Radio Control
Soaring
Dan Pruss
Ace of the Deuces! Don Edberg, flying a clipped-wing Sagitta, outpointed 62 other fliers in the Second Annual Two Meter World Cup (2MWC) this past January. Sponsored by the San Fernando Valley Silent Flyers and the Antelope Valley Soaring Association, Edberg, who also is a member of the 1981 U.S.A. F3B Team, scored 5,864.4 points out of a possible 6,000 — and needed nearly every point to win. Although Don had four 1,000-point rounds out of the six, Jerry Krainock had five. Only a 724-point mark in the first round, Speed, flawed Krainock's otherwise perfect score sheet.
Unlike the F3B Speed task, where timing is for a run of 150 meters up and back, this Two Meter classic has fliers run the course for four lengths (laps, by F3B definition). Edberg clicked it off in 39.5 seconds for the fastest time of the meet.
The other tasks were similar to F3B competition, but with the sponsoring clubs' added flavor. Duration, as with all the other tasks, was man-on-man. It was also 10 minutes long.
The man-on-man concept is still the best measure of pilot/plane performance — especially with the up-and-down air and rain on Sunday — yet devised by an organizer. That was quite evident when Sam Brown could score only 970 points in Duration with a 10:02, while Dave Johnson, in the same flight group, had a perfect 10:00 flight with a 25-point landing. Meanwhile, Don Edberg tied for first in that round with a measly 4:41, but he was the best of his heat, as others floundered trying to break two minutes.
In the man-on-man Distance task, unlike F3B where 12 laps is the maximum allowed, the 2MWC rules have no limit on the number of laps allowed within four minutes. Weather was definitely a factor in keeping the lap count low, and Dave Johnson was the only flier to make 10. Krainock, who won his heat, got only six, and Dave Peltz scored the fewest laps, 5.25, to win a heat.
All of the above took place on the first day of competition. On day two, only one type of task was scheduled: the Man-on-Man Simulated Cross-Country. If you're gun-shy of F3B because of the wing-bending Speed task, and you feel the Distance task lacks something, this new task gives you the best of both worlds. It's also one your club can hold on a local level and not turn your winter projects into scrap heaps. The task allows five minutes (300 seconds) in which to fly 10 laps, a total of 1,500 meters.
Scoring of Man-on-Man Simulated Cross-Country is as follows:
- Finisher:
- Score = 1000 × Tw / Ti
- Tw = winning time
- Ti = time of competitor being scored
- Non-Finisher:
- Score = 1000 × Li / Lm
- Li = number of laps completed by competitor being scored
- Lm = maximum laps completed by a competitor
World Championship-caliber scoring again provided — special thanks to Dave Peltz for providing the above scores.
National Soaring Society
Dick Crowley, president of the NSS, announced that the annual NSS Soar-In is scheduled for June 20 and 21, and you shouldn't have trouble getting to one of the contest sites. Twenty-five locations are being selected, and details are being worked out as you read this.
Dick also announced that the newsletter, Sailplane, is on schedule again, and its new editor, Ed Van Buren of Atlanta, will be presenting a new and interesting format.
Also, new members who joined up during last year's Soar-In will have their membership carried through 1981. Past members, through 1980, will have their membership carried through June 1981. For further membership information contact Jim Barr, Box 1530, Denver, CO 80210.
F3B, Canadian Nationals, LSF Tournament, AMA Nationals
The Soar-In is just the start of two months of heavy summer sailplane activity. July 13 through 17 is the F3B World Championships, and the site has been nailed down to the Sacramento area. Co-Contest Directors will be Don Anthony and Ray Marvin.
If you can't attend the World Champs, July 11–19 are the dates for the Canadian Nationals. They'll be held in Ontario at Huron Park. Classes include Two-Meter and Stand-Off Scale. The task will be the Triathlon.
Details are being worked out to hold the LSF Tournament in the Chicago area, July 27 through 31. (This ties in with SOAR's '76 km Great Race VI, which is scheduled July 25 and 26.) Scheduled for July 27 and 28 is a one-task event, and that will be the F3B Distance task. Rules will be as per the book, except there will be no limit to the number of laps. Then, on the last three days, Precision and Duration will be flown — four rounds of each, with a ninth round as a wild-card round. Details later.
Then you can head for the AMA Nationals in San Antonio the first week in August. And if your servos are still working after all that, there's a good chance you won't be.
Nice guys finish first. Over the years, it seems that the modelers on top of the competition heap were always the ones who were most open about their building secrets. Names could be printed which go back a couple of generations, and these names would cover all categories of model aviation. In the last Soaring column, mention was made of the ISF, or International Soaring Forum.
Made up of some of modeling's finest craftsmen and technicians, the ISF was formed to further study construction techniques, airfoil development, and sailplane design and performance. Hans Schlappfer of Switzerland and Fridolin Fritz of Austria are two gents whose shop and tool boxes are always open. Rick Schramek from San Francisco has had the opportunity to visit these gents on a few occasions — and not only peek into their shops and tool boxes, but spend time with them during flight tests. He has also brought back some interesting building techniques and a list of materials used to turn out the more exotic birds.
This isn't to say that these are the only answers for making a world-beater. If you're looking into molded wing techniques, epoxy molds, and other not-so-standard building procedures, Rick has some offerings. He'll be passing on this interesting information in future columns. Stay tuned.
New Clubs:
- Southern Nevada Soaring Society, c/o Joseph M. Welch, 5813 Mary Way, Las Vegas, NV 89108.
- Galesburg RC Modelers, c/o Noel Garrett, Box 106, Abingdon, IL 61410.
Dan Pruss, RR 2, Box 49D, Plainfield, IL 60544.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
