Originally Posted by jiafret

A Radian won the polecat last year against some serious mollies.

So far it is the pilot, not the plane.

That said, over all conditions I will still fly my mollies, but "on any given day".

Jack

A Radian won Day 2 (Sun) at Polecat 2012. The overall combined Day 1&2 top 5 winners were (in order) : Maxa 4, Xplorer 3.5, Hyper AVA (a semi-moldie to me), Prelude REF (hundreds less than any of the top 5), Supra.

The Radian pilot is very skilled and I really enjoyed seeing "on any given day." I'm pretty sure he has an Onyx-JW ready for next season to complement his Radian, though.

I do believe that it's the pilot and not the plane. Its just that the pilots with the skills also are the ones with the modern/expensive/molded planes.

Radians are OK.

There is a story of a very highly skilled pilot flying and winning with a foamie at a major contest with lots of other highly skilled pilots flying state of the art ships, at that time.

This same pilot just won the Worlds here at Muncie IN, once again, and he was not flying a foamie this time either. Although there could be thin foam supporting the wing skins.

Jared

Originally Posted by Larry Jolly

Jack,
I was at Visalia for the ALES contest last weekend. Visalia is known for its cycling air. Dennis is only stating what will become generally accepted in ALES comps next year. The only way that a Radian is competitive against a competition model is if the pilot is of the highest skillset, or if you are launching to high. In all areas of sailplane perfomance the Radian is at a disadvantage. LJ

Larry is right, and even though Jack is right too, he will be right way less as time goes on. The part that concerns me is, at least in our neck of the woods, that there is an undercurrent of guys trying to set up contests to try to make a moldie have a perceived disadvantage (with emphasis on perceived). They held a 100M launch height contest in August thinking that "the simple" set up would have an advantage, but that did not play out.

I have enjoyed ALES so far, and it is so simple to set up and fly from a contest management standpoint and from a flier's view it is a new challenge. Larry's Aspire, the Supra's, the Tragi, Explorer, and other modlies that are available as e-fuses give a guy with any airframe a second place to play, and that is always good for soaring. Glad to see more folks are playing the game.

Marc

I'll take 100 meters with an Aspire anytime, heck, we were practicing (ooh, dirty word) with super short bungee launches of about 60 meter height recently with the Aspire, we were getting specked out the majority of the time.

Marc, and other friends,
I have been staying out of the ALES discussions because I didn't feel someone who is doing it, shouldn't have an opinion or vote in the outcome. I am now competing and will move on to promoting the event just like I did with LMR 30 plus years ago. One doesn't have to go too far into ALES to realize the appeal and advantage to running this type of Soaring event. It is so simple to run and it takes so little space, it will be nice to see competitive soaring etuen to Orange County again. However, it is important for the organizers to maintain the appeal and yet make it interesting and competitive to maintain growth.
I spoke to many long time Soaring competitiors over the weekend including Ed Holder, Kent Nogy, and Jim Thomas. We have agreed to schedule and run several contests in California from Fresno south to Orange County, and North to Sacramento. We are ambitious some of these will be 2 day affairs. We discussed some options and hope that We will attract enough entries to run competitive contests along the following lines. Some of our ideas are slightly different than the traditional League approach but I for one think they will add to the event rather than take away.Some of the ideas are as follows:
At all ALES events there must be a first aid kit at the flight line..period
Contestants will be encouraged to launch their models then turn the motor on.
This suggestion became obvious when a competitor was launching and one prop blades failed, the other one got him pretty good..
I am suggesting 2 classes for our Contests, an Open class, and a 2 function class which would encompass all foamy radian types, gentle ladys, and Oly types. These would have no glide path control and be aimed at the newbies but would be fun for the experienced guys interested in playing with the polys. Open class gets 150m start and the 2 channel class gets a 200m start. For landings I am suggesting 25ft runway landings with 1 point per inch deviation from centerline for scoring. This is an attempt to stop the temptation to dork the glider for max points in a circle. We did not discuss it, but I am not against the idea of some sort of arrestor on the bottom of the fuselage. Maybe a stud,bolt affair but I am not sure skegs are in order. Lastly before I start the 3 minute warning tape I will first ask all competitors to check their props. I do not want someone hurt with a potential damaged prop. I intend to get another complete prop-spinner assembly to keep in my box. I already use a 3 position switch so the motor does not automatically ramp up to full speed. In my opinion adopting the above approach will keep the event growing and will hopefully retain the interest of the advanced fliers as they gain more experience. Feel free to jump in and make suggestions various thoughts help the process. With the interest and number of fliers in California I see the real chance for some high entry competitive ALES Soaring here. LJ

