FxRES May 2024 2m F3L/F5L Monthly Duration Challenge

[martynk]

FxRES Monthly Postal Rules

This is a “for fun” challenge for UK based pilots. Anyone may enter with:

1. a bungee-launched F3L specification glider using the reduced length Hi-Start. The reduced length Hi-Start bungee has a maximum of 10m of 6/4mm surgical tubing and 50m of static line (minimum 30lb breaking strain). Lighter/smaller/shorter bungee rubber may be used.

OR

2. an Electric motor launched F5L specification glider fitted with an Altitude Limiter set to 60m and a maximum motor run time of 20 seconds.

Object: Fly your F3L or F5L glider for as long as possible from a flat field. Each monthly challenge will commence on the 1st day of the Calendar month and  the person who's time is unbeaten at the end of the Calendar Month 'wins' and a new challenge will start. The annual challenge league will end on the 31st December of each year. A new annual challenge league will then commence on the 1st of January.

Rules:

Models must comply with the Model Specification rules for F3L or F5L as appropriate.

You may self-time your own flights

Flight times begin when the tow-line falls from the tow-hook  for F3L or in the case of a F5L glider when the motor stops.

The model must land in the launch field or (if there is no field boundary) within 150m of the launch position for times to count. There is no landing bonus.

If you are using a bungee launch (for this event or any other), then the launch line MUST be secured using a corkscrew dog tether or similar bungee stake to minimise the risk of injury caused by a loose stake.

Scores must be submitted on the relevant monthly postal event posting on the FxRES forum at www.barcs.co.uk/forums/   

Scoring flights must be submitted within 24 hours of the flight taking place.

A flight log graph from the Altitude limiter should also be submitted if entering with a F5-RES glider.

All scoring flights must start with a hand release from Ground Level with (if applicable), the motor running.

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

Submitted scores will be amalgamated into an annual league. Points will be awarded as follows:  1st -25 points, 2nd - 22points, 3rd - 20 points, 4th to 22nd, 19 to 1 point respectively.

You may enter as many times as you wish using as many different models as you wish, but only your longest duration flight will count towards the league position. Separate entries (best flight in each) will be recorded for those who fly both F3L and F5L.

Please enter your best/latest monthly scores below in the following format...

ON THE FIRST LINE OF YOUR POST

Model Name : Class (F3L or F5L) : Date of flight : Time Claimed

Any text or commentary or images please add afterwards.  Thanks  

 

Note: A separate mini league will be maintained for the F3L scores in addition to the combined F3L/F5L league.

[Richard Newsham]

Purito-E : F5L : 1st May 2024 : 400s 6m40s

Harden moor - Time 15:45 to 17:30 - 8 to 10mph NE - temperature: should have worn a coat - grey cloud coverage, just ripe to rain, and it did after I left.

Lots of up and down 2 minute-ish flights.  Hard to tell if the glider rising a little was the attitude of the glider against the wind or a gust or a blip of a thermal. Nothing resulted from chasing them.

Flight 3 did see a bit more of the glider rising.  The result being hang in there as long as I dare to stand a chance of getting back.  It did come back with enough height to try another go but height maintained so brought it back to land.

Richard

[Carl]

Kavan Resco : F5L : 01/05/2024 : 4m 37s

After a nasty few days of weather in Devon, it was unexpectedly calm day today, so I took the opportunity to pop down my local field before the next batch of forecast wet and windy weather arrives.

Sun was popping in and out behind clouds. Lots of seagulls circling in big thermals, but were a long way from me to reach. My streamer only seemed to show a constant Easterly breeze, so I was just blindly launching into different parts of the field with no success.

For my third and last battery I decided to wait for my streamer to show changes in directions, and finally for this flight there was a change and so I launched into the breeze and immediately circled round to where I thought the thermal was and caught it. Climbed to over 100m, but my flying was very scrappy today so didn't make the most of it.

One problem I was also having today was a big stall when the motor cuts. I do try and anticipate when the motor will cut so the climb is shallow at this point to avoid the stall. Anyway for this flight I judged it just right and avoided the stall.

Nice to see lots of buttercups in the field.

Pleasant time out, which included me trying out my little Spin EL. I haven't set up flight modes yet, and with the basic setup it was so easy to make use of all the little bubbles of lift available. Very nice.

Carl

[cirrusRC]

1st May | F5L | Medina |  47 mins 36

Got out during lunch break.   Hazy, light winds and warm.     Had to work hard to get away as lift very narrow,   some very tight spiralling did the trick.   Once up high there was an abundance of lift and red kites.   Spent most of the flight trying to lose height without losing too much.   Full spoiler and dive for a few seconds.  Eventually had to abort as running short on time.   A nice benchmark to be beaten.

