FxRES February 2025 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  

[Carl]

Magic 2 SL : F5L : 01/02/2025 : 5 mins 55 secs

Beautiful sunny start in North Devon, with frost and a temperature of 0 °C. I headed down to my local field for an hour after lunch, it was 8 °C by then. But the lovely blue, cloudless sky had been replaced with thick, dark cloud. It had also got quite breezy with 10-14mph winds. I wanted to do some testing of ballast in my 390 gram Magic 2 SL, so this was the ideal opportunity. This would bring the AUW up to a maximum 485g.

I started out with no ballast, and my first flight was clear I wasn't getting any penetration. So straight away I slipped in 50g of ballast under the wing, which didn't seem to make much difference. So I slipped in another 45g of ballast and this additional weight transformed the Magic 2 SL. It was penetrating really well without any noticeable penalty on rate of decent. I reckon it would handle even more ballast, but there just isn't any more space.

For my best flight of 5 mins and 55 secs, I managed to get into a thermal. Circling was tricky in such breezy conditions when above the height of the trees (it was pretty bumpy up there), but as soon as I descended into the shelter of the trees it was not so bad.

I'm really pleased with the performance of the Magic 2 SL with ballast, so hopefully during the year ahead I'll have more opportunities to fly in a breeze that I'd normally avoid. I was using tyre balance weights, but do have actual lead that should be more dense, so I might be able to get a little more weight in the space available.

Carl

 

[Matthew]

Red Eagle : F5L : 2025 February 2nd : 17 min 39 seconds

The cloud cleared around lunchtime and we had beautiful blue skies for a good few hours. The field is still very muddy and I didn't make the mistake of trying to park on it today. The birds were out although they weren't making it look too easy. There was a light wind blowing and I was struggling to make progress back into the breeze. Most of my flights were up and down with a little bit of lift here and there, but on this one I got sucked up. At the top (230m) I was struggling to see the glider, but it didn't stay up there long. I did catch some more lift on the way down, but couldn't manage to stay in it and I was drifting into the no-fly zone.

All in all a very good day.

[Dave Elam]

RESCO - F5L - 2 February 2025 - 2 mins 43 secs.

Quite a nice day here but rather breezy and definitely chilly up at the club field. Nothing spectacular but it's a time to get me on the score sheet!

[Pete in Northiam]

PuRES : F3L : 02-Feb-2025 : 4m 8s (248s)

Pevensey Levels (Levels87 field).  Got to the field at 12:30pm, as it turned out about an hour too late for the best of the thermals.  On the way, I could see the whole levels half covered in small but tasty cumulus.  Alas, by the time I got in the air, these were clearing fast.  This was the first and longest of of four nice flights, all with a little lift for fun and practice, chasing low fluff-ball clouds that evaporated while I watched.  Nice visit from a grumpy crow during this flight, too, croaking as we circled. 

These flights were off my original 2020 10+50m bungee that is still going well.  The wind was 0-5mph mostly southerly but even the light thermals disturbed the direction enough to feel it.  On the best flight, I guessed the launch right as I hit some lift at the top of the bungee which made me double-take on the timer switch (I used the later time) as I had to dive gently to get off the line at 66m.  I didn't use that for a zoom but to circle back into the wispy lift and hung around near 70m.  Once I lost that, I found another bubble to hang around in at 40m with the crow.  Smiles - and caws - all round  

I should say that first-turn choice was guided by my bungee which uses a Graupner F3L-compliant parachute instead of a pennant.  I find a parachute brings two advantages over a pennant: it lays out the bungee down wind, back towards me instead of falling in a heap and, better, you can see it lifting if the parachute hits a thermal. That's what happened here.  Just after I got off the line, I saw the parachute was clearly not falling as it trailed down wind so it pointed to where to fly.  

If I can source them at a reasonable price, would anyone support the idea of replacing the Buckminster set of bungees' pennants with parachutes?  If only for the laying-out down wind advantage which also helps avoid crossed line in contests.  [Edit: probably a better FxRES league thread than this for that question - I'll re-post it.]

More flying was limited by the very waterlogged field and my avoiding leaving too many footpaths across the runways.  Ironically, the more-inland club I joined this year in order to find more thermals has fields that, I heard yesterday, need waders not boots.  Not spring yet...

Cheers --Pete

ps It's good to be back in the Challenge!

