US Team news from Croatia
Saturday, July 18, 2009

 

As is my tradition I will try to send some reports back as often as possible for the benefit of those who have supported our USA Free Flight team and those that are interested in what we are doing over here.  A disclaimer right up front is that I will only offer my personal views and try to cover only the US team news with other tidbits.  All the other teams have plenty of news as well but they will have to do their own reporting.

 

The whole team and supporters have arrived safely will all model boxes intact.  The only reported problem was with Steve Spence who was forced to pay a $400 baggage oversize fee and then suffered the further indignity of having his box lost.  He finally got it after a 3 or 4 day delay however.

 

The Croatian countryside is beautiful with green rolling hills and small forested mountains.  Our drive from Venice took longer than expected due to sections of narrow winding roads and because my GPS map only included the main highways in this area.  A couple times when we got off the main highway we had to tour small towns and use our own sense of direction to get back on the right track.  The team accomodations at the contest headquarters hotel are very nice and the food is good.

 

The field is about a 25 minute drive from the hotel on narrow roads, but once there it is huge and very nice.  Looking down from the road the field is a valley of meadows and farmland surrounded by forests and hills.  The organizers have mowed a large area so that most of the flying is over nice green grass, but for F1A flyers wishing to avoid line tangles much of the running is done in the meadow grass which is a foot tall or more.  There are various trees and bushes scattered around but generally are not too thick until the edges of the field.

 

The weather is a mix of everything.  Wednesday evening we did some test flying in moderate 6-10mph wind.  At 8:30pm I put up one flight with my new 100" span model with my own molded wings and BE airfoil and got one of my best launches so far and had the crowd cheering.  The next morning Brian and I went out early getting there at 6:30am in dead calm conditions to try to make some comparison flights between this new model and one of my standard long models.  This time I was chasing various problems with the new model and never got any good data, and by 7:30 to 8:00 a breeze started blowing.  It was windy most of the day, getting close to the limit I believe, but got a little better in the evening and lots of people were testing anyway.

 

Friday morning was the day for the Vilim Kmoch Memorial World Cup contest F1A day.  The field was covered with fog in the morning which burned off around 8:30 am and left dead calm conditions for the contest which started at 9am.  The conditions for the first 4 rounds were almost total calm and hot.  I thought it was perfect conditions but some people were complaining of the heat and wanting some breeze.  Even since I was a kid and saw the movie "180 is Max", I always dreamed that this is what a summer world champs type competition should be like - beautiful green grass surrounded by green scenery, great models, minimum clothing, etc...  Quite a contrast with some of the cold and windy experiences I've had at these events recently.

 

Seven of our group were flying F1A on adjacent poles which included myself and fellow team members Lee Hines and Steve Spence plus my son Brian, Kyle Jones, Rene Limberger and his father Sigfried.  In the first round I got off a nice flight without too much work and Brian got off a good one after an attempt.  Steve had an attempt but then was OK and the Limbergers were good.  Lee Hines got in a line tangle and went for his second attempt near the end of the round.  In the total calm Lee was towing various directions and when he tried to launch the towline stayed on the model because he didn't have enough force to unlatch the hook.  The model was in good air and going up so it looked like there was no way for Lee to grab the line and try again, but then with about 90 seconds left in the round the model dropped and Lee grabbed the line.  With seconds left Lee setup and tried for another launch but unfortunately had the same result of the line staying on the model.  Lee collapsed on the field but after receiving some water was fine.  He was then under team managers orders to rest the rest of the day and save his energy.

 

The first four rounds until the 1pm lunch break were in these calm conditions with sometimes huge thermals.  I had one flight which was up for 7.5 minutes total and another which was in the air over 5 minutes and landed right near the flight line.  During lunch the wind started to blow however and the last three rounds were flown with a more typical breeze of maybe 8-12mph.  We were doing fairly well except for Steve who short DTed himself after switching to a mechanical model and Kyle who dropped the 6th round.  Brian and I tried to drop the 6th round as well with flights that got very low but the models hung on and milked it out.  Four of us were then clean after 7 rounds and waited for the first flyoff round which was scheduled for 6pm but didn't happen until 6:45.  There was a thick forest of trees about 2km downwind and I was informed that models had been going about 1.5km for the 3 minute maxes, so a 5 minute flight could be in the trees.  I elected not to fly any of my good models, not wanting to risk anything before the WC next week, and pulled out an old one that has had some launching problems but glides well.  There were 22 in the flyoff and about 17 made the max, but unfortunately Rene was the only one from our contingent in that group.  I got a poor launch with the old model, Brian didn't do any better than me and Sigfried dropped only a few seconds.  I think most of the models came back OK so I probably should have gone with my good model, but oh well.  The next round was at 8pm going for 7 minutes and the organizers had everyone go from a new line farther upwind.  The breeze slowed down a bit which helped as well.  Several models launched very high and looked like they might do 7 minutes, but they were difficult to see down low against the hills.  Sergi Makorov won using his flapper and was just a few seconds short, although that was all the timers could see and the model probably flew over 7.  Victor Stamov flew a new flapper and got very high but it is still not fully trimmed and he was in the middle of the pack.  Rene had stab flutter on launch and didn't get his usual height.

Saturday morning was a totally different day with wind blowing and clouds moving in.  F1B and F1C were scheduled but only a few from our group flew as the wind was over the limit and I heard a report of 35mph gusts.  Fast Richard made one spectacular F1C flight which got very high but ended up apparently lost in the trees.  It is now about noon Saturday and I don't know if chaser Steve Spence has found it yet.  I think Blake was about the only F1B guy to brave the conditions and throw one up.  At about 10am the raindrops starting falling and soon it was pouring rain.  We decided to head back to the hotel as did others, but I don't know what happened after that.  Looking out the window now it is calmer but still wet outside.

 

I'll try to report more when I can, but internet access here is very difficult.  Nothing here at the hotel and nothing on the field that I'm aware of, but I just discovered a bar down the street that offers 1 hour of internet for about $4, so I will give it a try and see if I can send this.

 

Later, Ken

 

PS - As I'm sending this a couple hours later I heard that FR's model was found after a few hours.  Walt Ghio's model came back totally drenched along with a totally drenched Marty and Aimee.  The second round started sometime around noon after the rain and lightning delays - our three guys flying, Blake, Walt, and FR, maxed.  Sounds like they will try to get 5 rounds in.

I recently replaced the fins on two Mulvihill models.  Their previous fins had symmetrical airfoils and required quite a bit of left rudder tab for a right climb-left glide flight pattern.  The replacement fins had the camber (5%) on the right side of the surface with the left side flat.  The left turning force was excessive.  The fins were removed and re-positioned with their TEs offset to the right, essentially negating the camber.  That change fixed the problem.  

 

Over the years, I have seen several designs that used fins that were similarly cambered as the ones I describe above.   I would like to hear from others who have used cambered fins to see what their experiences were.

 

Chuck Markos