2024 Autumn Duration Competitions & Fun-fly
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
The event CD Gary Law with his Sunnanvind
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
- 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!
- 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.
- 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:
- 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….
- 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
