Radio Control: Helicopters
Walt Schoonard
WE HAVE BEEN talking about the Novice-Group I maneuvers and Intermediate-Group II maneuvers, and now we will take a look at Expert-Group III — Free-Style. The experts will fly Group I and II and then select as many free-style maneuvers as they can do in three minutes including landing. Again the judges will be looking for quality and not quantity.
The expert maneuvers have varying K-factors determined by the complexity of the particular maneuvers. They will be scored 0-10 and the K-factor used as a multiplier. Consequently, the smart expert contestant will pick maneuvers that he can do well in three minutes. It is far better to get a high score with a fairly good K-factor than to get a low score and a high K-factor. Above all, don't pick a maneuver that will wreck your machine. After all, there will be more rounds and more contests. It is a good idea to select the maneuvers so that one will naturally go into the next. This way you can save valuable time by not having to fly around to get into position.
Maneuvers that are segmental should have both segments as nearly equal as possible. They should be done at an altitude that is, first of all, safe and secondly so the judges can easily see the maneuvers and judge them properly.
The judges will be looking for smoothness and continuity. If you experience difficulty doing a particular maneuver, don't endanger someone or your machine in order to get the maneuver completed. Abort the maneuver and try another. As you practice for the contest, practice calling out what maneuver you are going to do and call out the entry and exit. You cannot talk the judges into a better score, but by the same token, they won't give you a good score if they don't know what you are going to do. The expert free-style maneuvers are as follows:
Group Three—Expert Free-Style
K-Factor
- 15 — 360° hover, tail in.
- 25 — 360° hover, nose in.
- 15 — 360° hover, tail 45° low and in.
- 25 — Stationary hover, pilot circles 360° around helicopter.
- 15 — Hover 50 ft., turn 180°, hover back.
- 25 — Top hat. Fly 20 ft. forward, climb 20 ft., doing 360° turn, fly forward 20 ft., descend doing 360° turn, fly forward 20 ft.
- 15 — Chandelle. Climbing 180° direction change.
- 20 — Constant heading loop entering from bottom, 50 ft. diameter.
- 20 — Constant heading loop entering from top, 50-ft. diameter.
- 30 — Vertical eight. Ascending constant heading loop followed by descending constant loop, 50-ft. diameter segments.
- 35 — Loop.
- 35 — Roll.
- 10 — Stall turn.
- 15 — Stall turn with 360° turn descending.
- 35 — Auto-rotation to landing.
- 15 — Landing. This maneuver must start
from at least 10-ft. altitude and is separate from auto-rotation landing and must be part of free-style selection.
Scale
The scale contestants will need to present the following materials with their entry for static judging: published three-view drawings; pictures published or otherwise pertaining to color, markings, and details. The better the presentation, the better it can be judged!
The static judging will cover the following areas — maximum 25 points each: Fuselage, cockpit, landing gear, rotor systems, craftsmanship, finish and markings.
Scale contestants will fly the same equipment as they have static judged. They will fly the following maneuvers:
- A. 15-second hover and land.
- B. Constant heading figure-of-eight starting left, and land.
- C. 360-degree fly-around starting left, and land.
Five minutes flight time.
Scale winning points will be the sum of the best two flights, plus static judging points. All scale maneuvers will be judged 0-10 and have a K-factor of 15.
For a complete text of the rules that will be used at the 1976 Helicopter Nationals, see the Competition News section. My address is: 2080 Sharon Rd., Winter Park, FL 32789.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
