National Free Flight Society

SEN 2412

  1. When and where it’s (flown)  at ?
  2. GIZMO GEEZER STATUS
  3. Fly F1S or E36 – please stop discussing rule changes
  4. Re: SEN 2411 – The Serious problem
  5. E-36 performance
  6. Fly F1S or E36 – please stop discussing rule changes
  7. Volte-fa(r)ce
  8. Question

When and where it’s (flown)  at ?
A SCAT club member asked me when the contest are – They are listed in a number of places and it depends a bit on what events you are looking for

If it is at Lost Hills and the south west of the USA you can go to the Lost Hills Web Site http://www.lhffmaa.com/

If it’s  anywhere in the USA the NFFS site has a Free Flight master calendar http:// https://freeflight.org/competition/master-calendar/

The FAI’s calendar is here, does require some interrogation skills
https://www.fai.org

Ian Kaynes’ Free Flight World Cup results page is good because it has all the World Cup events for the year on one page and lets you know the status so far http://www.freeflightnews.org.uk/wcup/WC18/WCP18F1.HTM

The Free Flight Model Competition Results
Aka Wings site in Serbia also has both competition results and calendar information. It is broad in scope as it does have international events other than World Cup events including some Mini events.  It is at http://model.wings.rs

Both the Lost Hills and NFFS sites have the name of the person who maintains the site right there on the site  … and as Pogo remarked in the last SEN … if the organizer of a contest does not tell the people who maintain the calendar about the event , it won’t appear on the calendar.  People particularly those with families sometimes plan their schedules months ahead so organizers make sure you get you event on the calendars.

Of course in SEN we always happy to publish notices about events.

GIZMO GEEZER STATUS
From: Roger Willis
Prompted by George Voss’s inquiry , I thought your readers may want a brief update on Orv Olm , the designer and producer of Gizmo-Geezer front-end assemblies.  Orv came down with some serious illness a while back.  He is back from the hospital but has not regained his strength as yet.  He currently is not producing any products and almost all of his product inventory at various sources  is sold out. We have no word about any potential recovery time line, but we all wish Orv and Marcie the very best… Roger Willis

Re: SEN 2411 – The Serious problem
From:
Ralph Ray

God bless Stuart Darmon.
Ralph

E-36 performance
From:Tapio Linkosalo

Being the person who started the latest discussion in FB, maybe I should also comment to the discussion. My FB post was simply an altitude log of an successful trim flight, climbing to 190 meters (600+ feet) in 10 seconds. With still-air sinking speed of a tad under 60cm/s (2ft/s), the altitude would translate to 6+ minutes of flight time. Theoretically, as I do not fly on fields that would accommodate such long flights. I’m not alone, Stan B.:s models climb even higher, as do some colleagues from Denmark and France.

Some people say that the performance is not a problem, as we have not seen huge fly-offs yet. I think it is. People compare the E-36 performance to F1A, F1B, F1C. But that is not a relevant comparison. These classes are major classes, flown to 3 (or 4) minute max. E-36 is a “mini” class, rather comparable to F1H and P-30. My small models fly up to 3 mins still air. only half that the E-36 does. On my flying sites I can rarely let the E-36 glide much after the climb, as the DT from high altitudes takes over a minute, and up there wind is often stronger. DT immediately or fly in the woods! Flying F1H on the same sites is no problem…

Some people suggest that possible rules change should not be discussed, as it would scare people away from the class. I disagree. I think the issue should be discussed with plenty of time and opinions, and only when a good solution is found, action should be taken. The other way is to one morning wake up to immediate need to make a change and then hastily react. The results can be seen in F1Q class, where the immature rules changes have needed constant revisions. I hope E-36 will not follow that route. I have no perfect solution on how to restrict the performance. In 2017 Symposium I listed some options, but did not find a superior means. Further discussion is needed!

Finally, Aram suggests measuring wattage. This approach has the problem that the measurement is difficult to make with sufficient accuracy. It would need fancy instrumentation, and the results would also vary a lot depending on the battery (== temperature) etc., if not a reference power source is not used. I would like to see a more easily implemented means of power limitation applied.

-Tapio-

Fly F1S or E36 – please stop discussing rule changes
From: Per Grunnet

Aram is of course right, when he in SEN 2411 points at the energy, if we want to reduce performance of F1S-models.

I my view we shall keep this in mind, and maybe discuss the subject again, when/if performance will be a problem in F1S.

It is not now. I have not experienced or heard of big flyoffs in F1S, where the number of participants or the limits of the flying fields gave problems. I have flown ten F1S-contests, and only four of these ended with a flyoff. Only in one case there has been a second flyoff-round. So what is the problem?

Free flight needs easy, affordable and challenging classes to attract new fliers, or to give new inspiration to those who may have grown tired of the competition in other free flight classes.

F1S is the perfect class. You can build a model like ”Super Pearl” or ”Joulebox” in about 20 hours, you can trim it on your own, if you have proper flying instructions – and you may participate in contests with these quite simple models, that perform very well.
You can even buy kits for these and other equally good models.
The biggest problem for newcomers in F1S is – in my experience – understanding the way the power system works and how to treat the batteries.

Restricting wattage or energy will introduce more problems for those, who want to try F1S. For this reason alone it is a bad idea. Especially when we do not have the problem it is meant to solve.

(Notice that I do not write about E36. In E36 you may have infinite flyoffs, as the flyoffs go on with 5 seconds motor run and 120 sec. max, until there is only one flier left with full time. It could be a problem. In F1S there is increasing maxes in the flyoff-rounds).

Per Grunnet

Volte-fa(r)ce
From:Michael Woodhouse
Roger
I understand the pedantic utterances of Mr Darmon. Please be assured that the rule makers will make decisions that will cause utter consternation and derision as they comes to grips in their efforts to screw up the event. They might, due to their lack of any sort of competence, have to go through prolonged iterations and double thinks to be sure that the rules make the class utterly unrecoverable.

Remember the statement, to paraphrase, from the brexiters “you can have you cake that is entirely inedible”.

OK?
Michael Woodhouse

Question
What does Pogo think of all the F1S/E-36 Blah, Blah, Blah ….
rather than the Fly, Fly, Fly , ….

enough for the time being …