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2007
Albuquerque F5J World Challenge Contest Recap, Commentaries. Congratulations to Lenny Keer, ESWC 2007 Champion. Lenny won both Unlimited and Outrunner to earn high honors. Dennis Renner won the "last official" Speed 400 event, and Philip Brister bested the Limited Class field to take first. Photo Album, coming soon Commmentaries Phil Gilbert, CD The Fifth Annual F5-J World Soaring Championship is history. We could not have asked for better weather for 3 full days. If I remember correctly there was only one flight group in which no lift was found by any pilot in that group. Once again the competition was reduced to a landing contest. I want to thank all of the pilots for their constant participation in timing. Once a pilot was down he had to run to charge his plane and then come out to the flight line to time for another competitor. It left little time for aircraft maintenance and rest between flights. This is the reason I granted extra time occasionally to get a plane ready. Nobody took advantage of this and it was not the same pilot always asking for extra time. I also want to thank Dave Shoemaker, Richard Shagam, Richard Dick, and Charlie Zaffery for controlling the flight line for the various groups. A special thank you goes out to Carlos for going into town to purchase a new speaker for our automated timer.
Thanks to Aradhana for scoring, Buzz for the trophies, Richard for bringing donuts and bagels, and Dan for coordinating the event. A hearty thank you goes out to Hacker Motors ( http://www.hackerbrushless.com/ ) for their generous donation of 6 motors and 10 controllers. Thanks to Iaian Glithero for bringing these prizes to our contest. It was good to see Phil Renaud after his recent adventure! If I have failed to thank someone who served us above and beyond the call of duty it was not intentional. My congratulations go out to all of the pilots who began the contest within 42 seconds of the scheduled starting time on Saturday and within 5 seconds on Sunday.
For next year I recommend that we have 8 minutes between flights in order to fly at least one more round. I also recommend that the flight windows for both Saturday and Sunday be 10 minutes. We may be able to fly one more round on Sunday. With these 2 suggestions we may be able to fly 2 extra rounds. To do this we will need dedicated timers. We cannot lessen the prep time without these timers. It is just too exhausting for many of the pilots. As I understand it the consensus of the pilots wish to eliminate speed 400 as a separate category of competition. I know that the fewer the number of flight groups in a round the more rounds can be flown. I want to congratulate all of the winners especially Lenny Keer who once again showed us how it is done! Dennis Renner, Speed 400 Class I suppose that this will be the last commentary for Speed 400 Class. Since there were only three pilots competing this year, I do not think Speed 400 Class will be part of the event in 2008. In fact, I almost switched to Out-Runner Class! However, two other brave pilots not afraid to burn up a $6.00 motor battled for two beautiful days in the warm New Mexico sunshine. To Mike Grindle and Richard Dick: It was my pleasure to fly Speed 400 Class with you this year! We flew in the first flight group of Out-Runner Class in each round to get more rounds flown during the event. This made for a large flight group. We launched into weak air a couple times and it seemed we had to climb forever. And, none of us made full flights on Sunday with those 15-minute rounds! Tough going! Speed 400 Class has enjoyed a great ride in F5J competition. I still think that Speed 400 demands the most from a pilot and his plane when compared to the other classes. Next year, Mike, Richard, and I will probably fly Out-Runner Class in place of Speed 400.Thank you to all our visiting pilots, family, and guests to the event this year. Without all of you, this would just be another ASA club contest. And, thanks to all the organizers and laborers within the ASA club who made the contest into a great event once again. Finally, thank you all for allowing Speed 400 Class to soar one last time. R.I.P. Speed 400 Class, R.I.P. Aradhana Singh Khalsa, Outrunner Class After 7 rounds of strong competition in fine conditions, Lenny Keer is the Outrunner Class Champion. He flew wonderfully both days, and once again has a well-deserved win. Not that we didn’t try to take it from him. 25 points behind was yours truly. I left those 25 points on the table by scoring 35 on a landing in round 6, while Lenny maxed his landing with 60 points and flew 15 seconds longer. Once again, consistency wins the event. 3rd place Fred McClung and 4th place Dale Nutter were also in close contention throughout the event. The whole group was competitive. Fully eight of the eleven pilots finished with scores over 5000. The Outrunner machines go up at a good clip, but nothing like the higher power classes. The advantage of short motor run time (fewer non-scoring seconds) was often neutralized by longer flights from longer motor runs. If you could get high, you had more time to find lift, and ensure a max. This was especially true during the 15 minute flight windows on Sunday. This is year number two for the new class, and by attendance Outrunner is now the equal of Limited Class. Speed 400, long a entry level event in electric soaring, has had it’s last hurrah at the ESWC. For those not versed, in Outrunner we have an new class, easily accessible to new players, based on an inexpensive and ultra-reliable motor. The motor specification is for an outrunning case, flux ring of16 millimeters length and diameter of 28 mm.. The bells on front and back of the outrunner case are not included in the measurements. Once again the Hacker 20-20L was the most common motor. Regarding the battery spec (2S LiPo or 7-cell NiMH), most people chose to fly with 2S LiPo. The LiPo batteries are much lighter in weight, and in this class lightweight offers advantages in climb rate and usually in improved float.
