I haven’t updated my blog page in a while, so thought I’d take a moment to do so now. Today I’ll just give a rundown of what’s been going on with me this year mostly as it pertains to RC Groups and my RC activities. My RC focus the last couple of years has been AMA pylon racing. Though I’ll never totally get out of F5D pylon and it will always have a place in my heart (I still have three different F5D planes I am flying today), I’ve gotten a bit away from that because the opportunities for AMA pylon racing here in the states are so competitive and plentiful! I’ve been fortunate enough to compete at a variety of venues including Phoenix, AZ, Wichita, KS, three different races at the AMA HQ in Muncie, IN (including the Nat’s of course), Cincinnati, OH, Michigan and finally, the “Champ” race in North Carolina!

Over the course of a total of eight races this year my main interest has been Quarter 40 (Q40) powered by .40 cu in glow engines. Sounds rather sedate, but Q40 planes have been “radared” at over 200mph on the course!

The summer really got crazy when we decided a change of pace would be good and my wife took a new position at a small community college in West Virginia! She relocated in July while I stayed back in Champaign to sell and manage the house, but we’ll be reunited in our new home at the end of October! Through this, I managed to hold to my pylon schedule, though the last couple of months have been hectic to say the least!

I’ll probably be less active on RC Groups for a while until we get settled (and I get my model shop up-and-running), but looking forward to the next year of pylon racing!

Tim

Some of my friends and family were wanting to keep up with my trip and activities for the Q40 Classic in Phoenix, Az. This is the world's largest pylon race limited to 88 competitors. I hadn't thought about it, but this is as big a deal as my F5D World Championship endeavors, but not traveling internationally, but with many more competitors.

I have little to report so far other than I shipped my three planes last week and will retrieve them at the FedEx/Kinko's Print & Ship when we arrive.

We were socked-in due to fog in Champaign, so had to get a later flight to Phoenix out of O'Hare. Hopefully I can still make it to the flying site in time to get my planes inspected. If not I'll catch it first thing tomorrow.

Been a long time since I posted a new blog, so I thought I'd just freshen up my blog page with a new one. Seems I'm all about pylon racing these days. I got my start about five or six years ago with small, fast, electric-powered planes with the Great Planes Rifle. That eventually lead to the pinnacle of the class with F5D. I committed several years to F5D (including unremarkable results at two World Championships), but a desire for more pylon racing lead me first to EF1, then Super Sport Quickie 500 (AMA 426), and recently Q40. I built fifteen I think it was pylon planes this year from F5D planes to a couple Q40s. I think I'll stop writing now and just post a bunch of pics!

And here's a helmet-cam video I captured of one of my Q40 races in Wichita, KS this summer:

Mike Tallman Legacy Q40 pylon race (8 min 27 sec)

...Continue Reading

Thursday, November 5

Well, already starting to ramp up for the world championships next year. First, I ordered three EVO 5Dominators from Bruce deChastel at Big Bruce Racing in Australia. Don't know when those are going to arrive, but in the mean time my teammates Bruce and Jim and I (and alternate Bernie) ordered some Avioniks from Sergey Sobakin in Russia.



Our Avioniks arrived at my house direct from Russia safe-and-sound!

...Continue Reading

4-9-15 (Thursday evening)

Finally! I've finished my Sequence 1.20 re cover/paint and it's ready to fly!




The Rimfire 1.20 comes with 4mm cage-style bullets, but I didn't get it new, so I don't have the matching female bullets for the ESC...

...Continue Reading

3-14-15 (Saturday evening)
Probably the last of the covering images I'll download, then onto assembly/installation!


Used the window cleaner method to apply the trim to the top of the wing last weekend.


Let it dry all week, then ironed it on this morning. Not a single air bubble anywhere!

3-3-15 (Tuesday evening)
Is it still "playing hookey" if you work on model airplanes for a living, but take a day off to...work on airplanes? Well, yes it is.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I have been making a little more progress, but still not setting any records. This weekend a couple of my pylon racing buddies flew down to retrieve a couple of F5D pylon racing models that arrived directly from the guy who made them for us in Russia, so I didn't get much time in the shop.

Anyway, got the cowl clear-coated last week and the base colors on the wings. I'm disappointed though because in the process of uploading images from my smart phone I was a little quick on the trigger and deleted some images before they had downloaded to my dropbox. I had a few more images showing the covering process of the top of the wing. Oh well. Here's what I have now...

...Continue Reading

Now in reverse chronological order for easier browsing!

1-25-15 (Sunday evening)

A late hockey game Saturday evening and E-fest Sunday are my excuses for less progress this weekend, but still accomplished a couple of milestones including covering and hinging the rudder to the fuselage and getting the cowl all set up and mounted for painting. If I can get up early enough maybe make it into work early and blow on a white base coat before applying the colors...


Here's the first piece of covering during application to the rudder.


Got the tail gear glued into the fuselage.

...Continue Reading

1-3-15
This wasn't planned for one of my winter projects -- I'm already in the middle of building two Quickie 500 racers for the upcoming pylon racing season. But Mike Riggs' review on the Sequence 1.20 in the January Model Aviation magazine got me to thinking. And the picture on the cover put me over the edge!