Edited February 9 by Pete in Northiam
Typos

[martynk]

2 days of Indoor flying for me... As far as I am aware no sunshine either. Cracking score Matthew, well done

[Dave Elam]

RESCO - F5L - 6 February 2025 - 9 mins 23 secs. (563 secs)

I managed four flights up at the club field this afternoon and this is my best yet. Interesting that the wind was in the opposite direction to all my previous flights so there could well be something in that direction that's generating some thermal activity. Annoyingly I thought I had ten minutes in the bag but when the lift went, it went!

[martynk]

Well done Dave.  A great flight

 

[Carl]

Magic 2 SL : F5L : 08/02/2025 : 6 mins 12 secs

Calm, dark, grey and freezing today. I was losing feeling in my fingers after just 15 minutes. But persevered as there seem to be quite few narrow thermals around. Eventually I managed to beat my previous time - not by much though. Had some amazing flights with my Falcon F5k too.

Carl

[martynk]

Well done for persevering Carl.

 

Updated table:

 

[AnthonyB]

cREst : F5L : 15/2/25 : 7:50.

New model.

I built it to photograph parts that I had not done in the existing instructions.

All finished yesterday and being like I am, threw it across the garden against a good breeze. It only went 40m but in a straight line (with 2 clicks of up)

I was outside after lunch and the wind had dropped, so out for a real test flight.

About the 4th flight it did well over 10 minutes. No AMRT in !

The first couple of flights were setting the up elevator compensation for the spoilers.

Came back in and added an RC Data manager and went back out. A couple of flights later I got some good lift, but due to very low cloud, the spoilers were out to keep it in sight.

Good fun (in a bitter North East wind) flying directly downwind of a housing estate (where all their central heating is on).

Back to download it and NOTHING.

Deleted and formatted it and it all worked, except (as always) has me landing at 10m above ground. No, it was at my feet.

Well trials and tribulations, at least I am on the board.

[martynk]

That looks very nice Anthony

 

     

[cirrusRC]

Purito | F5 | 22nd Feb | 15 min 32

Forecast westerly didn't happen,   8-15mph straight over the no fly.     Some periods of sun.    Some good lift but difficult to push up wind each time and find more lift.     Certainly a bit warmer!   

[Richard Newsham]

28 minutes ago, cirrusRC said:

Purito | F5 | 22nd Feb | 15 min 32

Forecast westerly didn't happen,   8-15mph straight over the no fly.     Some periods of sun.    Some good lift but difficult to push up wind each time and find more lift.     Certainly a bit warmer!   

Well done for getting out. I looked at the clouds and thought they're nice but then thought about getting back from down wind. Were you loaded with ballast? And if so how much? 

[cirrusRC]

No ballast option yet.  I was going backwards at times and relying on speed mode to push forwards.  It was getting sketchy towards end of day.

[martynk]

Nice one David.  I am hoping to get out on Thursday if the forecast behaves

     

[Richard Newsham]

1 minute ago, martynk said:

I am hoping to get out on Thursday if the forecast behaves

I'm hoping to get out Friday

[Matthew]

11 hours ago, Richard Newsham said:

I'm hoping to get out Friday

Hope it goes well, if the weatherman is to be believed (and I'm hoping) Saturday looks to be the good day down here. The Eli isn't finished yet, but all the wing panels are built (now it's onto the sanding), so I'll still be flying the Red Eagle still.

[Dave Elam]

RESCO - F5L - 28 Feb 2025 - 18 mins 42 secs

I think a few of us have been waiting for today as the forecast was always promising. I managed to get a couple of hours up at my flying field and the last flight was the best. The local buzzards told me exactly where the lift was at the start of the flight and they didn't let me down. Once that lift went I was on my own to find some more and fortunately another thermal came along. Once that went it was back down to earth. My best flight yet and I'm well chuffed!

Edited February 28 by Dave Elam

[Carl]

I was out also today. Having a lovely time until my Magic 2 spiralled down to the ground with my transmitter alerting "telemetry lost... telemetry recovered... telemetry lost... telemetry recovered... repeatedly"

Upon investigation my 3S battery pack was down to 8.2V. I must have miscounted how many launches I'd done whilst messing around with ballast. The esc would have cut power to the receiver at that sort of voltage. Usually only do 4 launches for a pack leaving plenty for flying. Fuselage pod snapped, but I'm repairing it right now so I can hopefully take advantage of similar conditions tomorrow.

Carl