November 2023 'Special' postal

[martynk]

Competition runs from 1/11/23 to 30/11/23.

Model and launch rules as per the normal FxRES postal.

F3L - 50m line plus 10m 6/4 bungee

F5L- height limiter set to 60m , 20 second motor run, 20 seconds deducted from the total flight time.

Time your own flights if you wish.

5 flights launched within a 60 minute (F5L) or 75 minutes (F3L) slot. 6 minute maximum for each flight.  F3L get 15 minutes extra to allow for bungee retrieval

The 1 hour clock starts at the point of launch of the first flight. Make a note of the time

The slot clock ends 60 minutes later. Any model in the air at that time - the flight with still count, providing it is launched before the end of the 60 minute slot. Record the time when the model lands at the end of the last flight.

Please enter your scores below. 

First line of your post: Date, slot start time. slot end time (see below), F3L or F5L. Total claimed Score for 5 flights. Breakdown of score into individual flights. Optional - location.

Any any graphs commentary etc - enter below the first line.

This is a Test competition to see if the format works, however, the usual gold cup will still be awarded to the winner, but the main idea is to test the rules.

One thing we haven't done is agreed on how to decide a winner in the event of a tie.. For this event, this will be determined by how much of the slot was used to record the flights, hence the request to log your slot end time (i.e, the landing time for your last flight). F3L pilots simply deduct 15 minutes from your final end time.

Hope that is not too confusing.  Don't forget a pen and paper..

[martynk]

Just a thought

The spirit of this event is that it is 5 flights in 1 hour. Please don't keep flying until you you get a decent first flight and then declare your slot start time 6 minutes earlier. 

Thanks 

[AnthonyB]

5/11/23 / 14:15 to 15:10 / F5L / 25:29 or 1529sec / 6:11 - 6:10 - 5:45 - 2:28 - 5:16 ….... Ribble Valley.

First there is no mention of chopping off “over 6mins” ….. 6mins under or / over ?

Here is the chart of the complete set of flights.

Here is a simpler one showing after motor cut.

And here is the sink rate without any spoilers from flight One.

 

Over lunch it was perfect flying weather. It took 30mins to charge battery, so out the door (14:15) with second battery left on charge. Do 3 flights and pop back for second one.

Great first flight and then a patter of rain on wings. Did flight 2 with odd drops of rain on my head. Ran for cover from rain and got second battery. All gone after 10mins, so back to field. It was pouring down just up the road in Clitheroe (no rain over Preston).

The rain over Clitheroe pulled the wind round, so it went from NW to SW. There were spots of rain all through the last 3 flights, but it did not actually rain.

The first 2 flights had Gulls as markers (same Gulls for first 2 flights).

I just did flight after flight with no gaps except for 10mins sheltering.

Round here you have to fly when you can and ignore light rain !!!!!

Why is it that the blackest clouds are always over my head ?

Finally – There appeared to be a Buzzard heading to me. Then it was doing aerobatics, so I changed my mind, it was the aerobatic Bipe from Blackpool. Then I realised it must have been a Buzzard (It was quite high). Then the shock came when an “S” floated past. The Buzzard / Bipe were large Helium filled letters – it had been a “T.” Poor Steve !

[martynk]

Thanks Anthony, that's great.

Yes, good point, terminate the reported score at 6:00.

I'll need to devise a spreadsheet to capture the data but that's a great start. Well done.

Martyn

[martynk]

And a table:

[AnthonyB]

Thanks Martyn. In most classes I have been in, if you are over say 6mins, then the over is deducted from the 6mins. You can only score 6mins (360) if you are exactly on the time. As I had no spoilers, it was better for me to make certain I had 6mins before committing to land.

[martynk]

The intended maximum for this event was 6 minutes 20 less 20 second motor run for F5L. If that is exceeded, then not a problem.  The max still applies..

Thanks for pointing that out, it wasn't clear

[Pete in Northiam]

On 05/11/2023 at 16:40, AnthonyB said:

Why is it that the blackest clouds are always over my head ?

Nice account! The answer is you are clearly a Rain God! (With apologies to Douglas Adams.)

I particularly like how you get across a sense of urgency from flying against the clock. I hope to feel that when we try full-on F3L slots in the league. Singular focusing on the task is idylic

[martynk]

Following on from the usual Monthly postal.. <sob>

After that postal flight, there was me thinking this was going to be easy, I have already mentioned that the air had gone very cold.

The air still felt (and it was) horrible but as I had mentally declared my start time as 13:45 and I had already waited about 10 minutes, it seemed sensible to make a start.

I headed back to the same patch that I had found lift previously and for the first minute it seemed OK, no lift but no obvious sink either and then the air thinned drastically due to a freak of nature and there was ony one way it was going. As I was upwind of a clump of trees, there was no time for prevarication so brought it back. 02:35 - 20 secs = 02:15

 

The second flight was again a case of hanging around for as long as I dared , launched and headed back to the same piece of real estate. This time however, I could see it coming down quickly, decided to abandon this flight as a bad job and try and negotiate the trees. This time, however, I clipped a tree, not very high, the model spun and headed down into a gully by a stream. Full up to miss the stream and went to collect the model. It had managed to attempt to fly through the boundary fence by the river, result, a knocked off wingtip and a damaged wing root where it argued with the fence and lost. All repairable, but not on the field, so  my attempt came to an end after just 2 flights. Hey ho

 

 

A miserable 94-20 seconds = 1:14.  

