F this F that, what does it all mean?

[Bill K.]

F3B, F5??

What do all the F this and that's stand for? I see and hear you guys talking about them when I read, but I have NO clue, it's like greek to me. Is there a good beginners crash course on such things somewhere?

TIA,
Bill K.

[CDignition]

It is FAI classifications for International competition classes...

[Bill K.]

Well that helps some. Now is there a place where one can learn about all of those in more detail? I'm brand new to gliders and really wanting to learn. I'm just trying to put some of the pieces of the puzzle in place...

Thanks...

[Ollie]

For the F3- classes of sailplanes see:
http://www.fai.org/aeromodelling/rcsoaring/

F5- refers to international electric powereed model airplane competition classes.

[Bill K.]

Ollie,

That does seem to help with some of it. I see lots about the F3 stuff, but I see F5 stuff out there on some of these sites, what are those?

Are there any of these F3B or F3J compitions in the Atlanta, Ga area, I would like to go watch one...

Thanks,
Bill K.

[dephela]

The FAI website is terrible to navigate. Explainations of te different classes goes far beyond the "F's". Ther eare in fact "A-U" catagories, all of which can be broken into lower classes of "1- x" and subclasses of "a-z[?]".

The best spot to find a brief description of each is by starting at:
http://www.fai.org/records/

Atlanta does have some upcoming F3b fliers, you may know some ofthem already? I bet they fly some F3j also. Check out:
http://atlantasoaring.com/site.php

[Bill K.]

I did join the NASA guys mailing list and I plan to get over there and watch as soon as time allows.

Thanks for helping me sort out some of naming conventions. Seems that of all the RC Flying stuff that soaring has the most in the way of compitions and such. For what ever reason I seem drawn that type of thing...

How often does the US hold regional type events or compitions, I know that on Thursday this year at SEFF there is something going on and now I'm thinking that I might try and get down there for that too.

Thanks again for the links,
Bill K.

[Ollie]

Model Aviation magazine has every sanctioned competition in the USA listed for the three coming months in each monthly issue. A very small percentage of those listed competitions are FAI events.

International (World Championship) competitions are held on a two year cycle and the venus rotate among participating nations, something like the Olympic Games do on a four year cycle. The team selection competitions and the occasionally hosted international competitions comprise the bulk of that style competition in the USA. The AMA/LSF Nationals in Muncie, IN have F3B and F3J events every year. See:
http://66.167.84.54/comp/Site%20Schedule/wc07242004.htm
http://66.167.84.54/comp/Site%20Schedule/wc07252004.htm

For F3F slope racing, see:
http://www.sloperacing.com/

You can obtain a copy of the FAI Sporting Code from the Academy of Model Aeronautics headquarters in Muncie, IN. it covers the international competition regulations in excrutiating detail.

FAI competition style involves many times more officials than domestic style competitions. For that reason alone, it is hard to find a club that will run such events because of the heavy official manpower required.

I'm not as familiar with F5- electric competition but I feel sure the same general comments apply.

[Duke58]

FAI , it's a French acronym , right?;)

[davidleitch]

I don't believe that F3J needs that many people. Its just a thermal duration task with landing points flown man on man.

About the only electric competition that is a "real" class is F5B which is basically a "speed glider" class with thermal task added in.

Its a shame that events aren't flown to international rules more often. Indeed I expect that like most other things we will get convergence over time.

It seems to me that the F3B class which involves, speed and duration is the most technically challenging on both the pilot and plane. Its also a comp that takes a long time to run.

[fprintf]

Originally posted by davidleitch
It seems to me that the F3B class which involves, speed and duration is the most technically challenging on both the pilot and plane. Its also a comp that takes a long time to run.

Not to mention very specialized winches and lots of pilots/volunteers!

[CHARLIE BRITT 7]

glider flying is big in north atlanta. pull up that sight at post no 6 to get in touch.
NASA-north atlanta soaring assocation.
charlie

[T. Lyttle]

Federation Aeronautique Internationale or something like that.

And if you think your hobby is expensive now, try F3B; I have never seen such a wallet-emptier since I quit racing sports cars! The rules grind exceedingly fine, from "weak link" towlines, to timing, to field requirements, on and on. Our experience was that if the Europeans can't beat you on the field, they will beat you with the rule book, so ya gotta read, read, and reread until you know that $^^%$* rule book inside out and by rote.

Lotsa luck; the only real attraction is the technical level of the models and the equipment, but it is only attractive if you ignore the price...

[fprintf]

Somehow the trade-off between flying gliders and racing sports cars just doesn't seem equal. Yes with racing sports cars you only get 30 minutes to one hour of seat time per weekend, but the adrenaline rush is virtually incomporable. I can't say I get that from flying a plane while I am on the ground, even if it is doing a 100+ mph F3B speed run.

