3rd 2021 2m F3-RES, F5-RES 14 day Duration Challenge

[martynk]

A placeholder for the 3rd combined 2M F3-RES, F5-RES  14 day duration Challenge for 2021.

This is an experimental event and the rules may be altered for subsequent challenges.

Please submit your score below. The clock will start when the first score is submitted.

This is a for fun challenge for UK based pilots, anyone may enter with EITHER 

1. a bungee-launched glider up to 2 metres wingspan and the standard Hi-Start can post a time. The standard Hi-Start bungee is a maximum of 10m of 6/4mm surgical tubing and 50m of static line (minimum 30lb breaking strain). Lighter/smaller bungee rubber may be used.

OR

2. an Electric motor launched glider up to 2 metre wingspan fitted with an Altitude Limiter set to 60m and a maximum motor run time of 20 seconds.

Object: Fly your 2 metre glider for as long as possible from a flat field, the person who's time is unbeaten for 14 days 'wins' and a new challenge starts.

Rules:

Flight times begin when line releases from the tow-hook or in the case of an electric motor powered glider, 20 seconds after the hand launch. The model must land in the launch field for times to count. While the object is to encourage F3/F5-RES types, any model up to 2 metre span may be flown (F3/F5-RES, foam, R/E mouldie) but please state the type of model with your time. Note that ailerons or other camber changing devices are no longer permitted. 

No Flight information telemetry permitted except for Received signal strength and Receiver battery status.

Fly safely! No slope soaring

[Stevevw]

My best and last flight on Tuesday 27th April with the my Purito-E

[martynk]

Hi Steve

Was that 270 seconds? 

 

[Stevevw]

Yes Martin 270 seconds. And happy birthday  

[Graham Lorimer]

Nice days flying at Fish Meadow today, bit of work keeping out of the way of the F5J models, but at least I was able to see where the lift might (or might not) be. The weather was not true to forecast, the wind in the morning far more than it was supposed to be, but after lunch the weather rewarded our perseverance. Had numerous launches, and a maiden flight with a new Circle Dancer which was interesting, very different to fly compared to the Purito, but did manage about 13 minutes with it later in the afternoon.

The day involved swapping the prop assembly between the two models, currently there is no stock at Hyperflight of the preferred choice.

Recorded a best flight for the day of 26 minutes 58 seconds with Purito Electric, with a max altitude of 425 meters, they do get hard to see at that distance. At 22 minutes I decided that it would not be very clever to have a flight like this, but to then lose the model and therefore the flight, it was better to pop the Spoilers up and get down to a more manageable level. A near vertical descent followed, until I saw the log I did not realise It had come down quite so quickly. 150 meters down in only a few seconds, maybe not clever, but the airframe appears to have handled the dive without problems.

 

Graham Lorimer

[StraightEdge]

Nice work Graham - sets a good bar!

My own efforts today were unfortunately very short-lived:  weather held some good promise (but it did then rain here), however on my second launch a sudden and powerful gust hit square from my left just after I'd released the PuRES sending it completely horizontally to the right under almost maximum tension, and with controls totally ineffective it hit the ground and spun around, but luckily just after the tow-ring had slipped off!

Damage - which I attended to in full this afternoon - was some breakage to the balsa fuselage side under the port wing-seating, the snapping of the kevlar pull-string loop at the starboard v-tail horn (sharp hole rims), and some wrinkling of the Oralight in the first bay of each panel at the wing joins (i.e. all four 'first bays').

So good to go again, but travels and trims need to be sorted out in calm air first, and weather not looking likely for several more days at least.

Jon

Edited April 30, 2021 by StraightEdge
Correction to 'damage report'

[Stevevw]

Nice one Graham. Wish I could escape during the day. nothing this evening best was about 3 min. But did get a chance to set three flight modes which has calmed the climb down a bit.

[martynk]

9 hours ago, Stevevw said:

Yes Martin 270 seconds. And happy birthday  

Thank you   

[martynk]

Well done Graham and Steve

Sorry a bit late with the updates, I have been away this week and didn't get back until late this afternoon.

Hopefully I have got this right.

 

      

[StraightEdge]

12 hours ago, StraightEdge said:

... on my second launch a sudden and powerful gust hit square from my left just after I'd released the PuRES sending it completely horizontally to the right under almost maximum tension, and with controls totally ineffective it hit the ground and spun around, but luckily just after the tow-ring had slipped off!

Damage - which I attended to in full this afternoon - was some breakage to the balsa fuselage side under the port wing-seating, the snapping of the kevlar pull-string loop at the starboard v-tail horn (sharp hole rims), and some wrinkling of the Oralight in the first bay of each panel at the wing joins (i.e. all four 'first bays').

I've just realised I was completely wrong in my initial assessment of what caused the incident!

No gust from the left, however sudden or relatively strong, could have caused such an extreme initial reaction on the towline, and the starboard v-tail kevlar string didn't snap off on impact with the ground as I first thought.  The string must have broken around the moment of launch or immediately after, thus leaving the right v-tail control surface to spring fully down, and it was precisely this radical DOWN and RIGHT turning force that sent the model careering hard and horizontally to the right.

So the kevlar string loop must have been fraying un-noticed for some time on the control-horn hole.  Fortunately my repair (in the absence of any spare string to make up full-length replacements) involved fashioning a pair of thin wire connectors, about 30mm net length each, bound and CA'd to the now trimmed ends of the string, and at the rearmost ends chafe-free at (and removable if need be from) the horns.