Philip Brister, Limited Class A Tale of Limited Success I am usually flying aircraft different from most people at F5J events trying to optimize the set-up that I have available and that was very much so in 2007. At this year’s Albuquerque Soaring Association F5J contest, I was flying a hastily concocted Art Hobby Serenity fuselage, modified to cross tail, with a Nan Models Shadow 143” wing. I believe this was the largest wingspan flown this year even though we were in the Limited Class with only seven NiMH cells to power the Neu motor. Weather conditions were superb and I pursued my usual tactic of flying my own patch of the sky as much as possible. With only a couple of weekends practice on the combo plane, though many more flights on the wing with its correct fuselage, we managed to win three rounds. The biggest delight was to be the last one flying at about the 8-minute mark in a 10 minute round and still have over 500’ of altitude to play with. Motor runs were of the order of 17sec to 24sec on Saturday with the longest being used for the early morning flights. However there were periods when all the air was sinking and one round I even had a relaunch. With the “audio CD” providing timing for the event, it was easy to schedule battery charging and the event moved along at a reasonable clip. At the end of Saturday’s five rounds, everyone looked suitably tired but ready to start again on Sunday. A good group of people to fly with and against. . .
Buzz Averill, Unlimited Class Dan Tandberg, our great Electric Soaring World Challenge manager / organizer has asked me to write up my impressions of the recent Unlimited class event, so here goes. First impression is; “what a difference a day makes.” Because the throw out round couldn’t be subtracted until we had finished six rounds, this major factor wasn’t felt until the totals were tallied at the completion of the contest. This one fact accounted for some merry mixing up of the results. Plus, some pilots suffered a worse day on Sunday than Saturday. Lenny Keer, with his new Supra electric, flew so consistently well both days that he was in the lead from start to finish and finished in first place. With 6000 points out of a possible 6000. That is very, very good flying!! Steve Suntken was in second place at the end of the fifth
round Saturday evening with 4586 points, while I was in third place
at the end of five rounds with a score of 4585. A one point spread!
By the end of seven rounds, I was in second with a score of 5877 and
a throw out round of 678, 113 points behind Lenny. Steve ended with
5871 and a throw out round of 713. Still only a 6-point spread between
We enjoyed great weather for a contest on all three days
of the event, though Friday might have been the calmest and warmest
day of the weekend. I don’t think the wind ever got much stronger
than 12-15 mph
Summary and Opinion The 2007 ESWC was as successful as any in the past several years. For two years now we've run the event in September. New Mexico weather is typicially gracious and soarable well into the fall, but two years of fog and rain with the old October scheduling chased us into September, and the move to an earlier date has paid off. Lift was abundant, but not a single heat saw every pilot max the window. There were always those who flew a little bit better, and with abundant lift comes more abundant sink. If you made a bad read, you could easily end up landing early. Almost everyone had an encounter with demon sink that they couldn't fly away from. Electric-launch soaring competition seems ready to consolidate many new developments, particularly at the national level. Perhaps the ESWC can be seminal in informing new development and debate. We often hear our contest format referred to as the "Albuquerque Rules." However we get there, it's high time for new rules in F5J to codify a new and better game. Developments in aircraft and power systems have continued unimpaired. Is it time for US National and even International rules to catch up?
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