My personal Contest experiences, with photos and a video.<\/p>\n
Right after the FAC non-Nats in Geneseo, NY last week, we had the AMA Nats in Muncie, IN this week.\u00a0 That makes for a busy and tiring two weeks.\u00a0 EIGHT dedicated FACers made it to both events.\u00a0 Besides Pat Murray and I, Mark Rzadka (NY), Clete Schenkel (IN), Mike Smith (OH), FS Gilbert (NJ), Doug Griggs (MD), and Duncan McBride (FL) attended both events.\u00a0 Pat and I managed 16 FAC events under the NFFS management umbrella for the entire AMA Free Flight Nats.\u00a0 Most events were well-attended with about 10 or so contestants in Dime, OT Stick, Embryo, and Jet Cat.\u00a0 Three events could not award kanones:\u00a0 Scale Glider (two entries), Simplified Power Scale (one entry – but others flew – I don’t know why they didn’t get times recorded) and WWI (essentially cancelled due to wind).<\/p>\n
Wednesday was a spectacular day with light breezes and plenty of sun – and a mysterious mid-day chuck where the the air “looked” good, but was nothing but down (that lasted for about 2 hours).\u00a0 Thursday and Friday were increasingly windy but generally nice days.<\/p>\n
On the first day, I played with my Schweizer glider and placed first (out of two) with a best flight of 60 seconds.\u00a0 My Dime Scale Bird Dog placed third on the basis of a max fly-away deep into the corn where I chose to let the battered plane rest in peace.\u00a0 I tried twice to max out in OT Stick with the Holy Ike and the Miss Production, but this was in the “down air” time (which was verified by other Free Flighters on the other end of the field).<\/p>\n
On the second day, I did triple-max in OT Fuselage and beat Pat Murray in a two-person fly-off.\u00a0 The windy conditions prevented others from achieving triple-maxes.<\/p>\n
Friday, the third day, seemed to be destined for little action as the day started windy and it just kept blowing.\u00a0 People were likely to choose not to fly and some people even went home in the morning.\u00a0 Some of my Friday planes were broken on Thursday and I wasn’t going to chance my Jumbo twin Focke-Wulf 189 in the wind.\u00a0 I would put up some Peanut flights, because I’m not “that” scared of the wind – haha (Peanuts bounce much better than larger models).<\/p>\n
I had brought my 30″ B-52 (single prop on the nose) along just to push it to the limits.\u00a0 It is battle-worn and on its last legs.\u00a0 I built it in 2017 and have never got it powered correctly as it just limps along and stalls out.\u00a0 The stalls cause damage on landing and, although it was designed with pop-off wings and motor pods, repeated rough landings were taking their toll.<\/p>\n
As I prepared for a flight, I broke the motor winding.\u00a0 So I had to make one on the field.\u00a0 The old motor had been made of multiple loops of 3\/16″ and I didn’t have any in my box, but I did have 3\/32″.\u00a0 Sometimes, making motors on the field in not the best practice, even for me (they are now calling me “Field Motor Marshal” since I am seemingly always making motors on the field) and I got confused in the conversion from loops of 3\/16″ to loops of 3\/32″.\u00a0 I got the loops right but the length was way short.<\/p>\n
During this motor making madness, I realized that 4 loops of 3\/16″ is the same size motor that I use in all my OT Stick and Fuse models!\u00a0 I needed to wind ti to the same torque values that I do in those events.\u00a0 I installed the short motor and wound it to “5” on my winder with is about 20 inch-ounces.\u00a0 I walked out into the clearing and faced the wind and gave it a nice level launch.\u00a0 Oh wow – the thing went up flat and fast – so much better than ever before!\u00a0 It got sky-high but the motor ran out – but it glided down to a nice soft landing 36 seconds after launch.<\/p>\n
Being the smart guy I am, I immediately dug out my Hep Cat and took the (longer) motor out and put it in the B-52 and wound it up.\u00a0 I noted that one of the 6 loops of 1\/8″ was broken, but that was ok with me – I wasn’t going up to max torque (“6”) so this motor would do just fine.\u00a0 I wound it and got about 1200 turns (previous short motor flight was about 700) – this was going to cruise nicely.<\/p>\n
Again, I launched into the wind and the climb-out was fantastic.\u00a0 It got way-high again.\u00a0 The speed, etc. caused one of my slip-in jet pods to fall off early in the flight (after the flight, Tony Ross virtually walked right out and found the stray pod!)\u00a0 As the big bomber came around into the wind, something upset it – it did a slight nose up and it descended in a high-speed vertical dive from altitude.\u00a0 This ended the future of this model.\u00a0 You can watch a not-very-good video here:<\/p>\n