you want to change the rules
you must test the viability of those changes by trying them out on the flying
field first before inflicting them on everyone else. This is not easy as it
is time consuming to say the least. Using a computer, this is one area
where meaningful data can be collected and if anyone wants to change the
rules, I would be happy to do my little bit by trying them in the simulator.
It would even give reasonable data for even such parameters as span
limitation etc, as well.
Please let's retain a little sanity regarding rule changes !!
Yours humbly,
Peter King
A little comment
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Author : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Hi, just a couple of lines to reassure my friend Mike Woodhouse.
I did read the proposal for 25 grams in F1B, I'm not shocked, even if I
fly the class. I'm even delighted by it. In any case I'm
afraid it won't be able to survive through the vote.
Kind regards, Anselmo Zeri
Come Back ?
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Author : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Terie, Fred (the prop man) last name is Ginder. By the way, it was his
first F1C event in over 20 years. Jim
.....................
Roger Morrell
