FxRES March 2024 2m F3L/F5L Monthly Duration Challenge

[Richard Newsham]

Purito : F3L : 17th March 2024 : 295s 4m 55s

Harden moor - Time 13:45 - wind speed not really sure. I 'd say around 8 to 10mph and very gusty - lovely in the sunshine. 

Towards the end of the flight it didn't want to come down so played it.  I was just trying to maintain position and trying to keep it pointed into wind.  All the flights today were just point into wind and try and maintain position.  Any thermal turns meant going downwind and possibly not getting back.

flight 20 shows the Purito blasting up to 100 meters with a ping off the end.  This is after the lack luster performance a few days ago with no wind.  Wow, did it climb quickly.  Proper had a head of speed. The Purito wasn't fazed by it.  I was half expecting the rubber or something to give.

Richard

 

 

[Richard Newsham]

After flying the Purito I swapped the wings onto the Purito E fuselage. Wind still was 8 to 10 mph ish and gusty.  Time 15:40.  Not very long flight times but good practice with the height limit and testing my setup.  Again it was just point into wind but this time I had a little advantage over the Purito that I'd traveled upwind a bit.  

Richard

[martynk]

Updated table - 2 entries for Richard.

     

[Will_A]

Medina : F5L : 18-03-24 : 3:01

Another very short up and down flight today in Ashton Court, Bristol, with patchy lift and rather windy. Just to get something chalked up on the board.  I had to install 60g ballast to calm it down and have any pentration at all.

 

Being new to RES, I thought I'd share a lesson learned for others also new to the class.  I had a very scary flight later on at about 5:30pm.

There were still strong thermals but it was blustery, so they were broken up and hard to use. But finally caught one that took me up to about 100m. But the wind got up or maybe just got stronger up there and it suddenly got blown downwind fast!  Quite scary. I was losing sight of it, so had to run about 400m downwind.... fast!

I nearly lost it in some big trees as it was getting too far away to see orientation properly, or see it at all. You can see fromt the chart the crazy up and down when i switched on the motor, initially too fast and it was all over the place. Then I dropped throttle to c.60% & finally managed to get see it properly, calm down a bit & wrestle it under control and powered back towards me and landed safely. My heart was in my mouth.... 

Coming from modern DLGs which can punch into the wind well, I didn’t realise how badly affected by wind these RES models are, even with 60g ballast in, but should have had 100 or more. Thank god it had a motor otherwise it would be at the top of a tree now!

Lesson learned is don't get too far downwind, especially if you don't have a motor! Or Maybe just dont fly if its too windy for your experience level and build up slowly.

PS thinking about it again, I  feel a bit daft not just turning motor on earlier. But coming from DLG and never having flown with a motor before, I kinda forgot until it was rather late…

 Thankfully all ended well. Eek!

 some

Cheers Will

[martynk]

Thanks Will and welcome to the 2024 Challenge> Numbers are starting to pick up now that Spring seems to be materialising.

 

     

[Richard Newsham]

Nothing to better the times I've already posted.

Harden Moor.  Mad dash after work. More practice.  17:30 until 18:45 (the glider stood out against the dark sky but was disappearing on finals against the vegetation).  Flying the Purito-E.  Temperature 9 deg C but felt cool.  Needed my hat.  Started with a little wind about 2 to 3 mph westerly ending the session with no wind.    This resulted in two totally different flight durations.

Flight 44 - 1m52s was during the very light breeze. 

Flight 52 - 3m26s with no wind. 

The breeze was hardly anything yet it made a big difference.  Turning into wind does seem to lose height rather than a nice slow decent with no wind so that could be some of it.  I think next time I'll power up wind and I'll try to turn out of wind. So if flying into wind is say, 0 deg, then I'll use pointing 90deg and turn through 180deg to point 270deg and back, zig zagging over a distance minimizing the amount of turns. So never turning into wind.  Something to try next time.

What I need to do is go flying when it's warm and sunny. Ha.

Richard

[AnthonyB]

cREst / F5L / 19/3/24 / 7:30

There was a strong SE breeze all day and it started to slacken off at 4:30. I put my 500g version on charge just before 5:00 and at quarter past the wind had really dropped, so I then had to charge the lightest.

Didn't fully charge and went out at 5:30. I was in the air by about 5:40.

Really smooth air and on launch I just followed some homeward bound Gulls.

I may have been in a little lift when the motor cut, but it could have been excess speed from dropping the nose.

It seemed to bounce a little, so I circled. At 250m away I actually thought I was wasting my time and so headed back. I stood there not moving the sticks most of the time. A first in a very long time.

It remained very flyable until about 6:20.