PS - Photo now attached of more resilient repair.  Of course the near disaster remains my own fault entirely!  The original linkages were all wire from the servos to the tail, but when I bought the model second-hand I replaced those with kevlar and springs to save weight (taking my cue from the build mods of a guy on RCGroups) but didn't appreciate that the horns were fibreglass... and that glass and string aren't a happy combination!

[cirrusRC]

Left home this morning with the clouds bubbling up nicely.  Arrived at the field to rain, wind and cold.   Changeable conditions and challenging.  Granted I was in shorts but at times it felt brassic.

Had a couple of breaks in the weather where it went nice around lunchtime.  Struggling a bit with the new bungee maxing out at 45 meters, made it a little more challenging though.  Model flying better without nose weight but a little too breezy at times disappearing downwind quickly.

30 mins 50 was my best.  Conditions deteriorated after 2pm so came home.

Tomorrow looks like an opportunity between 11:30 and 13:30 for a decent flight before the wind and rain arrives.

[StraightEdge]

Very nice session at my local field in SW Oxfordshire this morning.  Forecast was for WNW 5-9mph with low level cumulous at about 40-50% cover, which is exactly what we got at first (cover thickened later with some very light rain).

Second launch of the day at about 10:35am had the PuRES (now 1g heavier in the tail due to repairs/changes plus 5g to balance in the nose) straight up into a powerful thermal.  Maxed at 362m, but trying to keep clear sight of the model and keep it squarely in the action up there wasn't easy, and once out of it there wasn't anything but equally big sink all around, and so landed at 7:24mins.

The next flight launched just before 10:50am was a much more pleasant experience (both show on the attached plot as I forgot to reset telemetry).  Only got 40m or so off the line compared to the near 70m previously, but now directly into more widespread medium-level lift.  Spent ages around patches of blue sky and grey-white clouds exploring the invisible action between roughly 100 and 150m (and satisfied myself that my latest tweaks with a covering-iron to keep the various wing warps in check meant that I could now circle in either direction with no clear difference or propensity to stall between them).  After about 15mins or so the activity got stronger and I went up to just over 240m, but felt this was too high really and didn't wish the model to be carried too far downwind, so came closer to play around the 180m mark for a while, after which the air on the ground got decidedly chillier (it rained lightly afterwards) and with it increasing areas of sink aloft, and came down to land eventually at 34:07.

Very pleased indeed with this, which is half as much again as my previous best.

Jon

[cirrusRC]

Brilliant, well done Jon.  Chuffed for you.

[martynk]

Fantastic.  Great flight scores.

I have never seen a table be obsolete before I published it before.

 

 

[Graham Lorimer]

Really starting to regret pulling up the spoilers and bailing out at 425 meters on Friday, will have to grow a bigger pair and fly higher next time, well done Guys.

 

Graham

[StraightEdge]

 

3 hours ago, cirrusRC said:

Brilliant, well done Jon.  Chuffed for you.

Thanks David - appreciated!

30 minutes ago, Graham Lorimer said:

Really starting to regret pulling up the spoilers and bailing out at 425 meters on Friday, will have to grow a bigger pair and fly higher next time, well done Guys.

Graham

Its no disgrace Graham to bail at anything like that height!  In my case I simply give up trying to see the model as anything more than a vague eyelash in the sky... just concentrate on not moving the stick from its last known position! 

[Stevevw]

Nice one Jon. Regretting going sailing today and not flying. Upside is I did win downside weather looks awful for the next week here in Hertfordshire.

[cirrusRC]

Early bike ride yesterday, got to the field for 11am to find quite a few flyers and lots of lift.     Had a quick test flight with the DLG and could see there was lift everywhere.      Broke my spoilers again and discovered it's because I keep connecting the Left Right connectors in wrong order which exceeds linkage limits.    Easy fix for next time.

Second launch off the high start, found some smooth light lift,  got up to 300 meters without much effort but the lift was taking me straight into the sun.     Came out of that and then had to work really hard for the next 20 minutes,    the streamer was showing lift firing off all over the sky and I was constantly having to jump from one thermal to another moving around the field as nothing was developing.     Eventually at around 35 minutes I found some really violent lift with a strong infill which took me a long way down wind but got me over 300 meters.   Zooming back over head into the developing grey, there was some strong cloud suck which meant I could just park the model and surf the increasing wind.

At this point the hour mark look pretty straightforward........

That was until the sun disappeared behind the clouds,   it went freezing cold and the wind started to gust 10+ mph.       Despite everyone else lower down falling out of the sky,   the lift was still booming up high and without the spoilers I was having to spiral dive the model to keep the visibility safe.     Looks like I topped out at 500 meters.     Eventually the lift evaporated and I found a sky full of wind and sink.     The sun didn't reappear for a good 30 minutes and by then the best of the day had been and gone.

A little annoyed not to have made the hour flight,  but pleased with how I flew and worked the lift.      I've certainly had easier flights.

53 minutes 56 seconds.

[Graham Lorimer]

Nice flight Cirrus, but don't these little gliders drop like a stone in bad air.

That one in going to be hard to beat over the next 14 days.

Graham

[StraightEdge]

Well done David.

I must say how fascinating I find the reports to read.  Each day is different, and the fliers and locations too, but the narratives take you right there!

Jon