G’day and welcome to another belated tour
through Wayne’s Indoor World. This time however, you did have warning that I was
going to be late. The reason, as stated last month, is that I am just back from the 2000
Australian Electric Flight Championships and the 2000 Model Aeronautical Association
National championships. Both events were held in consecutive weeks on the south coast of
New South Wales. My wife and I ‘ran away’ and left our sons behind - our
accommodation was marvelous (spa bath, log fire, etc. etc), so aeromodelling was not the
only thing we did!?! However, our cottage didn’t have a phone, so even though I had
my laptop with me, I couldn’t send or receive emails.
Again, thank you for your patience. Next month I won’t be late – I promise!!
Lift-off
This month, by necessity, the column will be a little shorter than usual. There is
introductory Nats and AEFA champs coverage (more details next month), information on yet
another motor for SlowFly use, a little French "flair", useful information from
fellow SlowFlyers, and some advance info on some forthcoming products for review. Read on
and enjoy.
The Australian Electric Flight Association Championships.
The Australian Electric Flight Association (AEFA) held it’s annual
Championships/Rally over the Easter Weekend – this year they were hosted by the
Illawarra Model Aero Club (IMAC) on their field at Wollongong. Events contested were 6
hour Team duration, scale, 7 cell glider, F5B (7 & 10 cell and Open), electric
scramble, 15 minute Open Glider, open and 4 minute pylon racing, and indoor events
(precision SlowFly, scale and Barn racing). Contestants attended from Victoria,
Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, ACT & NSW.
My wife Gabrielle and I decided to make a holiday of it and attended
both the AEFA champs in Wollongong and then headed south for the Nats at Nowra. This was
only the second AEFA Champs for us in 11 years. The weather was generally cool, with a 5
– 10 knot breeze and overcast most of the time.
This year I flew in more fun (i.e. "Low tech") events and had
a great time. I also enjoyed some success this year picking up 1st places in Precision
SlowFly and electric scramble and a second place in Scale with my FW190 {The review on
the FW-190 will be published shortly - Ed} so I had a great long weekend!!.
Coverage this month will be limited to pictures and a few comments
– more details next month
  
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Barnracing action - Typically 3 or 4 planes per 3
minute heat and lots of fun. Indoor Pylon (Barn Racing) places: 1st Brett Solanov, 2nd
Shane McMillan 3rd Ray Pike |
 
|
Your columnist participating in Precision SlowFly.
Places in Precision SlowFly were: 1st Wayne Hadkins, 2nd Garry DeChastel, 3rd Don Costello
|
2000 MAAA Shoalhaven City Nats
After the great comradery of the electric champs, we ventured south to Nowra for the
Nats (our first in 11 years). The weather was generally low overcast with intermittent
showers all week. This made several of the fields and their access pretty ordinary, to put
it politely. No Nats ever goes off without a hitch, and generally the 2000 Nats were run
satisfactorily. Highlights for us were catching up with all the old (and grayer!?!) faces,
meeting some of the new "guns", seeing several juniors and former juniors that
we had helped in years gone by take out places in a number of events, and spending some
time with Gordon Burford (Mr. Taipan engines).
Personally, we were again reasonably successful, picking up a first in
the Burford Free Flight event, a 2nd in Hanger Rat Scramble and a 3rd in 7 cell glider.
  
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Electric scale at the Aussie Nationals. The B-36 is R/C
and has 6 x S400’s and belongs to John Considine while the Lacey is Roy Farren’s
F/F entry which flew delightfully |
  
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7 cell glider at Aussie Nationals. Yes, it was wet and
the trees were close!! 1st Ray Pike, 2nd David Whitton, 3rd Wayne Hadkins |
|
A small moment of self indulgence folks. At the Aussie
Nats, I was very fortunate to win the first Gordon Burford commemorative F/F event, and
the man himself presented me with the prize. Gordon is an Australian aeromodelling legend
and the man who made Taipan, Glow Chief, and Sabre diesel and glow motors from the late
1940’s up to the late 1970’s. Many of those motors found their way to America
where they are considered collectors items.
Gordon is now an active electric flyer. The class he flies is a little
known (in Australia at least!!) SAM category and from what he told me, it sounds like a
great ParkFly event. More details next month. |
Another motor to consider
I recently obtained a Tamiya "Mini-Black" motor at the suggestion of fellow
Aussie SlowFlyer, Peter Gibbins. He had a spare one and sent it to me. What a pleasant
surprise!!
 
