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Post by skyboyken on Mar 8, 2010 19:27:56 GMT 10
Just back from Adelaide and 3 days of F3B.
Yeah Baby!!!
I'm sure there will be at least 1 report posted here, maybe even by me if no-one else does.
For now, let's just say that you won't believe how quick these things are until you've seen a 14.7 sec speed run. We haven't seen anything locally yet fellas, believe me!!!
Multi-task flying is just insanely great. You get to do very different flying (Distance is Awesome) in the day, it's nowhere near as busy as a thermal comp so you get time to enjoy the show, and did I mention how insanely quick these planes are?? Yeah Baby!!!
We Queenslanders all learned a lot. All our pilots were well off the pace at the start, but everyone improved really well over the weekend. There are no secrets, it's just a matter of getting out and flying with a focus on going faster, or further, or for longer. (No this is not a Sex ad!!)
Talk soon guys, I'm knackered.
Ken.
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Post by bananaman on Mar 8, 2010 22:49:06 GMT 10
Milang F3B 2010 I arrived at Adelaide Airport Friday afternoon with all my gear ready for the second weekend of an intensive flying holiday. Open thermal last weekend in NZ and F3B this weekend. I should have been looking forward to it but my preparation was incomplete. I had an untrimmed model and an unfinished one in the box. The night before I left I decided to replace the broken 2.4 spigot on my radio. I had snapped it off in NZ it should have been a simple fix. I had to remove the mount ball to do it. This involved removing the module carrier. Somewhere in the process, I believe I somehow shorted out the lithium battery to the board or jumper. After I put it together and turned it on I was greeted by a Beep and a message saying "memory corrupt" "do you wish to delete". Oh No!! After turning Off/On and cursing profusely I deleted it. Only to have the same thing happen again. It did this 40 times.
Once I deleted at every prompt the radio came on but the screen was total gobbledegook. Eventually I got into the memory and again had to delete them all. Then I decided to go through and do it again from another base memory. At last the screen looked normal, however I only had 9 codes showing!!! There should be many more. In a moment of brilliance I had a look in "Suppressed codes" and there they were all toggled off. Oh joy. Next I tried to transfer some saved memories from my Laptop. Luckily I had done this some weeks before for the Xplorers, but the Caracho was a very basic one. This was also very frustrating as I couldn't initially get any memories to transfer. It took just over six X#@?% hours to get it to this state. There wasn't enough time left to setup the Caracho3000 or my Europhia and I hadn't packed anything yet. I really needed some sleep badly.
So there I am in the Adelaide airport baggage area ruminating over my total lack of prep when I see the familiar face of Ken Stephens. He had the job to get me down to the Southern Soaring League (SSL) field near Milang for a few setup flights before a planned early night with a good pre-comp sleep.
We arrived at the field where I met the rest of the guys, Evan, David, Ken F, Jeff and the team I ended up with (draw issues) the West Aussies Tim, Evan and Mike Rae. I spent around 40mins I guess doing some precision eyeball tuning. Ok ready for launch! 10 seconds later after snapping violently on climb out, it was cartwheeling and throwing off bits across the field. X#@?% !!!!! Hhmmm most disappointing. I can't describe my feelings adequately but I wasn't happy at all. I think I kept it inside fairly well ......... I think.
After packing up and letting someone else get the bits, I was informed that the damage wasn't that bad and it could be fixed. I did need 2 wing joiners though. Luckily they failed instead of the joiner boxes. Greg Potter heard this and offered his from his backup model if would help get me flying. I wasn't too keen initially but eventually let myself get talked into it.
OK lets get the model fixed. Back to the Milang Shores Motel where the very helpful owner Pauline loaned me a portable light and a space for the rebuild. Various modelers staying there popped in and helped including all the Qlders. The damage? Fuselage folded behind the wing, busted tips, both flap horns ripped out, busted wing servo mounts and a few cracks here and there.