[Carl]

41 minutes ago, cirrusRC said:

Had to work hard to get away as lift very narrow,   some very tight spiralling did the trick.   Once up high there was an abundance of lift and red kites.   

Sounds like similar conditions I had, but I have to learn the skill of using the smaller, tighter thermals to get to the big, higher thermals. It was clear they were massive thermals as I could see probably 20 seagulls circling in them. It's difficult to judge size, but the seagulls were probably circling at least 100-200m circles. What was fascinating was I could see lower down they were tighter circles but higher up wider circles. So it was a rare day to see thermals so visually. But as I've already said I need to learn the skills to get to them, and that's what I like about these monthly challenges - not only having something to aim for but by reading the reports from others, like yourself, I'm learning 

Carl

[Dave Elam]

With a bit of luck I'm hoping to get a flight or two in the May challenge as I'm just about to drive over to Model Shop Leeds and treat myself to a new ARTF Kavan Resco.
At £299 they seem very good value for such a model. I'll bring it home and then decided what motor/ESC to use.

[martynk]

 

1/5/2024, Mad Hatter 2e F5L 201 seconds 3:21

My humble offering. I flew down at the BATS school playing fields yesterday evening. Managed to bury my bubble dancer in soft mud for their open glider comp (flying the wrong model - it was rather a long way upwind).. Why upwind, well - there was a bit of ridge lift and I was well on the way for the 8 minute max when I was joined by a couple of others and ended up flying the wrong one.   Also - close downwind was a large housing estate   - only about 100m downwind in fact. A definite no fly zone.

 

So, I got the my Mad Hatter out for the first time since last November and its rebuild and started retrimming it. Decided that the CG was too far aft but the real problem was the housing estate. Lift was quite weak and very narrow and the breeze was picking up. Only 2 obvious thermal flights but both had to be abandoned as the model approached the houses.

 

[Dave Elam]

As usual it was excellent service at Model Shop Leeds and I'm now the proud owner of a Kavan Resco. I don't think I've ever bought a model that felt so light in the box! I've got to say that I'm very impressed with the build quality and Will at the model shop believes they are made in the Czech Republic which explains it. Looking forward now to setting it up and getting it up in the air.

[cirrusRC]

Medina | F5L | May the 4th be with you | 1 hour 25 min 10 sec

Left work and got to the field for 3:30pm.   Grey, cool with light winds.    First battery was all straight up and down.    First flight on 2nd battery (4pm), I battled with the weak fickle lift and no fly zone for 15 minutes before the clouds broke and conditions started to improve (gorgeous warm sunshine). 

Having got away - it was very smooth light lift up high.   Lots of lift so pretty straight forward for 1st hour - except my neck wasn't enjoying looking straight up.      The latter part of the flight, wind direction switched 180 away from the no fly zone,  but lift went very weak and kept taking me into the sun.   A slow climb from 200 to 300 meters had to be aborted as the blood had drained from my arms (holding TX against the sun).   I picked up a narrow gnats fart very low over the trees,  this took me a long way down wind gaining very little height which had to be aborted to get back to field.      Soon after landing the conditions were pancake flat and zero lift - so headed home

[Richard Newsham]

Purito-E : F5L : 5th May 2024 : 930s 15m30s

Harden moor - Time 10:45 to 13:30 - 6mph WNW - temperature: a lovely 15deg C - thin white cloud cover giving way to rows of cumulus heading my way during the session.  Arriving about 45 mins before I left. I should have delayed my session by 2 hours but as ever the Met office didn't tell me they were coming!  Should have been flying in Blackburn :-).

Flight 25:- Well I thought I'd got it in the bag (CirrusRC 45mins that is).  I just needed to latch into another thermal.... but it didn't come.

Flight 32:- Surely I can achieve a decent flight time now I've got 400m.  I just need to hang round here and skip along.  Nope, a 400m dump.  And boy did I search round for some more lift.  After flight analysis:-  Should I have followed the thermal further downwind at already 400m rather than leaving it thinking I should latch into another thermal on my way back.

I had a few 10 mins ish flights.  I good days flying.

Richard

[Richard Newsham]

Purito-E : F5L : 6th May 2024 : 1hr 41m

Harden moor - Time 11:00 to 13:30 - 0 - 2mph N - temperature: Sun cream required - gradually building Cumulus and later developing potential Cumulonimbus.  

My first time over 1 hour.  It was hard work. A couple of low level saves. Quite a bit of spoilers open time which slowed the model which seemed to only help with the model going up or seemed to so in with a bit of nose down.  Hard to tell at height.