Thanks to all who worked on this!!! That's one hurdle cleared for ALES, two more to go.

After the response I got today asking about the "ALES League" here on RcG, I will definitely not be interested in flying the "ALES League", but I WILL definitely be flying "Altitude Limited Electric Soaring" contests in the near future, I expect the versions I fly in will have runway type landings much as Larry described above.

I pretty well agree with you LJ, and especially with the runway landing, and have suggested it but seemed to get no positive response. It seems a natural for electrics to allow less hard sticking that the single spot does. Maybe with you guys getting that going out there, it will migrate eastward.

Marc

I had a blast at the ALES contest in Visalia Friday flying my new E-Oculus. I think that the hobby needs this new class to bring in new pilots.

I'm in lets go flying!

Merrill

Most excellent post Larry, as usual.
So, so much in you post.
I do like the more gentle landing style.
Flying LMR since the late 80's, when I ran LMR in the the 2000's, I liked to use the ancient 1/2/3 meter circle. I found it very simple to implement and rare was a electric ship damaged by trying to nail the point.
In SoCal, as you well know, perhaps a 100 meter cutoff compliant with the <400AGL enforced at some locations.

Jared

Hey LJ, runway landing is one of the coming landing options coming in 2013 via the AMA rules.

Marc

Dennis:
I know that you are coming into this ALES thing a little late so let me provide some background.

Randy Burst established a clearing house for ALES contest scores which he named the “ALES League”

It is up to the local CD to send in the scores which Randy normalizes and posts. The scores of over 100 participants are listed on the web site.

So you can’t opt out of the “League”. But you did manage to trivialize every thing that Randy has done to date to encourage participation.

The contest rules were established to provide a standardized format. That was a big help in getting things started. There was always the provision that the CD could adjust the rules to fit local circumstances.

Before you decide what you are going or not going to do may I suggest that:
You read the current rules.
You actually fly in a contest.
Mac

Marc and JC,
I really want to see this event grow. I don't think We have do anything controversial or radical to keep ALES evolving. I think that if the CD and contest planners think about bringin changes that keep the contest fair and interesting it could do good things for Soaring. Particularly in the urban envoirments where space is at a premium. The main thing is to offer a program that gives the newbie a chance to perform and grow his skills, and offer the experienced guys a challenge. The landing deal just makes sense as a spot rewards a guy who may take chances with how hard he impacts the ground. A runway offers a safe landing and also a chance to get a point spread on a single point basis. As far as the motor run is concerned get them low enough so some soaring technique is required and rewarded. What about a stud or bolt type arrestor?? I am encouraged by the positive feedback. Thanks Larry

Mac, I did read the rules that they came up with, I will withhold my opinion of those rules for now. And just because I have never flown in an "ALES" event means I cannot ask a simple question like where did these set of rules come from?

I guess my question came from the comment that I heard (or maybe read) something to the effect if an event is not run under the strict rules proposed by the "ALES League", then that event is not ALES.

Originally Posted by Larry Jolly

What about a stud or bolt type arrestor??

Something else I brought up after the Nats in that thread, again, kind of brushed off. If you had some simple device to just stop a wild slide, I think it would just make landings less of a gamble and easier on your airframe. Like all the talk and great to see more folks interested in the event.

Marc