Welcome To The New Pylon Forum

[DaveSawers]

As you can see, we now have a forum dedicated to gas pylon racing.

I will be moderating the forum as well as trying to help you out with your questions and problems. I have been an active pylon racer since 1985, competing in various classes such as Sport 40, Club 20, Q500 and Q40.

Please continue to discuss electric pylon racing in the High Performance forum in the Electric Airplanes section.

[Paulus]

Great!

I started with IC club 20 pylonracing in 2002 (I think). My first C20 competition ever was still the best. I hope I'll do better this year :D

Paul

[GregG]

I'm glad to see RC Groups finally went through and made this forum.

Great pics Paul!

[perttime]

Hope this takes off :)
I do not fly pylon (yet?) but I have seen F5D, Q500 and F3D planes in the air. Q500 looked fast, F5D was impressive and the F3D ... WOWWOWWOW ... scary.

Q500 and F3D, and surely the other wet pylon planes are so cool but you really need a good location for flying. You do not want a lot of neighbours next to your field, for safety and for noice. Maybe if you put an electric motor in an F3D or Q40 airframe.... tease tease.

PM

[ontheweekend]

errr... whats with the crash helmets lads? I know nothing about pylon racing, do you not have throttle control or something? All I know is that apparently it is faster than general rc flying?

Cheers
Rob

[perttime]

The helmets are required by the rules. Those guys are flying FAST and turning left at a relatively low altitude. As a result, crashes are possible and the consequences of a crash could be fatal. Some protection looks like a good idea. The rules also state all sorts of safety areas to keep people out of risky areas, and protected areas (cages?) for the judges and helpers.

PM

[DSSlopeGuru]

Your right ONTHEWEEKEND there is no throttle control...........its just wide open and go for broke. The starter helps out the pilot start and tune on the flight line......screaming like crazy with 10 laps in front of him. Its all or nothing..........and as far as crashes, lets just say on any given race day theres half a dozen wrecked pylon racers in the garbage can. You would wear a hard hat too.
Tim

[Splatt]

Here's some pics to show the action. These models are going about 100 MPH's

Sometimes your a winner, sometimes you break you toys

[DaveSawers]

Ouch! That field is way too small for pylon flying. Don't let the AMA see that picture!

The attached picture here is taken from the AMA rule book for pylon events. Note that even for Sport Q500 events, the crowd/pit area needs to be at least 450ft from the middle of the course.

You must also turn your course around so that the number 1 turn is always away from the crowd/pit area.

[Splatt]

that's turn 3 your looking at, and though a tele-a-photo lens that barn is over 450 feet away, not much, but it is.

Here's where we do our fast (428) racing...Sod farm mmmmm... green grass... lots of room

[daven]

Were legal at that field Dave, its tight, but workable. We measure it off from the pits to #3 before every race. The only trouble is we can really only set it up two ways, and often land in crosswinds.

[DaveSawers]

Glad to hear it.

Just really wanted to make sure that any non pylon flyers reading this realised that organizing a pylon event didn't just mean set up a course and go race.

[Stasf2d]

--------
erase.

[Napoleon IV]

Great to see you're still racing Dave. I remember competing against you in Sport 40 in what seems like years ago. I try to keep up with some of the old faces like Dave Tappin, Don Beaumont, Greg Ashton and Tony Butterworth to name but a few.
Best of luck with your forum - Giles