RC Soaring

2024 Perry “Region 5 North” Contest Summary

Huge thanks to Commander Rich Owen for offering me the opportunity to fly his beautiful new Schleicher AS33 Es this season in the build up towards the 2024 FAI World Gliding Championships to be held in our homeland at Uvalde, Texas. The glider is a weapon, and I think I am just beginning to learn the true potential of the sailplane. I started a little cautiously, but slowly moved forward until yesterday in a difficult and ultra short 1.5 Area Task I was able to get second for the day and surpass the two competitors who remained ahead of me going into the final day. Fortunately, US Rules scoring helped me out with a rather liberal helping of points for a fairly short albeit exciting task. Congratulations to all my fellow pilots, including my team mate Sean Murphy who I was able to do some valuable pseudo team flying despite not being allowed to team fly with radio use according to the SSA rules. Final results and link to all results and reports below. I’ll probably do a quick analysis video set for YouTube because I did manage to win somehow. Yes, I know nobody will watch it. It’s not for them, it’s for me. https://members.ssa.org/ViewContent.asp?mbr=7749575376&cid=2578&display=results Final Results Task Planning Final Day in SkySight (center of Area Task)

e-Medina 2m F3Res Maiden Flight

V and T joined me for the “maiden” flight today. The e-Medina (ARTF) was very easy to build, easy programming, excellent flying qualities. Needed literally zero trim. Slight to moderate down pitch with spoiler deployment. Needs a little elevator mix to use in competition.

Fun day of F3K (Discus Launch RC Glider Competition) with GDHSS

SATURDAY JUNE 5, 2021 EXTREME WINDS at the limits of FIA F3K competition were the key theme of this F3K competition day at the Greater Detroit Soaring and Hiking Club filed at Addison Oaks Park north of Metro Detroit. My anemometer showed winds of 20 mph on the surface and it was clear that the fifty foot level the winds were stronger and the gusts even stronger. This was exactly on the limit of formal FAI F3K competition limits and proved to be excellent practice for all of us. A few gliders suffered minor damage and this was expected in such conditions. Fortunately nothing major. The pilots here are all excellent and today the young pilots with high launches had an even greater advantage than normal as the flights were so short in the turbulent conditions. The longest flight was 3 minutes, but the average was around 1 min, and the launch was absolutely critical. I flew well considering my typical last minute arrival and not flying since the last event 1 month ago. This was the first event in which I had used ballast of any sort, and on this day I used full ballast of 60 grams. My first heat was a disaster as I was flying very conservatively, and I paid the price scoring a bottom of the scoresheet 250 points. But I improved and won 3 of the next 6 rounds finishing 5th in a star studded field. Sean