[martynk]

Updated table.

[AnthonyB]

Martyn, why, oh why did you not just open up the motor.

I would NEVER have my height switch set without restart.

Yes, you blow the flight – so what ?

One (or even 4) ruined flights is just not worth a damaged model.

There are trees all round me here, also at Pleasington – that is always where the good lift is !!!

[martynk]

I didn't deliberately fly into the tree. I thought that I was in front of it. There is a narrow corridor that is clear between the field that I was overflying and the landing strip. I wasn't very high, it just clipped a branch that was jutting out. If it wasn't for the fence, I would have probably got away with it undamaged.

 Just one of those things.. Bloody irritating though, I was enjoying the flying..

[andyharrold]

I have on a few occasions landed out with the relight available!

[AnthonyB]

"Parallax error ?"  If there was a person stood in a field (between 5 and 6 ft tall) you would know the person's size and the model size and hence you would know if in front or behind. 

With trees they can vary a whole lot and so it is really hard to judge in front and behind.

I have always had difficulty changing from a 2m model to a 4m model when doing precision landings. Best for me to do 10 practice landings, to get it right.

Here I do slope the trees that are in a line - I only go near, so long as I have daylight between model and the top of the tree. Square on you don't know if you are in front or behind. Again, it is about the shape and size of the tree.

Boy do they catch a lot out.

As for landing well away at times - One seems to be so transfixed getting the model back, you forget about the motor. 

[mark_r]

Had some very enjoyable flying on Saturday (11th Nov) on harden moor - calm conditions, very flat air with only tiny occasional bubbles of lift (that I could detect...), but was very surprised at how well the glider stayed up considering how the air felt. I picked a notional 1 hour slot and then just had 5 flights one straight after the other. Times recorded (with 20s taken off for motor run) were: 5:24, 4:18, 2:23, 4:31, 5:34.  (Mental note to self to work on hitting the time/height limit much closer to 20s as I was typically 5s under every time.)

One observation I had (and then checked) is that the my altis nano clock (not sure what type it is) runs quite fast - somewhere around 5.5% faster than 'real' time. Not a big deal but this makes a timed 6m flight look like more like 5m 40s. The bigger issue for me is that this also takes around 1.6s off the 'real' motor run time (on a target 30s run in comp conditions) - of course hitting 30s and max altitude right on 30s is a bit of a challenge (for me), and at least it is under rather than over (so no advantage gained), but not ideal. It's less of an issue for a 20s motor run, but still might lose a few meters if the time expires before 60m is reached.

That aside, the conditions were really nice, particularly later in the day when there was zero thermal/sink so the flying was absolutely turbulence free. Really quite liked the format too  - 1st attempt for me so next time I'll try to pay a bit more attention rather than just flying one straight after the other.

Flight traces below - the shortest flight was the middle of the 5 flights, with the 2 longest flights being the 1st and the last (so it looks like there was a fairly slow cycle of lift (ish), sink, lift (ish)).

[martynk]

Welcome Mark and a very good score. Thanks

 

[Richard Newsham]

17/Nov/2023 : 14:06 : 14:38 : F3L : 4m17s 3m19s 3m26s 3m24s 3m28 : Harden Moor, Keighley.

Wind SW about 3mph. dark cloud with the odd ray bit of sunshine but hardly worth mentioning!

Flights were straight up and down.  On average losing height at around 0.38m/s.

There were a couple of bits of 'warmer' air which meant you didn't come down as fast for a split second or two.

Nice to be out.

The times recorded are from my 2nd out of 3 goes.  On my 3rd attempt the wind had really dropped so tried kiting the bungee.  The last flight of the 3rd attempt went well with a nice bit of height achieved (see picture).  The just one more go flight before packing up trying the same kiting method was going really well until I tried too much and the bungee let go.  It had had enough.  It takes a moment to realize what on earth has happened when your in full on bungee mode.

Richard.

[Richard Newsham]

When there is no wind the bungee is a bit lack luster (54m).  I managed a ping off the top with one but the other just slipped off.  Surprising what a little bit of wind does when you work it.  Especially if you kite it and ping off the top.

Richard

Edited November 17, 2023 by Richard Newsham
Spelling

[AnthonyB]

Richard, that is how I would have liked to display my flights, but if you try that the cut at 60m does not work (emergency start).

That sink rate is good.

I think Drela messed us all up …....... http://www.charlesriverrc.org/articles/allegrolite2m/Allegro_Lite.pdf

He claims a sink rate of 0.87ft/sec (0.265m/sec) for an 18oz (510g) model.

When you don't get that sort of performance you feel disappointed.

DONT BE.

I have been going far lighter, trying to get those sort of figures.

Being lighter also shows up rising air far better.

Pinging off a line - You can do exactly the same with a motor – BUT – Get it slightly wrong and you really pay the price!

Here the “dip” is too early, but you can see the climb rate (7.65m/sec) is far faster than the normal climb rate. (first flight from above).

The black dot is the cut off, the yellow dot is where I closed the throttle and the last black dot (FAI height) is 10 sec after the motor cut.

This was all in rising air, marked by Gulls.

Here I got it slightly better on the fourth flight..... Considering the algo should cut early to MAKE you peak at 60m.

With these you also have to be using the full 20sec allocated time.

A "dip" is not a dip, just level flight.

 

 

[martynk]

Nice one Richard, those are excellent still air flights, certainly no sink or you would have been down a lot quicker.