[davidleitch]

I went to an Australian 7 cell electric glider comp held in country Australia the other day. The electric comp was fitted in between the 8 rounds of the F3J comp. I flew a total 5x5 minute rounds in 2.5 days. 25 minutes flying did not make for a great week end although I learnt quite a bit about the consistency requirement.

[T. Lyttle]

Well, we kinda went nuts with F3B. The speed run was the only open-ended part of the contest, so we went for that; our model was consistently pulling 7sec speed runs (old rules, one "lap", 2 lengths of the course) and we showed just ~200mph not kms) on a radar gun when the cops came looking. Hence the expense. Travel was the cash drain as well, across Canada, to Belgium (79) and Sacremento (81), plus the experiments that destroyed stuff: a battery could be gone in he blink of an eye (post sawn off by towline loop!) and we went through a few of the best we could find.

What did we have to show for it afterwards? Lots of junk, an incredible airplane that was like trying to run a F1 car on the highway, and a completely rewritten FAI rule book that fairly well outlawed what we were doing. Are we sorry? Oh, dear, no, we all learned A LOT, and taught a bunch. Not worth the money though...

[Ollie]

T. Lyttle,
If any of those 200 MPH, hair-pin-turning models survived, they would be ideal for DS.

[jojoen]

Originally posted by Bill K.
............ For what ever reason I seem drawn that type of thing...
Bill K.

Cant help you fly it - but keep us informed on how it goes and if you get hooked on competition flying.
I am going to World Championship F3J (thermal duration glider) in Canada (early August) and are national coordinator F3J in Norway.
I would like to know what eventually triggered you. Maybe you will have some good points to how we can get more people meet for FAI-competitions.

Keep on flying :-)

Regards Jojo
www.grini.no

[T. Lyttle]

Oh, yeah, the models survived anything except being dragged through the turnaround at that speed...

The one surviving model (I lost count of how many we built, lots) is still flyable as far as I know, still very impressive in the air; flies fast, and has legs like none other, and is virtually unbreakable. A highly impractical model for anything else but F3B. Party trick was to hang the wing out near the tips between 2 chairs and sit someone on it, up to ~150lb; we didn't have the nerve to try it with anyone heavier, but the point was made!

The turns were quite incredible; there seemed to be very little speed lost, and as you can imagine, was still going well at the finish line. Anyone who saw it will remember it even if it was kind of a nondescript design, with usual taper wing, T-tail, etc. Performance was anything but nondescript.

[davidleitch]

I think in real terms the costs, other than time, will be far less today.

Air travel is probably only half as expensive as 20 years ago.

Even models cost no more.

The biggest restriction in a city, such as Sydney, is the lack of suitable fields. The nearest winch to where I live is 70 minutes drive. I can go 5 minutes and fly electric. For a busy dad like me, that's a big difference.

[T. Lyttle]

Whic is why I am not doing any competition anymore. We burned out from that effort, pure and simple, so any sailplanes I fly now are simple thermal gasbags (GL, a couple of my own designs, and my buddy will have his Oly11 ready for this summer), or PSS; far better, far cheaper.

Points taken re travel and sites, but our project was leading edge research: many models were built to accomplish our goal (very few commercially available parts in them: try to find a releaseable towhook that neither bends nor binds at the loads we wee developing!), many variations to equipment were tried, and we won't even get into the flight training and experimentation needed. Many hours put in by many guys to find out what we did, and for the most part it was worth the experience, if not the money. Never again.

Besides the rule book changes that resulted, another noteworthy measure of our success was that the magazines were still talking about us in sailplane columns 5 years after the event, if not in the most complementary terms!

[davidleitch]

What was the main change in the rules?

[dephela]

We now fly a ten minute duration flight instead of the six minute, distance is flown for as many laps as you can complete within a four minute flight instead of just eight and speed is flown on a four lap course instead of just two legs.

There is no longer a "weak link" needed in the line. Winches are all limited in power as well as batteries.
I'm comparing here against the first F3b rules[1977ish] and not necessarily what was being flown in 1981.

Contests are few but manpower is no more a problem than running an typical AMA event where competitors take up dual roles. At "Nat's" and "Team selection" contests its nice to have dedicated workers to help out.
http://www.geocities.com/dephela/index.html
has a few articles as well as some pic's of the last few TSC's.

[T. Lyttle]

... and so there it is. Glad for the information, Dephela, I was so not interested after 81! The winch power (~25 or so) sorely needed to be limited; we were just as glad to see the regs tightened up. Our model would no longer be a threat as it needed lots of power to get it up, it just makes a very interesting sport ship, something like running an old race-capable auto on the road: it is inspiring to watch and operate, but you wouldn't want it as your daily driver... those were the days...