I was quite shocked when I looked at the chart.

I just love how this AMRT cuts the motor early (56m) – bonus.

I posted this at 18:15, must have not pressed Submit Reply....... It was still here ??

[AnthonyB]

cREst / F5L / 20/3/24 / 14:56

Good grief – a real thermal – first this year.

But first. The throttle blip. With a big down jacket on, I reached forward to switch to thermal mode and caught the throttle, which I felt and immediately closed. It would have helped if I had done the throttle inhibit switch.

To be fair, these DM height switches shut early to limit you to the set height. So the throttle closed at 56m and I certainly did not gain that 4m I lost.

If you don't like it – I will do another ???

Today started in wet mist and as I drove further to the coast it got brighter and better. Turning to sun and no rain 5 miles away.

Coming back it went darker again, raining just down the road from home.

This is another light cREst and it also has an aged Data Manager switch – this irritated me so much, I stopped flying the model. When you have landed, it imagines it is still up in the air, or it may be that it just switches off in mid air. I flew previous to this flight and reformatted it – no change.

All (previous) flights had a reasonable thermal content – this was the best.

It is to be hoped others in NW also got some decent flights.

[AnthonyB]

Previously I said that these really light gliders are best below 6mph wind.

The above was done in a really light breeze (about 3mph – 1.34m/sec).

This is a month long thing and so it is a matter of waiting for a day when there is a very light breeze but some activity. So perhaps this 3mph was about the max.

The lift I worked for the main lift was actually widespread – Not a small defined thermal. Though there were good and bad bits in it.

Here there was little point in using anything heavier. Any advantage (heavier) only really starts at 6mph.

I did not lose the thermal, but rather turned back or I would have been over the road, an absolute no go.

As I worked it for 4mins (240sec) and the breeze was 1.34m/sec, it must have been (240 x 1.34 = 321m) away. I was thinking a more at the time.

I turned back and did a couple of small circling sessions and there was still lift.

The whole climb was only at 0.23m/sec. Visibly rising and always feeling that I could make it back if it went wrong. Rising at a lower speed (heavier model) it would not have felt as safe to continue.

The actual return was slow and steady and it was sinking at only 0.29m/sec, so the air was still being kind to me – no infill after leaving main lift. It took 2 or 3 minutes to get back and then I covered some sky looking for more lift. As you can see I found nothing. Looking at the chart, you can actually see the wiggles as I did less than perfect circles. You can also see that the lift got stronger as it got higher. 0.62m/sec where I decided to turn back.

Yesterday was by far the best (for me) in 3 months, how come no other flights ?

[Richard Newsham]

1 hour ago, AnthonyB said:

Yesterday was by far the best (for me) in 3 months, how come no other flights ?

Unfortunately working and being a taxi for the kids after work. Next few days are a bit blowy so might be next week until I'm out.  I might book an afternoon off work if there is any favourable weather before the FxRES competition on Good Friday.  I haven't had chance to do any thermal turns in a thermal yet with the Purito.  

I'll be taking my Monthly Duration bungy with me to the competition so after the competition I'll try and have a few flights to try and better my recorded time.

Richard

[martynk]

Updated table:

    I always disable my throttle as soon as the motor stops. I can see that you got no advantage with your blip..

[cirrusRC]

My throttle is disarmed when I pull momentary switch which also starts the challenge timer.

To rearm, I have to hold momentary switch for 3 seconds.  Good for arming safety, but gets a bit hairy if you need to do emergency restart when at risk of landing out and that low level save doesn't materialize 

Edited March 21 by cirrusRC

[AnthonyB]

I have throttle left, and rudder and elevator right.

The disarm switch is mid right and the (2) mode switches are top left, together with sprung brake switch. Thermal is pull back.  It is also a large heavy Tx.

This happened 15 or 16 seconds after closing the throttle and my right hand was still busy sorting the model out.

After hitting thermal mode, it would have been the next thing.

This is not the first time, I did the same last year. Also all the times it did not need an explanation that I also did it. Lighter jackets also have elasticated wrist bands.

I am far too tight to buy stick end switches.

The problem does go away when it warms up.

I have a spoken throttle count down and a (full) flight length timer. I use the throttle to activate. I tried different switches and more times than not, forgot to switch it on.

I do find that 10 – 15 seconds after launch to be too absorbing – why I forget switches.

I can even forget to reset the timers, then they are also completely wrong.

[cirrusRC]

Oh and when I launch I'm in thermal mode, but while the motor is running i'm in pseudo speed mode via programming - helps to keep nose down.  As soon as momentary switch pulled it disables pseudo so I'm in thermal mode without any additional switches.  Works well.