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The Tamiya "Mini Black" motor. A good motor
for larger indoor models or smaller parkfly models (if you can get one – see text). |
I put a 6:1 reduction unit on it and with a narrow bladed carbon 9"
x 5" prop it draws a little over 1.5 amps. It is capable of drawing much higher
currents/greater thrusts if you wish. It runs smoothly and requires no modification
"out of the box".
A hurried installation in my "Bobbie" parkflyer and a quick test flight
indicated a noticeable improvement over the GWS unit previously installed. Thus equipped,
I headed off to Wollongong for the AEFA Championships.
Using 3 x Tadiran 780mah cells and with the undercarriage unplugged, I
flew the "Bobbie" in the barn racing on Saturday night and surprised myself and
some of the other competitors. It certainly wasn’t the fastest aeroplane there, but
tight flying enabled me to put up a credible performance. The winner, Brett Solonov
achieved 24 –25 laps while my parkfly combination achieved 20 laps in a 3 minute
race. I was happy! On Sunday, there was an electric scramble event scheduled, which I had
never seen or flown in before. Spurred on from Saturday’s performance, I decided to
enter "Bobbie" in the 45 minute long scramble. We won – I was very happy!!
Unfortunately, that’s the good news about this motor. The bad news is that we have
had extreme difficulty locating any more. If any of you are aware of a source, please let
me know – I’ve a project on the board that would really benefit from several of
these motors.
|
The Tamiya "Mini Black" motor mounted in my
"Bobbie" with the GWS propulsion set along side it for size comparison. |
French Flair
Gerard Jumelin, that artistic French SlowFlyer with the fertile and creative mind, has
been at it again. In the April/May issue of "Looping" Magazine, a sister
publication to the French RCM magazine, there is a free plan for two different versions of
Gerard’s canard design. It certainly looks different and I think either version would
fly nicely. Well done Gerard, and thanks for the magazine. Who said art couldn’t
fly?!?
If you like the look of this canard, try and get yourself a copy of the
April/May "Looping" magazine – you don’t have to be able to read
French to build it or fly it!!
What else is happening out there in Internet land??
This month, I have less e-mailed information for you than usual, since I haven’t
been at home to open/answer my e-mail for nearly a month. There are still plenty of
e-mails in the ‘queue’, awaiting time for me to get to them. Apologies to those
of you that may still be waiting – I will get to you in the next week or so.
Fellow Aussie, David Whitten, davew(at)senet.com.au
who came 2nd in 7 cell glider at the recent Australian Nats (no hard feelings about the
mid-air David!!), flew a pretty little "Tiger Moth" in the indoor scale event at
the Wollongong Rally. What struck me as unique about it was that while it had a profile
fuselage, by cleverly printing 3D detail onto tissue covering and then applying that to
the airframe, he was able to give the bones a beautiful (false) body.
|
HI Wayne,
I have attached a picture of the Tiger Moth I flew at Wollongong. It was built by Peter
Muxlow, here in South Australia. He is planning on producing a kit for these models and
selling them commercially. The builder will stick the pre-printed tissue on the wood to
finish the model.
He also has built several other profile models in the series (same scale, same
construction, i.e.-profile fuselage, Jedelski wing, printed tissue, etc). The models are
usually powered with a KP02. He also has a Lancaster with 4 x KP01
You may contact Him at illusions(at)picknowl.com.au
or H. 8 82716489
|
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This Tiger Moth actually has a profile fuselage and
Jedelski (sheet balsa) wings – the clever artwork gives it "depth" |
Thanks David – how about a picture of that Lancaster?
My references to Cover Grip in the last few columns prompted this useful link from
Larry Parky lparky(at)carolina.rr.com. If you are
wondering where to get Cover Grip or other adhesives, then check out this site. Thanks
Larry.
William Warner wa6gwr(at)earthlink.net is
