SEN 2658
- Evgeny Verbytsky
- Nats 2020 dates set
- Every Country is different
- Restrict flights to size of field
- Skill or Skin
- The view from an allegedly wet and windy place
- Pan Am in February 2020
Evgeny Verbytsky
Free Flight of Ukraine group published a sad news.
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It is with great sadness that we announce that today in the 83rd year of life died the outstanding, world-famous sportsman aeromodeller, Honored Master of Sports, repeated Champion of the World and Europe Evgeny Verbytsky (Eugene Verbitsky). We extend our deepest condolences to the family, friends and family of Eugene.
Nats 2020 dates set
The AMA Executive Council has approved the schedule for the 2020 National Aeromodeling Championships (Nats). Free Flight Indoor events will be held on May 27-31, 2020, in Springerville, Arizona, at the Round Valley Dome, and all Outdoor events will be held in Muncie, Indiana. If you have participated in the Nats within the last two years, you will be notified via email when registration is open.
Indoor Free Flight (Springerville): May 27-31, 2020
RC Scale Aerobatics: July 12-15
RC Pylon Racing: July 12-18
Control Line (Navy Carrier, Precision Aerobatics, Racing, Combat, Speed): July 12-18
Control Line and Radio Control Scale: July 16-19
RC Aerobatics (Pattern): July 19-23
RC Soaring: July 23-August 2
RC Combat: July 24-26
FF Outdoor: July 27-31
RC Helicopter: August 2-5
Every Country is different
From: Michael Achterberg
Hello all
The Brits have a problem because of field availability. Understood! But they also live in a country where it’s almost always breezy at best. Not good freeflight weather.
But unlike us here they have a few hours drive to countries to fly in dozens of WC contests.
This is a luxury we don’t have. George Batiuk told me that he can fly in 10 contests that is a shorter driving distance than I drive to Lost Hills. Pretty cool.
Now, England is a longer trip, but its what we do to fly our toys. It is what it is.
Just my opinion.
Thermals,
Dino
Restrict flights to size of field
From: gilbert morris
Suppose flights be limited to the available size of field so that in calm conditions long flight times were possible before DTing at the edge of the allotted area.
Further, windy days would necessitate a quick DT much as done now in foul weather flyoffs
(not desirable but acceptable). Now, before any round starts, the CD would calculate a
mandatory DT time and everyone would have to set his DT timer accordingly.
The CD would take into account wind, direction of wind and distance to edge of field.
Some models may fall just over the fields edge but no flyaways.
This would provide the best possible flight times that field could accommodate under the circumstances.
Skill or Skin
From: Stuart Darmon
Hi Roger,
Bill is absolutely right, these arguments just bring those of us who have “little or no skill in the game” out of the woodwork to ask stupid questions. Like , for example, why is reducing performance “a contest where the best testing rubber wins”, but a flyoff between two models made in the same mould by the same guy, not?
Regards, Stuart
Editor’s comment : Bill Shailor’s FB did not say Skill it said Skin, which by the way Stuart does as he flys F1A..
To have “skin in the game” is to have incurred risk (monetary or otherwise) by being involved in achieving a goal.
In the phrase, “skin” is a figure of speech for the person involved, and “game” is the metaphor for actions on the field of play under discussion.[1] The aphorism is particularly common in business, finance, and gambling, and is also used in politics. – and modelsport
One of our issues ia that there are widely differeing opinions as what skills are involved in FAI Free flight and which ones are important as Stuart points out.
The view from an allegedly wet and windy place
From: chris edge
I think Sir Bernard should have worded his question differently, after all how much performance is too much, or just enough ? The question should perhaps be ‘Is the performance of our current models too great for flyoffs at the sites we currently have ?’ the answer to which seems a clear ‘yes’ in average ‘windy’ conditions; not even the great Lost Hills (or even Newbigging) is big enough.
So if we want to keep models on the sites in most conditions (note, not all) then performance needs to be reduced and none of us what to do that by throwing away decent kit and buying new stuff – well, except maybe the manufacturers.
But the way I see it we can have our cake and eat it; ie keep the same current models and a) reduce numbers in FOs and b) reduce performance in FOs. “How ?” I hear you exclaim ! Well read on.
1) The single most effective way of reducing numbers in FOs is to drop the 20s attempt rule. We should not reward someone who can press a button at the correct time and thus get a 2nd bite of the cherry – bonkers idea. Let’s just get on and kill attempts and kill them now.
2) For F1A let’s restrict any declage changes to just one at DT. We can fly the same models and we’ll all have to figure out how to do effective zoom launches again. No longer will we be able to do 130m launches, in fact 80m may now be good, so performance will reduce significantly. Note that in effect this would kill flaps of course but then you could still use the same models and just lock them out.
3) In F1B restrict any use of VP and DPR, such that you have an instant release at launch. Vertical launches are now more difficult and probably not worth doing with the VP no longer able to pull the model away. Whilst you’d have to buy new hubs I suspect they would now be quite cheap or else kits made available to convert existing hubs. This would reduce performance by more than changing rubber that non one wants to do. Additionally in F1B we should not allow any winding of motors prior to the FO.
4) There is no item 4)
5) In F1C restrict props to non-folding. Instant significant performance reduction without changing the model. In fact it may simply kill off gearboxes as the extra drag of the bigger prop over straight drive wouldn’t be worth any height gain advantage.
So there you have a first stab, written whilst eating my ‘CoCo Pops’ with my favourite chicken on my lap (take a bow, Beryl). But you know what, I doubt there is a jot or scintilla of a chance that any rule chance proposals will appear as the last time the UK tried to suggest simple models (and yes it was submitted as a formal proposal to CIAM) it got no traction. But hey, prove me wrong.
Toodle-pip,
EoB – your rep. from the UK where it’s neither wet nor windy at the moment
Pan Am in February 2020
By Aram Schlosberg
To my surprise, I learned from SEN 2656 that the Canadian Pan Am World Cup contest was moved forward from Wednesday to Tuesday Feb 11, 2020. Ostensibly, the reason was that earlier this year some flyers complained about missing the better weather on the day before. Well, a copy of last year’s weather pattern has not been approved for February 2020!
More seriously, the advantage of having three World Cups spaced more evenly – two weekends and a mid week contest – is that it gives flyers with time constraints a choice of which pair of contests to attend. But if the Pan Am is held on Tuesday, I’m basically forced to skip flying the Max Men where B and Q are held on separate days and instead fly B only in the Isaacson & the Pan Am.
So please leave the Feb-Feb schedule as is.
And if this is an issue to other time-constrained fliers, now is the time to make their views known to the Pan Am organizers or on SEN. ///