Around midnight I called it quits. I'd get up at six and charge everything.
Out to the field after a visit to the local bakery and it was the usual pre-contest organised mayhem. As I was flying with the West Aussies and the Qld Sniper team was down the other end of the winch lane, it was a little difficult to stay in contact during the day. A quick test launch showed it was flyable but well out of trim, not pulling on launch and as twitchy as a nose full of pepper. I had moved the towhook forward and added some more nose weight. The tweaking started but so did the competition and I had no choice but the fly and see what I could do.
It was painful. I found the model very hard to control and had strange pitching issues that I couldn't figure out. Nothing like flying the speed course with a model that can't even fly straight in a duration task. I think we flew 2 duration tasks and with my very experienced and supportive callers managed to get close to the 10mins and land on the tape for the first one. I think my worst speed run was 27.6 seconds which was surprising considering I had very poor launch height.
I was constantly trying changes to the setup between each heat and but was very aware that I had to help the team first. Towards the end of the day I realised that the folded fuselage had also damaged the pushrods and outers and the load had stripped the elevator servo. It operated but could jump a tooth or two. Hhmm, theres my pitching issue. I spent about 40mins dribbling silicone down the outer to free it up. I changed the servo but ended up having different speed ones installed for the V-tail. On the last flight a duration task, from a low launch I pushed way down wind to follow some lift at 4 mins to go I was coming home but didn't get back in the strong wind and hit a fence post. Could things gets any worse??? Luckily the damage was minor and very easily repaired. After the first day I was well down the result list as I expected. I was hoping I wasn't burdening my adopted team. Mike Rae, Tim Kullack and Evan Outrim however were very well placed and had flown inspired tasks. I could see I was with some very experienced, highly skilled and confident pilots. I was going to learn as much as I could from them. That night at the local pub there was a lot of talking about flying, settings, technique and tactics. A number of other pilots asked how the repaired model was going. I had a bit more to do yet to be comfortable with it.
The next day, the model was still flying poorly and I was getting a strange bunt on climbout. What is going on!!!!!!!!!!!! I sight along the boom and find it bent. When we had repaired the boom, it had sagged down. No wonder I had to fly with heaps of up trim! Around this time I am given some more bad news. Greg needed his wing joiners back as his main model had a broken fuselage and he needed to fly his back-up. I had a couple of groups before my next speed flight to find a solution. While chatting with Mike about my quandry, I saw his spool peg and thought, "that actually looks about the right size!" I tried it and it actually did fit! Mike can I have your peg please???
Next problem, how do I cut it. I had a half charged dremel but it would be flat and the disks worn out before it cut through. I asked around for a hacksaw, none. One more lead to go. Ol' Tim over in the SSL shed. He did have a junior hacksaw, a padsaw and a file. I personally find both of those saws to be one of the most useless tools ever made to cut something hard but beggers can't be choosers. I needed a vice, none, a quick walk around the shed located a contraption with some tubing and one hole that fitted the rod! That will do.
Ok, I need to do three cuts through 11mm steel in about 15 minutes with a junior hacksaw using a rusty thing with a hole in it for a vice. I got two partial cuts deep enough that I could snap off the lengths required before I bent the now very worn blade. 5 mins left! I cut the last bit as quick as possible with the wobbly padsaw blade that I broke. Filing the ends of my two new joiners as I got back to the pits, I hear Mike O'Reilly (the CD) ask if I was ready I said "Yes". A quick install, max ballast and tape the wings as my working time starts. One minute in, I got to the sighting device at the other side of the winch lane and signalled launch. The air wasn't too bad and being so far from the model I was able to watch the climb and manually adjust the attitude so I could get some tension but also being very aware of its tendency to snap. The launch was better and I flew the course fairly smoothly. I ended with a showoff roll and got 17.6 seconds. All that hassle was worth it to get a reasonable run.
It should be noted that in that same sort of air. Evan O got a PB speed time of 14.18 and Steve Keep 14.6ish.