[AnthonyB]

2 hours ago, cirrusRC said:

Oh and when I launch I'm in thermal mode, but while the motor is running i'm in pseudo speed mode via programming - helps to keep nose down.  As soon as momentary switch pulled it disables pseudo so I'm in thermal mode without any additional switches.  Works well.

Now I wish I could do that. I normally launch in speed or normal, depending on power and how far I want to go. But then I have to switch. I could mix (as many do) throttle with elevator. Trouble with that is when you close throttle, the elevator comes in and balloons into a stall. Other than speed, normal and thermal (why I said 2 mode switches) I have faster, normal and slower which adds a trace more up or down. At that point I have just completely outsmarted myself.

[Richard Newsham]

Purito : F3L : 24th March 2024 : 1132s 18m52s

Harden moor - Time 16:15 - wind speed around 8mph and gusty, Westerly, EDIT.  Purito 417g plus 150g ballast (made me able to penetrate just a little).

The short flight at the beginning is me seeing circling birds in the distance heading towards me after take off so I landed PDQ and re-launched fairly near them.  Close enough to pick up what they were flying in. The blip at 700s is me circling and losing what the Purito was doing.  It looked okay then it didn't!  The Purito was getting too high for me.  Because the model was down wind I was not getting the air through my goggles, they started to mist a little.  Not good so I started to bring her down.  Ever weary of opening spoilers after learning from my PuRES and seeing it nose dive, I played around with the spoilers.  It was the first time in anger of using the spoilers on the Purito.  The spoiler to elevator mix looked okay. 1100s to 1300s was spoilers fully open.  It descended very gracefully at -1.42 m/s against the head wind.

Earlier in the afternoon (13:30ish, 4th flight) I picked up a thermal.  Flight length 7 mins ish.  But due to the wind speed, 10mph and gusty, it wasn't long before I was too far down wind without the height achieved so that was brought to a premature end. 

Out of all the flights I had this is typical of them all, Flight 33.  The ping off the bungee was typically 13m helped by the wind speed.  It fair stretched the bungee and line.  I didn't quite know what to expect with the bungee with the added ballast.   It seemed to take it well. I have no fear doing it again.  I added 150g at the start reducing this to 50g for the last few flights of the day around 16:45 as the wind had eased a little.  I have 200g of ballast but will save that for competition if having to fly in the upper limits of what is allowed (18mph).  The added ballast did make a difference with regards penetrating the wind.  But with the wind being gusty and air that is not buoyant ie in shadow, a noticeable drop in temperature, with the gusts getting up and potential sinky air, the ballast inevitably brought the model down quicker.  But would it have been down quicker with no ballast and pointing the nose down to stop being blown down wind?  Should have tested that to prove the theory.  Next time.

Richard

 

Edited March 24 by Richard Newsham
Removal of "lots of passing Cumulus clouds". They were from earlier in the day

[martynk]

Cracking flight, well done.

 

     

[Carl]

Kavan Resco : F5L : 26/03/2024 : 5m 28s

The weather unexpectedly offered me an opportunity to pop down my local field for some flights. My batteries were still ready from a couple days ago when I started walking down to the field and it was very windy, so turned round and went home. So it was a grab 'n' go decision around 10am this morning and had about an hour and a half to play.

This was flight was my first, but did have a number of similar flights.

In my first post I mentioned a couple of things:

1) Tendency to turn left - this turned out to be the left wing tip slightly turned up. Just required me to use the covering iron to straighten it. The wing tips on the Resco are quite weak.

2) Even though I was flying with the CG towards the forward end of the range the glider was behaving as if it was a little tail heavy. This I rectified in two stages. Firstly by slipping a 1/64" piece of wood under the front of the tailplane, and this improved the flight. Secondly I slipped a 1/64" piece of would under the rear of the wing and now the glider scoots around the sky happily. I'm guessing when assembling the model, the decalage wasn't at it's optimum position.

I can now fly the Resco more cleanly, and at times hands off. Lovely flying characteristic.

I did have my hatcam on so here's a short video clip of it:

https://youtu.be/nwtt1J5Julw

Ready for April now, as I continue to build my F3L Magic 2 SL.....

Carl

[martynk]

Updated table, sorry its a little late.

 

     

[Paul Wellacott]

PURITO E F5 - Dishforth 30-3-24 - 07:47

Thank goodness for that !!! 

This was my first day thermaling since Oct 23 !!! It's been a long time coming.

Not a great day, the afternoon would've been better but I needed to be away for 2pm. 

Winds were 9mph gusting to 13mph, so launches didn't go up wind very far, then tracked back very quickly this was the best but I had 6 flights very similar, all within 30 seconds of each other.