DAY .. 28.April
2008 - New trolley
Need girl with horse... or maybe just the horse
;) Anyhow I was tired of pulling the trolley we
had at WC F3B 07 in the mud (picture1,
picture2,
picture3,
link). The wheels were too small so I have
now made huge wheels and they can be snapped of
in a simple click (from a old wheelchair).
Another thing is that I now have both winch,
battery and equipment in one box!
DAY .. 27.April
2008 - Next door house
Took some photos of the next door house as it is
now almost completed. Been a nice thing to
follow this. See all
HERE
The last picture shows were I live (the whole
top floor)
DAY .. 26.April
2008 - Perfect El
A bit turbulent but I needed a flight with my
Perfect electro. Been working with my new
Skymax4 and making ready the Extra300 for tug
flying next weekend. Tested a bit on original
joiners and Philip joiners to feel the
difference with the extra weight onboard. I have
Philip joiners in stock (45EUR pair). My son
Fredrik took the pictures.
DAY .. 20.April
2008 - NC F3J at
Vingen
What a wonderful spring day. T-shirts on (atleast
me) and all smiling faces at a field that is
sooo cool to fly in. It was so difficult that
most of the rounds were won at 4-7minutes!!! And
we love that. It makes the day more exiting and
you never know who will be in the finals! The
day started with Contest Director Egil saying
that there was to be some real prices for this
event. Best junior a Zlog, third place a memory
pen, second place a good elevator servi and for
first a 8Gb Ipod!!! That notched the whole thing
up a bit and my son was pretty eager for me to
win it... (no wonder). One guy was the ruler of
the prelims with awesome launching and local
knowledge of the conditions. Jørgen earned 5000p
after one discard (I lost and also won a round
against him) and that placed him at top after 6
rounds off course. Me and Conny scratched
ourself into the finals but then the conditions
changed a bit (and we had found were to fly) and
I got to be the one that took it all home (and
an Ipod for my son). All day was 90 degree
launching to the wind but no accidents in the
launching. One guy had a bit poor receiver and
glitched to a broken nose but all other models
came home in one piece even though we mostly
launched at the same time and circle towing
slightly more and less. I flew the first rounds
with my Perfect SL but when the wind picked up I
flew my Perfect SSL with a little ballast (apx
400g total 2500g in the 4-5m/s winds)
Detailed results
HERE
BTW Always a pleasure to visit this club.
Smiling faces and a relaxed though also
competitive environment.
Coolest landing today. Brynjar shows the proper
grossegler attitude
Brynjar's second landing after a relight. Very
cool Brynjar and more relaxed Brynjar ;)
DAY .. 19.April
2008 - Practice day
Tomorrow is F3J in Porsgrunn by the club
www.vingen.no
and today we did some practice flights. 4 Swedes
and 3 Norwegians had a blast in the sky in
excellent conditions. A funny typical happened
when a guy drives up and pulls out a small model
from his car. He just walks out into the field
50 m past us and wants to go flying. So what
frequency is he on? Well just before takeoff he
says something but needed to be talked to. We
stopped flying off course and scanned his
frequency.. This tends to be a problem in Norway
now. One can buy these small planes all over and
they are on the typical 35mhz (not 27mhz as we
were used to before). We had a bet on if he
would fly 5-10m or pack up before he went in the
air. He actually did fly 30m before the engine
shut down because of range problems or something
(never cared to ask him). Me and my son took in
to a nice Hotel nearby.
DAY .. 11-12.April
2008 - Eurotour F3J Turkey
Just a VERY fast writeup here (copy/paste a bit
from emails I sent)
- Wow what a long and lovely weekend in Turkey.
Had a super time with my friends as usual (I
consider all the F3J guys to be close
friends!!). I dont have time now for a loooong
report but it will be. Just now I need to go for
a meeting and work on my new Skymax4. But I have
gone thru the pictures and most of them can be
seen
HERE.
Flying was very difficult and the team was very
good but missing one person.
Me, Primoz Risner and Ben Clerx had a great time
but was struggling to get the launching and
things ready because we had a Bulgarian junior
as the 4th team member. He did work his buts of
for us but it was his first event and we did not
know. Also 50kg is a bit light as a runner. I
spotted for both Primoz and Ben and they did
well. Did a irritating mistake with Ben on the
6th flight (7 rounds total + 2 finals). When I
relaunched him (many flights were won by
relaunching) I managed to stop the stopwatch and
start it again in my pocket. So when you
suddenly hear the last 10 sec beeps on the
speakers and Ben is 100m away one feels a bit
guilty... And when he also speeded down to touch
the ground (the flying time stops when you touch
ground) he also broke his fuse a little... But I
think Ben was happy with the stay and he did a
lot of notes for the World Championship. Ben is
a nice guy and loosened up quite a bit during
the weekend ;) We shared hotel room at a nice
spa hotel. But I am happy that I spotted Primoz
Risner to the finals and spotted him to win the
whole thing. Very cool. Primoz flew his brand
new 2,2kg Xplorer well. Second was Larry Jolly
USA (Pike Perfect) and third Konrad Oetiker
(SUI). 4. Georgy Dimitrov (jun BUL), 5.Philip
Kolb (GER), 6. Sotir Lazarkov (BUL), 7.Filippo
Gallizia (ITA), 8.Ilgaz Kalaycioglu (TUR). It
must be mentioned that the always smiling and
cool
Filip Stamenkov from Bulgaria is a VERY
young junior that regularly emails me with
questions. Very nice to see him gets some nice
results out of his practice. He was 4th after 6
rounds!!!! Look out for him (and some other
juniors that impresses me...).
