2024 Autumn Duration Competitions & Fun-fly

Saturday 7th September saw the club’s Autumn Duration Competition take place in near ideal conditions. The day started rather misty but cleared into a dry if overcast day. The wind stayed very light to non existent with a slight drift from the south. With all competitors on the meadow just after 9am the decision was taken to start the competitions a few minutes early at 9:20am which meant that the competitions ran to time and finished at 1:30 with a prize giving around 2pm.

As well as the competition there were some fun flyers too. Howard Metcalfe brought a whole array of models from a twin electric powered KK Cadet to some superb flying rocket powered models which periodically filled the air with smoke trails

7 classes were run which gave CD Gary Law and Alan Trinder a lot to do but they both found time to fly in some of the competitions, Alan winning the E20 class

The classes were generally well supported with the two blue ribbon events the A1 Glider and Coupe d’Hiver showed the highest entry.

There’s a video here of some of the flights

A1 Glider

The A1 Glider featured a good range of models, with the Aiglet proving popular with 3 examples flying. The competitions was over 3 rounds with a max set at 1’30”

Getting the model off the line cleanly was a challenge for many with some dropped scores along the way, consistency was needed to get to the top of the class. This was aggravated by the light conditions and caught many flyers.

David King managed some good flights with his Aiglet but on the day he ended up dropping rounds 2 and 3 . Colin Sharman ran out of time to score any flight times after concentrating on the HLG class

Gary Law and Richard Fryer both managed a max in one round with Gary scoring slightly better in the other two rounds to take 5th leaving Richard in 6th. Andrew Longhurst had 2 max flights but a 54s third round saw him drop behind 3rd place man Andy Blackburn who had a single max but a more consistent round 2 and 3.

Andy only finished his Aiglet a few hours before the event, the competition was it’s maiden flight. That Andy scored a max in round 1 and had good flights in the other rounds is all the more remarkable. I’ll hand over to Andy for his take on the competition

It needed about 3/32″ packing under the tailplane and after doing that, the glide was very good. It might need a little more for best performance, or maybe a bit of the noseweight removing. It’s also very difficult to get it to turn with that small underfin rudder, even with the maximum possible rudder angle; some changes will be required in that area, I think.

It was a hi-start launch set-up so the hook configuration is more critical than with a manual tow; I had one tow hang-up, thankfully without much damage, but it required surgery to make sure it didn’t happen again; the loop on the end of the towhook was snipped off and the auto-rudder line attached to a plastic ring, which was cut from the cap to a glue tube found in a Andrew Longhust’s flight box.  Also, the band in the auto-rudder line was too strong so it was replaced with three weak loom bands. And with the original hook angle the (thankfully more-or-less-straight) climb was steep enough to encourage a premature release, so the hook needed to be more flat.

It turns out that for a hi-start launch, the part of the towhook that the towline ring sees needs to be absolutely smooth because it needs to be able to slide off the hook when under tension, and any imperfection (solder joint, knot in the auto-rudder line, etc.) may prevent that; you can’t just create a bit of slack in the line as you would with a manual tow and hope that the towline just drops off.

Somehow, I came third in the competition, the first flight was a max, c*cked up lift selection on the second and the third flight had what appeared to be an auto-rudder hang-up, because it was gliding straight and heading for the river. My nerve went less than a quarter of a minute away from a max and and I DT’d it –  have the standard BMK radio DT which worked fine, but it turns out that it would have been OK if I’d waited a little longer. C’est la vie.

I’ve never built an A1 glider before, and it was something of an experience. I learned loads and it was great fun.