I can't remember much about what other people did as I was so involved in trying to get a score each time I flew. Again the WA guys were so helpful and supportive.
The threat of rain stopped the day's activities a little early. That night I finally thought I was getting somewhere so let my hair down a little. Another late night with a little too much wine as well. The next morning I was a little off colour but flew fairly well considering. I did some good distance laps with limited working time as I had some wicked snapstalls during flight and needed to retrim yet again. I am still unable to work out what had changed from the day before. Oh well, just fly and get the damn weekend over with. In the end with 6 rounds flown, the WA guys dominated the event with Tim 1st, Evan 2nd, unfortunately I can't remember everyone else's positions, including my own. Hopefully the results are posted soon, so I can see how I really performed. I saw some great flying from our guys. The Qlders did well with little to no exposure to F3B during the past year or so. The Sniper team have a bit of tuning to do but the model which was flown by Evan, looks great in the air and flew well for such a short time from moulds to hanging off a line. David's Larrikin was contested hard and certainly was a threat to anyone flying against him. Jeff Irvin has now some quality F3B experience under his belt and will continue to get better and better. The learning curve is steep but it does plateau and becomes easier the more you do it. Ken Fox hasn't flown F3B for 7 years so he has a bit of retuning to form to do, as I do. Ken Stephens came along as a helper and found the experience worthwhile from the spectator point of view. It sometimes helps to look at things without the pressure of competing. I have done so in the past and you do notice things you might otherwise miss. Hopefully he is able to attend the next F3B contest as a competitor.
Thanks to the WA guys and all the Qlders, for their help and support, without them I wouldn't have made it to the event or got home or even managed to fly.
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Post by bananaman on Mar 9, 2010 7:34:16 GMT 10
A winch lane Base "A" Base "B" The lonely life of a line retreiver - Skyboyken The Sniper Team - excluding Jeff who was off getting another Coostard Taart Launching Jeff's Europhia2K Team Sniper's models with the new Sniper in the foreground. Other models are the Larrikin, Estrella and Europhia2K. Larrikin's Larrikin after a speed run A team's concentration during a distance task Cyril launching Evolution (I think) launching WA team - very relaxed Fun 2 lap speed event using the course. Mike Rae 1st, Evan Outrim 2nd, Carl Strautins 3rd
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Post by skyboyken on Mar 9, 2010 10:27:43 GMT 10
I think the 'Evolution' is Jim Houdalakis's hybrid of a Europhia fuse with Estrella wings.
Great report Brian!
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Post by bananaman on Mar 9, 2010 11:21:11 GMT 10
Yes you are correct, I remember now.
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Post by thevon on Mar 9, 2010 19:06:01 GMT 10
Just read your report Brian - excellently written, and thanks for going to the effort.
But it was a painful story to read! They say truth is stranger than fiction, and honestly I think if I'd been asked to make up a fictional story about a disastrous trip to an event, and some miraculous comebacks, I couldn't have done better. I groaned deeply and laughed aloud reading it. Well done on your dogged persistence!
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Post by sean on Mar 9, 2010 23:07:02 GMT 10
Great report Brian, thanks for posting. Big congrats for clearing so many hurdles to keep flying, then posting a good speed run with such a badly damaged model!
I'm looking forward to the next local F3B day.
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Post by cdsloper on Mar 10, 2010 7:35:17 GMT 10
OH MY GOD Brian. There has to be a trophy for persevering against all adversity and you've won it fair and square. That great Aussie attitude of continually bashing your head against a brick wall because you firmly believe that sooner or later you'll find a weak spot and eventually break through, shines again. And then to come home and write up such a great report. Congratulations Brian. I guess all I can say is a horror weekend like that makes you really, REALLY ! ! ! appreciate the times when everything goes well
Again a big congratulations all round,
Chris
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Post by jirvin4505 on Mar 10, 2010 21:43:15 GMT 10
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