RADIO CONTROL: SLOPE SOARING
Wil Byers, 3540 Eastlake Dr., West Richland, WA 99352
WORLD MODEL JAMBOREE
If you’ve heard rumblings about a World Model Jamboree (WMJ), you may be happy to know they are now more than just rumblings. A WMJ is coming in 1998, and it promises to be the largest model aviation event ever. It is being hosted by a number of clubs in the northwest corner of Washington state. The event is scheduled for June 26–July 6, 1998. Yes, the organizers know this is a long way off; however, they want you to be ready and well stocked with aircraft come 1998. They also wanted lots of time to plan and organize this monumental event. WMJ is slated to include all types of model aviation events, including a model show and contest. It will include a number of soaring contests, fun-flys, and seminars. Events for the slope soaring enthusiast will also be included.
So get ready to attend the first-ever World Model Jamboree. The sites will be in and around the Tri-Cities of Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco, Washington. More information will be available from the Richland Chamber of Commerce in the months to come.
Scale Slope FAI & Thermal debuts
Do you have the first issue of Scale Slope FAI & Thermal? SSFT is hot! It is providing readers with an intense graphic format and a modeling information source that is accurate, educational, and unequaled.
SSFT has lots of great material: technical articles, tech tips, scale and non-scale three-views, scale documentation, airfoil sections and their coordinates, modeler interviews, competition news, slope racing, PSS modeling, world news, plan features, FAI international coverage, and a great deal of general-interest RC soaring news.
SSFT’s publishers will soon offer an Internet Web site that will be feature-packed. So if you want all the best in RC soaring news, you may want to subscribe to SSFT. Subscription costs:
- US residents: $19.95
- Washington residents: $21.51
- Canada: $24.95
- Europe, Asia & Pacific Rim: $29.95
Send check, money order, VISA or MasterCard to Scale Slope FAI & Thermal, Box 4267, W. Richland, WA 99352. Tel.: (509) 627-0456.
PSS source
Dave’s Aircraft Works (123 Avenida Buena Ventura, San Clemente, CA 92672; Tel.: (714) 498-4478) is offering a number of PSS models:
- P-51D Mustang
- Focke-Wulf Ta 152
- Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien
- P-40 Warhawk
- Me 109
- Hawker Hurricane
- B-24 Liberator
- B-25
- Me 110
They include precut foam wing cores, precut balsa and plywood parts, high-quality hardware, CAD plans, and complete instruction manuals.
Slope soaring is definitely “slamming the sticks.” It is a hobby that attaches one’s being from all directions, leaving behind a windblown happiness. Quite simply, sloping blows your mind.
How can it be this fantastic? Can any other form of the hobby offer so many variations in the type of flying conditions? Can any other part of the hobby offer such a diverse choice of airplanes to fly? Definitely not. And no other part of the hobby has such a dynamically changing history.
This puts slopers on the leading edge of the hobby. Like their full-scale counterparts, slope soarers have led the RC soaring community into many new and exciting directions (albeit sometimes kicking and screaming). “Slope heads,” as I once heard them termed, have embraced speed, distance, duration, and model variety. They have rushed to the scale movement. They have welcomed high-powered racing models. They have established distance records that most likely will never be broken by a thermal model. Slope soarers even led the way into the now-familiar composite-structure area.
Slope soarers were an inspiration for Dr. Eppler's pioneering work into the new generation of computer-generated airfoils, way back in 1958.
Sloping is also that seductive sensation when you witness a slope model rocketing back and forth in ridge lift at 70–140 mph. That sensation captures new enthusiasts.
It is the kind of feeling that penetrates your entire being. It is an enthusiasm that leaves one studying every hill, looking for its potential to generate slope lift. It is the ardor that generates the creativity behind the next new model design. Or it is the crazy desire to fill a model's wings full of lead and throw it into a 40 mph wind.
It is the want for a wind like never seen before, and it is the need for lift that makes homesick angels green with envy.
Slope models span a design range so wide it is hard to imagine. They range from rubber models to all-composite giant scale soaring machines.
Imagine yourself at the controls of an Me 262. Or think about sloping a 1/4-scale LS-6, which can take advantage of the weakest lift and yet blast into the air with such authority when commanded, it marks crisply the four points of a roll. Imagine the sheer enjoyment of doing combat for hours on end with a super-durable airplane such as the Rubber Duck.
These models are so different in design and philosophy, yet they delightfully share the same air on the same day. And they make sloping what it is: action-packed joy.
As strong as the lift is on great days at the slope, the absolutely amazing part of sloping is the fervor of the participants. They throttle the movement forward with such energy it appears they have full ballast and are screaming down from altitude with lots of down elevator.
It is hard to imagine more dedicated fliers: those who put $1,000 models in super-hot man-on-man slope races; who anxiously fly a giant 1/3-scale ASH-25 from alpine slopes, only to hope for thermal lift as a guarantee of a safe landing; who unselfishly share their radio sticks with a less-experienced pilot so they too may experience the rush of high-energy, high-powered slope soaring. They go to the slope for the simple pleasure of hours of three-dimensional, quiet aerobatic or non-aerobatic flight. They are inspirations and comrades.
None of this would be possible without the tremendous support and innovation of the model manufacturers and suppliers. Model suppliers are the connective source that stokes the movement. They are resourceful entrepreneurs who often struggle to make a living so that they can offer you the best in soaring technology. On the other hand, these providers may be divisions of large companies who offer their technology to the benefit of our modeling communities.
I hope you feel the enthusiasm of many of us in the slope soaring community. If you don't live close to a good site, make a vacation of visiting a great one. If you are already a committed slope soarer, we hope you are helping others get into the hobby. Get involved!
It would be a dream come true if some of the slopes were purchased and owned by AMA-sanctioned clubs. As America grows, so does the demand for real estate; surely this will eventually include some of our great slope sites. For recreation or development, we are a growing community that must gain the attention of the world RC soaring community. Let's generate the energy to move forward on some of our needs and goals.
For now, stay in the lift band.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