Ironically, Mike's review sold me on my own plane (I did some of the development work and wrote the instruction manual for the Sequence 1.20). I almost always fall in love with the planes I work on anyway, and I felt I needed a "regular" model with wheels and a rudder that goes less than 150mph that I can fly with the rest of the guys at our local RC field.

Making my new Sequence electric-powered was a given. I considered using a more powerful geared inrunner, but decided to be a "company guy" and stick with the recommended Rimfire 1.20 on 6S. All I need is a fun, neutral flying, aerobatic sport model and I don't plan on entering any pattern contests anyway.

The next decision was how to recover it. I do this on most of my ARFs because I can do a better job than the production line and I have to make it my own. Shame to strip the covering off a perfectly good model, but that's just me.


After spending a little time playing with trim schemes in AutoCAD I came up with this rough draft -- I wanted to keep some of the original lines so it would still be immediately recognizable as a Sequence 1.20, but I wanted different colors....Continue Reading

Thought I'd start a little blog on one of my latest projects. It's a Rifle 1M with a way oversize motor and battery in an attempt to reach 200mph. I'm a little lukewarm about the concept because I've preached all along to keep the Rifle 1M simple and light for reliable, everyday speed fun. But a friend has a connection with Mega Motors CZ;

http://www.megamotor.cz/v4/script/de...ge_id=lang_eng

...and hooked me up with a motor specifically for this project. It's a 16/40/1. With a kV of about 3200 and a weight of about 172g (6 oz.) the motor is larger than what I use in my F5D racers which are also a considerably larger airplanes!

I'll start out by running it on a 2250mAh 4S battery on a 5.25 x 6.25 prop and a 100A ESC, then plan to proceed to 5S and 130A - 160A ESC.

This one is not for pylon-style flying - no full-throttle, banked turns. Only straight-line speed with cool down between speed runs and in the turns. The drive won't handle full-throttle for more than about five seconds I figure.

Here's some of the build...


Got the ESC stripped down and soldered up directly to the terminal wires from the motor.


Here's one of the batteries for the maiden flight.

...Continue Reading

Reserved

Sunday morning;
Well, here I am sitting at the gate with my transmitter case and my LiPo case full of LiPos (less one set of LiPos from the mid-air with one of my Avionics). Both cases went through the X-ray deal and received only a careful looking at - they didn't even open them...and the LiPo I use to power the LiPo heater box which also serves as the carrying case is over the regulation size.


Here's my luggage in the lobby of the hotel ready for the taxi.

Check-in was pretty easy because they sent me directly to the oversize baggage check-1n and there was only a group of three guys ahead of me. Looks like they were checking in guns for a hunting trip. They nicked me for only 75 Euros for the airplane case and since I ditched my charger and offloaded a few other things my suitcase didn't come in overweight and saved me some dough there. The X-ray guy at the oversize baggage area gave me the thumbs-up for my case which they didn't have to open.

So here I am at the gate writing my last entry of my trip. Of c ourse, I'm breathing cigarette smoke...you just can't get away from it. I think there must be a smoking lounge somewhere around here. I finally got sick from it and now have congestion, a little coughing and achy sinuses. Nothing a little tender care back at home along with some fresh air and some cat dander won't cure!

Okay, just another couple of hours here on the ground, then an easy 9-1/2 hour plane trip, then into the arms of my waiting wife and a...Continue Reading

I ran over the photo limit per blog again, so here's Part III;

Wednesday morning (Page 12)

No internet anywhere in my room or in the lobby last night, so I'm writing this early this morning;

Here's a link to the Results page. As of this writing the results after nine rounds hasn't yet been posted.
http://www.f5-wc2014.at/5d/result5d.html

Well a miracle isn't going to happen today and all of a sudden I'm not going to rise above everything and get my times down in the mid or low 60;s.


Here's the view from my hotel room.

The weather started rainy, but as has been the case most of the time so far, the weather cleared and we had our best weather ever so far. Unfortunately, more delays (technical or personnel it doesn't matter) caused us to begin rounds today at least an hour late. What can we do but make the best of it and soldier on. I'm still sticking with my red Viper for today, but plan to “graduate” to my Avionik after today's rounds.


I'm not the only one. There's plenty of carnage in the trash cans all over the place! This is one of the Russian's Swist I retrieved from the trash can to take home as a souvinear. He signed the top for me.

My first flight was okay, but I cut pylon No. 1 on the first lap. Sometimes I have this habit of getting antsy and just turning too early disregarding my caller's prompt. I did it a few times in an EF1 race before the Nat's, but was able to heed my caller's orders at the Nat's for 6 cut-free rounds. Bad habits don't...Continue Reading

Oops....here we go again....I've run over my photo limit, so I'll start another blog continuing my saga at the 2014 F5D World Championships here;

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...3#post29269603

Sunday evening (Page 10)

It's late and I'm tired, but at the last second tonight just before going to sleep I thought I'd give the internet one more try and I got it in my room and even on my phone so I could download some images....