I got 15th place of 58 pilots and is reasonably
happy. Worst mistake was to hunt a bit for
thermals when one could just hang it out with
lots of camber to win some rounds (25-30C and
80% humidity so only pufs for most of the
event). Very difficult as the thermals were
mostly "fluffy" and did not give you enough to
other than fool a lot of pilots. I did a mistake
flying my SL mostly in neutral "searching" in
many rounds. That left me on the ground minutes
before those that just hang around in the right
places... But in other rounds you needed to
search a bit. So searching slowly can be an
option...
There was also winds from the treeline some
starts sunday (we were
flying opposite side of the field as to last
time) and that resulted in lots of
turbulence in landing and little punch in the
launches before you got 30-40m up. I instructed
Ben and runners how to circle tow in F3J so we
did and had some success in that. (2man directly
that limps around until the pilot is ready to
go up the line). This could be done since MANY
rounds were won in less than full time. Many
rounds were also won by relighting first
(including finals).
I used 2,4 the whole event in my carbon fuses
and had no problems. I did feel a small hold
when I in one round flew apx 7-800m out and was
standing close and behind Ben. But no more than
that. Ben and Larry flew theirs also on 2,4
(Aspire and Perfect 2,4 friendly). Ben flew also
the last round with a pike superior full carbon.
he had 4 whiskers out on that one. There was one
Swiss guy (Konrad Oetiker) flying Futaba 2,4 but
I did not look at it. All others were on 35mhz.
So with 2,4 friendly fuses the Spectrum 2,4GHz
works flawlesly in a competition even with hard
core Wlan on the ground (the results were sent
directly from each timekeeper to the computer.
Models: Looks like Supra, Perfect and Xplorer
did well. The Xplorer is the new Primoz Risner
used. I spotted for him in all rounds. His was
2,2kg and it is a large model. I don't think it
was hanging extremely well but it seemed to work
small lift well - maybe better than others.
Might be better when they make a lighter one but
hopefully as strong. I flew Larry's Aspire 5
flights from a bungee and hand launch and I was
impressed by the way it circled without loosing
energy. You could do more mistakes. But it does
not hang so well as the Perfect and is not as
stiff. So if I did not have a Perfect I would
probably get one of those for most conditions.
Maybe it circles better because it has a little
more dihedral in the midsection.
Esra (daughter of Mustafa Koc) could have won a
round with the AVA if she would have landed well
(she did land a wonderful 95 but launched a bit
late. Lets blame that on Philip..). The AVA was
a good choice in some rounds..... says a bit I
guess...
Thanks to Turkey for another wonderful event. We
had a blast again. Without going to details the
organizers checked out on most stuff and it was
a good test before the World Championship this
summer.
DAY .. 8.April
2008 - Perfect SL
- Been working all day with "Grokker" wings as
we have 8 youngsters building planes each
thursday. I am going away this thursday and was
away last thursday also so I had to pre-produce
some wings... White foam covered with 80g glass.
On the picture a balsa covered one. The glass
ones will be half the weight... The youngsters
have been building fuselages and are nearly
finished. The club sponsors both model and gear
if they finish the model and learns how to fly.
A good deal and they work!! The weather was so
wonderful that I got some flying done late in
the day. I also changed some F3J lines on the
hand winches and flew one flight = roll out one
line = collect the winch line ;) Flew my Pike
Perfect SL 7-8 flights I think in pretty calm
conditions.
DAY .. 6.April
2008 - Perfect SSL and SL
- Nice weather and even though it was cloudy and
+2C I stole thermals like of a small child. It
was easy - almost too easy to fly. Took some
checks of the spectrum logs on both my SSL and
my SL Pike Perfect and although I have a lot of
fades and frame losses I have no holds luckily.
So my carbon installation is not super but
probably good enough as I have now flown pretty
far away with it. Might change it but have no
time right now (dont change what is working
before a comp.)
DAY .. 5.April
2008 - Dogfight
- National cup Dogfight on the ice today but I
got a couple of flights on the Extra 300 before
they started. I have had some midrange trouble
with the engine and wanted to test first a
venturi on the carburator but this did not work.
Next is a metal intake but did not have time to
install that today. The dogfight is always fun
to watch as they "give it all" and lots of
crashes to be seen.
HERE is a lot of pictures
DAY .. 3.April
2008 - Perfect SL
- Bought a small 0,9kw winch I wanted to test
and use as a spare winch in F3J. It could also
be easy to carry if the field is a bit further
from the car. It was indeed not an F3B winch. I
suspect it is rather a 0,6 or something. hold
current is 330A no matter what battery I use
(480-750EN). But the winch was working and is
kind of cute. Flew my Pike Perfect SL 6 flights
and the conditions were pretty nice. Small
thermals around and the air was "bubbly".
Pictures by Tom Olav.