curious to find out your experiences with micro rx's
|
Hi Wayne,
My experience with the micro rx’s isn't good, does anyone have comments?
|
Please let me have more details of your experiences Bill. I have to
advise that my own experiences with the Simprop, CETO, Multiplex and JR micro receivers I
own have been all good, in that they have all performed as the manufacturers said they
would! However, I do know that some earlier types of particular brands of micro receivers
were a bit ‘flakey’ and suffered in the interference rejection and bandwidth
areas – later models appear to have fixed the problems. On one of my Simprop
Rx’s, I had to lengthen the antennae and re-tune it for ParkFly use, but that is all.
All my gear is on either 36 or 40 MHz. What about the rest of you, particularly in North
America where the 72MHz frequencies prevail?
Fred Bronk f.bronk.jr(at)worldnet.att.net
sent in a picture of some of his SlowFly and Parkfly "stable" with
appropriate details for us as well. Thanks Fred.
|
Here you go Wayne.
The EDF is a 31 inch span foamy from Ejets (Skyrider?). It has 2 EDF200 from
ejets, 2 HS-55, Alpex RX, and Pixie 14. It uses a 6 x 400ma nicads for about 3 minutes,
and it sounds cool! AUW is 11 oz's.
The plane is my own design, 32 inch foam wings, arrow shaft fuse, Sky Hooks RX,
HS-50's, Pixie 14, and 6 cells. 4.5 oz's with 6 x 50ma and about 2 minutes of power. Using
a 6 x 280 ma NiMH, I get bored before the power is gone!
The wing is a foamy also. It has a modified Alpex RX with end plugs, 2 HS-50's and a 6
volt lithium for radio power. 22 inch span and an AUW of 51 grams!
The Heli in the front is the Piccolo w/o a fuse. I have an Alpex RX in it, and 2
HS-50s. It gets off the ground easy on a 6 cell 280 NiMH battery. I was going to use the
mixing in my radio with the Alpex and a micro gyro, but the Alpex RX doesn't work with my
8UAF and Hitec Spectra? Now I have to think it out again, as the Pico boards are not to be
found!
I also have 3 other flying wings, and thinking about scratch building a sort of IFO.
See YA! Fred
|
n |
Some of Fred Bronk’s fleet, as detailed in his
letter. |
What about the rest of you – what have you been up to??
In the pipeline
When I got back from my recent trip, awaiting me were two parcels. One contained an
AstroFlight 010 "Mighty Micro" brushless motor http://www.astroflight.com/ and the other a
Composite Model Works "Spyder Moth" ParkFly model http://www.compositemodelworks.com/ . I
have bench run the Astro and it is a little beauty, while the "Spyder Moth" will
have to wait until I unpack all my models from the boxes that are still atop all the
benches in my workshop!! Both will be the subjects of reviews in the next few columns.
|
The AstroFlight 010 "Mighty Micro" brushless
motor. |
  
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On the way back from the Nats, I called in on Brett
Solanov, who is "Leading Edge Technologies". He produces excellent quality
fibreglass/carbon/Kevlar HIGH performance electric aeroplanes. More on Brett’s great
gear next month. |
If there are any particular products you would like to see reviewed, or
alternatively, if you have specific experiences with any SlowFly or ParkFly products that
you would like to share with us, then please let me know.
Touchdown
Don’t forget to email me whadkins(at)ezonemag.com
with all the SlowFly or ParkFly or electric free flight happenings in your part of the
world. Next month, I’ll have a great article from England on the SlowFly applications
and construction methods for that English 2mm thick insulating foam that I have mentioned
in this column before. Also, I’ll give you further information on my experiences with
the GWS and Tamiya motors, as well as the second part of the coverage on the Australian
Electric Flight Championships and the 2000 Australian Nats.
That’s your SlowFly lot for this month - thank you for joining me for this
month’s abbreviated tour of Wayne’s Indoor World. Until next month, wherever you
may be on this SlowFly planet of ours, enjoy your ‘we’ aviation, do it low and
slow, and most of all, HAVE FUN!!
See you all again next month - Take care friends.
May 22, 2000, 01:00 AM
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