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Hello and welcome to my blog about the 2014 F5D (electric pylon racing) World Championships in Turnau, Austria. I plan to post entries in reverse chronological order with latest entries at the top (or would that just be regular chronological order?). So if you want to start at the beginning scroll down to the first entry near the bottom of the page. There I also have a little introduction to pylon racing and F5D pylon racing for friends and family who may not know about it.

For quick access, here's a link to the official World Championship site with links to a schedule, participants, map, etc.:

http://www.f5-wc2014.at/5d/index5d.html



Tim

Friday evening (Page 8)

Slight change of plan here...RC Groups allows only 40 images per blog, so I've started a Part II in this series. I loaded a few images this evening, so here's the link;

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...2#post29246257

Thursday evening (is it Thursday already?!?!) (Page 7)

I can't get any images to load from my phone right now, but I'll keep trying.

Anyway, had a fantastic day today. It rained ALL NIGHT, but when I woke this morning the sun was blaring through my window so hard I couldn't even look outside. I followed Aussies Barry and his son Beau to the field with Bruce and his dad in their car. We went to the primary site where all the competition will be held. They had the official F5D course setup. All the teams have about 20' x 20' heavy-duty tents set up with a workbench.

Everybody has...Continue Reading

Some of you know about my exploits preparing for trying out for the US F5D team. F5D is electric-powered pylon racing on the international circuit. Top three from the team trials of participating countries compete in the world championships in Turnau, Austria August 23rd to August 29th, 2014. The US team trials are in San Diego, CA September 28 & 29. Unfortunately (or fortunately for me), though pylon racing is somewhat popular in the US, F5D (electric pylon racing) is not so popular. Perhaps the models are too fast or too exotic. And/or there are plenty of options on the US AMA circuit. The traditional glow-powered (model airplane glow fuel) classes seem to be pretty popular in the US and have a grass roots following maybe a little the same as NASCAR. Anyway, sounds like we'll have only two or three competitors in San Diego and if that holds true, looks like I better book my tickets to Austria. I'd guess there are probably a good 25 competitors at the WC.

Anyway, the amount of time, effort, and anxiety not-to-mention expense I've devoted (not to mention encouragement, understanding and support from my wife!) makes me feel as though I'll be earning a spot on the team should I make it. Unlike many in pylon racing, though I've been flying model airplanes for years I have little pylon racing experience - I've only started pylon racing this year (state-side in AMA EF1). So I've had to work hard to "catch up" in this new venue by logging laps every morning before...Continue Reading

I guess a blog isn't just for build logs, but can also be your R/C resume. So if I was writing my R/C resume I'd have to include my StratAir Viper F5D racer from Soaing USA. From the maiden flight on April 1 2012 to September 30 I have 114 flights entered in my log book for my Viper. I've already documented the build over in the Viper thread. If you're interested, here's a link to my first post in the thread. You can follow the build with many images and my building and flying comments from there:

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...122670&page=50

Other than that, here's a cheapie "hat cam" video that pretty much explains everything else:

StratAir Viper (3 min 16 sec)

Great Planes Siren (2 min 4 sec)

Been flying small, fast, electric planes the last few years classified as “pylon” racers (though there isn’t an actual racing class for my Great Planes Rifle and my Sunracer). I’m also flying a StratAir Viper which is configured for racing in the F5D class (though there isn’t any F5D racing in the States other than the team trials for the World Championships every two years).

Anyway, for whatever reason I became interested in the Great Planes Siren. The Siren is similar to the pylon racers mentioned above in that it’s intended for speed (sort of), only speed of a different kind--the Siren is rather a beginner “hotliner” where you fly full throttle only for short bursts climbing vertically to rapidly gain altitude, then turn the motor off and glide around. You can search for lifting air (as you would a glider), or put the Siren into a power-off speed dive silently speeding by listening to it “whoosh” past, then power up and do it again!

I guess it was the carbon fiber fuselage and the mechanical aspects such as the gear box and folding propeller that intrigued me—besides, I always like to make things a little better than they come out of the box to suit my tastes! Although the Siren was first introduced in 2005, amazingly, the Siren thread is still quite active over in the Electric Sailplanes forum here on RC Groups. The thread starts out with a well-written and informative review followed by seven years of follow-up posts:
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I used to think FPV airplanes were rediculous - until a friend at the flying field let me look through his FPV goggles. Then I thought it was amazing and now I want to get an FPV setup (sometime in the future when I'm not spending all my time on my pylon stuff).

I also used to think night flying was rediculous - until I went to SEFF last year and saw all the amzing night flying stuff. So this year I'm prepping my own night flyer. I'm using an earlier prototype of the FlyZone Calypso EP glider.

I don't know if I'm doing it correctly or the way everybody else does it, but looks good so far. Right now I just have the wings done. Hope to finish the fuse and tail next few days.

I'm using the HobbyPartz LEDs. First I powered them off the battery lead from the ESC, but when I powered up the motor the lights dimmed some, so instead I'll be going with a separate 3S LiPo......Continue Reading

Here's some of my other stuff......Continue Reading

Here's a pic of my B-25 I re covered and re painted last year. Got a few flights on it before I put it away for flying my Rifle.