The Aiglet is great way into the class and is available as kit from Free Flight Supplies

2nd place went Andy Crisp with his Colibri. Unlike all the other competitors who used the supplied bungee Andy hand towed his gliders with the assistance of Colin Sharman.Andy is clearly a master at towing and two maxes were the result however for the final round the max proved elusive. The winner with great performance and  3 maxes was Simon Milan with his Mock Turtle

Simon has kindly written some notes on how to help stop early release of the model from the towline in calm conditions which many competitors suffered from and they are reproduced here at the end of the report 

 

max 1’30”

Name	Club	Model	Flight 1	Flight 2	Flight 3	Total	Position
Simon Milan	OMFC	Mock Turtle	Max	Max	Max	270	1
Andrew Crisp	OMFC	Colibri	Max	Max	1’ 17”	257	2
Andy Blackburn	OMFC	Aiglet	Max	1’ 13”	1’ 19”	242	3
Andrew Longhurst	OMFC	Barbers Pole	Max	Max	54	234	4
Gary Law	OMFC	Hatchetman	46	Max	37	173	5
Richard Fryer	OMFC	Hanson	Max	31	33	154	6
David King	OMFC	Aiglet	76	24	36	136	7
Colin Sharman	OMFC	Aiglet					8

Coupe D’Hiver

The Coupe class proved quite tight with all the competitors achieving at least one max and just 55 s covering first to last. Ben Hobbs was looking good with his OD model and two maxes but a poor final round saw him in 5th place. Chris Brainwood did a little better with his Etienvre with one max and a couple of decent flights to come 4th. 3rd with two maxes was Jim Paton and his Gorban narrowly beaten by 3 secs by Ivan Taylor with his OD model. Ivan suffered some poor air in the final round loosing out to Richard Fryer who showed us all the way with 3 maxes

Max 2 mins

Name	Club	Model	Flight 1	Flight 2	Flight 3	Total	Position
Richard Fryer	OMFC	OD	Max	Max	Max	360	1
Ivan Taylor	OMFC	OD	Max	1’57”	1’43”	340	2
Jim Paton	OMFC	Gorban	Max	1’37”	Max	337	3
Chris Brainwood	OMFC	Etienvre	1’51”	1’39”	Max	320	4
Ben Hobbs	OMFC	OD	Max	Max	65	305	5

HLG/Catapult Glider

The class was flown from a marked box and had a 1 min max. The class proved popular with Richard Fryer winning out with a very impressive max  chased by Andy Crisp. Charlie Wong flew as a guest at his first ever model meeting and looked to be having great fun, hopefully we’ll be seeing more of Charlie in the future

Name	Model	Flight 1	Flight 2	Flight 3	Flight 4	Flight 5	Total	Position
Richard Fryer	OD	27	24	35	max	41	187	1
Andy Crisp	OD	29	18	20	19	20	106	2
Alan Trinder	Oxcat	13	13	15	17	20	78	3
Colin Sharman	Bramo Sweppette	14	15	15	12	10	66	4
Charlie Wang	Oxcat	15	10	15	10	15	65	5

 

E20

Alan Trinder was the winner of the E20 with his now well sorted VMC model achieving a 1 min max in the final round to put him ahead of Simon Milan.

Name	Model	Flight 1	Flight 2	Flight 3	Total	Position
Alan Trinder	VMC	42	51	max	153	1
Simon Milan	OD	50	37.5	35	122	2
Gary Law	VMC	35	36	21	92	3
David King	Dixielander 20	20	36	29	85	4

 

Classic/Vintage Kit Glider 

Andy Crisp showed his glider experience to come out on top with his Caprice scoring two maxes to see him comfortably ahead of the single max of Andrew Longhurst’s Caprice. Gary Law was third with his Sunnanvind

 

Max 1’30”

Name	Model	Flight 1	Flight 2	Flight 3	Total	Position
Andy Crisp	Caprice	max	max	77	257	1
Andrew Longhurst	Caprice	max	14	20	154	2
Gary Law	Sunnanvind	32	21	23	76	3
Alan Trinder	KK Champ	8	17	30	55	4

Classic/Vintage Kit Duration

Andrew Longhurst showed us all how its done in the rubber kit duration class with amazing performance from his Bowden Baby scoring 3 maxes closely chased by Jim Paton and his Senator

max 1’30”