The lift just kept on rolling through.  The lift was happy to maintain me at height over a few quite long periods.  

The final thermal was epic.  I thought I was down and out then the next moment hitting 500m.  Pure exhilaration starting from something so narrow to the relief of opening out as you climbed to couldn't careless.  Climb rate at the steepest part was 3m/s.

The end came with a massive dark grey cloud killing not quite everything in the vicinity, but something I couldn't hang on to.

Fortunately a fellow club member arrived 20 mins in to the flight.  Talking with him helped pass the time and gave a nice bit of security as there was no chance of taking your eyes off the model.

Richard

[Dave Elam]

I'm just south of Huddersfield and the sky was pretty active here too this afternoon. I was flying my 2.7m Kavan Twinshark and the lack of any real wind and big lift made it very enjoyable flying. I could pretty much have stayed up for hours if I'd wanted!

[cirrusRC]

59 minutes ago, Richard Newsham said:

Purito-E : F5L : 6th May 2024 : 1hr 41m

Well done, some nice saves and climbs.   Rained all day here but high pressure due rest of week.

[martynk]

@Richard Newsham That graph looks like my blood pressure chart..

 

Table now corrected - Sorry Richard...

 

     

 

 

[Stewart Walker]

Bramhall, F5-RES, Fresh 10mins 37second

Only the second outing this year, Launched with Martink standing next to me shouting go down wind, circle, go left/right. Managed for me, a very good 10 minutes.

[Carl]

Kavan Resco : F5L : 09/05/2024 : 14m 02s

Today was dead calm at first, so any air movement were light thermals. Hard to do much with them. It was the middle part of the day, but it was misty for some time until the sun broke it up and so decent thermals were a bit later. My tactic today was not to waste my battery unless my streamer was indicating a potential thermal. So sometimes I was stood waiting for several minutes before a launch.

I did find a nice thermal, and thought I was in for a big flight as I was gaining a lot of height, but the air higher up was pushing the Resco towards the sun. The sky was virtually clear of cloud, so the sun was very intense to have in view whilst trying to control the glider. I was holding the transmitter to block the sun, but I was struggling to keep control smooth. Perhaps I should of stayed where I was. Anyhow, I was pleased with a 14m 02s flight, with a climb to over 300m in the thermal.

The breeze then started picking up from the West, so I moved to the Western end of the field. The thermals were really starting to appear all over the place for a while, and again my streamer would show thermals towards the sun. So I decided I would practice dealing with the sun, and was starting to do better with positioning my transmitter to block the sun from my eyes and flying smoothly. Had a couple of nice 30 to 40 metre flights lasting 7 and 8 minutes respectively.

So today's session I feel I learnt a lot, and happy I bettered my time from the beginning of the month.

Carl

[martynk]

21 hours ago, Stewart Walker said:

Bramhall, F5-RES, Fresh 10mins 37second

Only the second outing this year, Launched with Martink standing next to me shouting go down wind, circle, go left/right. Managed for me, a very good 10 minutes.

 

Quite right too..

 

[martynk]

Well done both

Updated table that is hopefully correct

     

[Dave Elam]

5 hours ago, Carl said:

Kavan Resco : F5L : 09/05/2024 : 14m 02s

Today was dead calm at first, so any air movement were light thermals. Hard to do much with them. It was the middle part of the day, but it was misty for some time until the sun broke it up and so decent thermals were a bit later. My tactic today was not to waste my battery unless my streamer was indicating a potential thermal. So sometimes I was stood waiting for several minutes before a launch.

I did find a nice thermal, and thought I was in for a big flight as I was gaining a lot of height, but the air higher up was pushing the Resco towards the sun. The sky was virtually clear of cloud, so the sun was very intense to have in view whilst trying to control the glider. I was holding the transmitter to block the sun, but I was struggling to keep control smooth. Perhaps I should of stayed where I was. Anyhow, I was pleased with a 14m 02s flight, with a climb to over 300m in the thermal.

The breeze then started picking up from the West, so I moved to the Western end of the field. The thermals were really starting to appear all over the place for a while, and again my streamer would show thermals towards the sun. So I decided I would practice dealing with the sun, and was starting to do better with positioning my transmitter to block the sun from my eyes and flying smoothly. Had a couple of nice 30 to 40 metre flights lasting 7 and 8 minutes respectively.

So today's session I feel I learnt a lot, and happy I bettered my time from the beginning of the month.

Carl

Well done Team Resco!

[cirrusRC]

They say good preparation is the key to success.   The battery life of the Taranis X9D is impressive, but you do need to charge it once in a while 

Just after the hour mark the low tx alarm sounded, so had to abort. DOH!