Name	Model	Flight 1	Flight 2	Flight 3	Total	Position
Andrew Longhurst	Bowden baby	max	max	max	270	1
Jim Paton	Senator	1’17”	1’23”	max	250	2
Richard Fryer	Senator					3

Rubber Scale Duration

A small entry for the Scale Duration but Andy Blackburn came out on top with very consistent flights from his Miles Magister. Chris Brainwood’s Piper was also consistent but consistently less than Andy’s model

Name	Model	Bonus	Flight 1	Flight 2	Flight 3	Total	Position
Andy Blackburn	Miles Magister	15	45	43	46	149	1
Chris Brainwood	Piper Clipper	15	31	31	31	108	2

 

Notes on the Tow Hook for Bungee launch FF Gliders – Simon Milan

Although I started free-flight aeromodelling in my teens, I only re-introduced myself to it in any concentrated way about 15 years ago and my competition experience has been limited to the OMFC events

 

1. By way of an intro, I have built 4 Hi-Start-capable gliders (2 x36”, my 41” scale Vampyr and my 48” Mock Turtle A1) over the past 10 years.  All 4 are/were capable of conventional towline launches, though having ancient legs and often flying solo I’ve only tried it once with the Mock Turtle A1.  When flying it – and the other gliders –  in hi-start mode there have been times when the models have launched fine, others when they’ve prematurely released (a la your Caprice), and others when they’ve failed to release and have nose-dived into the ground – including the Mock Turtle.  On one windy occasion on the Meadow, one of my 36” models refused to release but was high enough to miss the ground on its dive and continued to rotate at high speed until the wings came apart!

 

2. It seems to me that the main problem with hi-start launches in very light-to-no-wind conditions as last Saturday is the vefry high initial line tension needed to ensure that the model reaches the top of the line.  This high tension means that the initial relative velocity of the model can be very high (much more than even a windy conventional towline launch?), so some models tend to take off almost vertically which makes it much easier for the towline ring to slip off the tow hook.

 

3. This obviously didn’t happen to all the A1 hi-start gliders on Saturday which – to me anyway – makes it difficult to pinpoint the reasons why.  Some further thoughts – which are probably pretty obvious:

 

4. Towhook Geometry:  My first o/d 36” hi start was inspired by Peter Michel’s article in the July/August 2013 issue of the Aeromodeller.  He recommended bending the towhook 10 degs down “from the horizontal” to assist the release.  This seems a good starting point, though I have found that each model needs its towhook angle tuning by trial and error as they all seem to behave slightly differently under tow.  Even then I’ve found that reliable launches don’t always follow, so ideally speaking I reckon you’d need to be able to adjust towhook angles to suit the wind conditions on the day.  Just to be clear I don’t do this, and anyway, too much bending of a piano wire hook is never a good idea…. An opportunity for a specialised hook with this capability built in?

 

The towhook angle relative to the wing incidence may also be a factor, but this is a bit beyond my pay grade….

 

5. Towhook Position:  Peter Michel also recommended the towhook being the same as for conventional towing – “on a line projected 20 deg forward and down from the CG”, though on his (relatively long-nosed?) 3ft Ruler model he found that the hook ended up much further forward than expected.  I would generally expect this to be the case.  

A rearward towhook will tend cause much higher model angles on launch, with a greater likelihood of premature release or the model pealing off to one side and diving into the ground.  Better to have a more forward towhook even with a bit of hunting/weaving on the tow, if it’ll help getting to the top of the line.  Again, all done by trial and error and ideally adjusted to suit wind conditions – not that I’ve ever done this.  In this connection, my Mock Turtle has a very short nose compared with Peter Michel’s 3ft Ruler and some of the other A1s flown on Saturday, so this may have helped it to be less susceptible to high launch angle premature releases than some others.  Again, a bit beyond my pay grade….

 

I hope at least some of this is useful.

 

Cheers

 

Simon