Hi there,

I was wondering if some of you practice cross country soaring by foot (mountain hiking)
We did that a lot in France (years ago ) and I think with the flight controllers it becomes very easy to walk and fly at the same time.
With flight controllers we can stay flat and follow the relvant direction without stairing at the model all the time.
Has anyone tried ?

Bertrand

I saw Joe Wurts leave behind a truck with a flat and walk back to the start gate but it slowed his rate quite a bit. We are now flying at 30 mph or more so it would be hard to keep up. Maybe with a dlg.

Originally Posted by G Norsworthy

I saw Joe Wurts leave behind a truck with a flat and walk back to the start gate but it slowed his rate quite a bit. We are now flying at 30 mph or more so it would be hard to keep up. Maybe with a dlg.

In Europe we don’t have these long straight roads you guys have in US. It would be complicated to do the same type of contest here.

Flying in mountain is always interesting as we need to adapt us to the weather conditions often changeable. Especially when we walk, we need to understand how it works in the next valley(slope/Thermals) At that time we flew with F3js which are the most flexible models for this type of sport.

I have reported here https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...postcount=1088
about a cross-country contest (by foot) here in germany.

/Bernd

Originally Posted by G Norsworthy

I saw Joe Wurts leave behind a truck with a flat and walk back to the start gate but it slowed his rate quite a bit. We are now flying at 30 mph or more so it would be hard to keep up. Maybe with a dlg.

That was an interesting day... I came out by myself for the weekend, and fortunately I had a very kind offer to have a the use of a truck and get someone driving. The course for the day was to go around the lake bed and repeat, with the goal to get the most miles. I had done about 2 and 3/4 laps around the course (each lap is 26.4 miles), and then noticed that something was amiss. The road is rough gravel, but the ride in back seemed to get a bit more rough. Then I noticed that there were black bits flying in the air... I called for a stop to the driver, and he stopped and noted that one tire had given its last gasp. After he spent about 15 minutes attempting to sort out the location of the spare tire I grabbed my stuff and said that I'd send help (we were about a mile from the start/finish point where the event camp was). A bit of a hike, and I got to the group of fliers. I explained my predicament, and they sent some people to help the person that was driving me. Another group of fliers that had completed their flying offered to help me out (I was still flying my plane). I hopped into another vehicle, and we went for a fourth circuit of the course. We finished the fourth circuit, with good altitude and still good conditions. My new-found crew wanted to continue but I declared that it was well past beer-thirty and brought the plane down to land. Based on the number of teams that we had passed during the day I wasn't too worried about quitting early as we had put more than 100 miles on the scoreboard. What was challenging was to explain to the vehicle owner about the mishap. He wouldn't take any funds to replace the tire, even though it happened while I was in the vehicle, and it was being driven for my benefit...

I really miss flying XC!

To get back to the OP topic, I have flown in one xc event with only walking/running for transportation. This event was a hand launch event. What we found was that once the plane got to any reasonable altitude the limiting factor for progress was physical rather than aircraft performance. Even a light weight hand launch plane can easily outrun a person. XC by foot is a somewhat limiting event, best explored by people that are both long distance runners as well as fliers.

Originally Posted by Joe W

To get back to the OP topic, I have flown in one xc event with only walking/running for transportation. This event was a hand launch event. What we found was that once the plane got to any reasonable altitude the limiting factor for progress was physical rather than aircraft performance. Even a light weight hand launch plane can easily outrun a person. XC by foot is a somewhat limiting event, best explored by people that are both long distance runners as well as fliers.

I agree, the XC by foot on flatland privileges good runners to the detriment of good pilots. But in mountain it is quite different.
Where I used to fly, 20 years ago, we started to not carry our models in the backpack but to launch them down the slope to catch a thermal and piloting up to the spot. It was so hooked that reaching the top we often continued our hike to finally return to the cars to land. At that time it was quite difficult as we did that with 4 meters like the “Alpina” not very appropriate.
Later we start using our F3js which allowed us to go quicker and further in much more complicated weather. About 10 years ago we managed to complete an incredible race never replicated to my knowledge. It took us about 5 hours with two really hard passages. The first one required to climb in fallen rocks before reached the top, the second one to go over a steep slope protected by a handrail. I remember that tourists looked at us with astonishment.

I had fun to calculate distances and this is what it gives:
Total distance: 9.38km (5.83miles)
Altitude of starting point 1452m
Altitude of the stopping point 1378m
Altitude max.: 1846m
Positive elevation: 563m
Negative elevation: 637m

In the mountains the qualities of the pilots take precedence over the physical condition.
Have fun,
Bertrand

Originally Posted by Joe W

Even a light weight hand launch plane can easily outrun a person. XC by foot is a somewhat limiting event, best explored by people that are both long distance runners as well as fliers.

This might be true as long as there is little to no wind. I took part in the competition linked by Bernd Brunner with my DLG a year or two ago and never got very far. The first leg of the course was upwind and while there certainly were thermals around, they took my glider so far downwind that I had to trade all the gained height to get back to the starting position. The F3J planes were far superior that day, covering way more ground and getting better climb rates at their starting heights.
Anyway, flying and walking/running simultaneously is a great challenge. I once walked all the way up the Rana hill in Czech Republic and back down the others side with my DLG in the air while everone else was waiting for the wind to start the F3F competition.

Friedmar

I am often too lazy to walk and my environmental conscience does not allow truckdriving. So i thought about modifying an e-trike for XC use. It would allow much better speed than walking and is nearly not restricted using any kind of field routes in germany. What do you think?

Nice idea, but i think you need a few "driver assistance systems" to prevent accidents with hikers ;-)

Due to problems with drones a new law will soon be in force in France which will result to make any kind of XC difficult or impossible. Once again a freedom disappears

Originally Posted by Bertrand.

Due to problems with drones a new law will soon be in force in France which will result to make any knid of XC difficult or impossible. Once again a freedom disappears

The opposite is true: to be able to fly and flee we need XC skills in the future

I also find this way of XC fly very interesting and challenging. I have to try it more.

Here in Spain the law related to hobby aeromodelling bans flying from a moving vehicle, but say nothing about moving by foot

There is a thread in the slope forum about XC flying at slope , and someone tells in a post they run such a contest in their soaring club in the UK.

I have seen in their website they are still running this XC slope contest:
http://www.westmendipsoaring.org.uk/...ry-autumn-2016

And the rules seems very interesting and fun:
http://www.westmendipsoaring.org.uk/...scoring-system

I have tried XC by foot a couple of times.
One on a 2 Km long slope, with a 4 Km go an return total flight made in 40 minutes. The model is a 2 meter foam electric glider, i didn't need to use the motor. With good wind and lots of lift it's not difficult but exciting.

Vuelo de distancia sin motor. (4 min 36 sec)

(it's in spanish)

Another one was in the flat, 3.5 Km in 45 minutes but I had to use the motor to climb as I didn't find too much lift.

For this type of flying I think a variometer is very helpful because it's easier to know if you are in lift or sink specially at altitude.

Maybe models designed for F3-RES (a new thermal competition class from Germany) are good for this because are light, very stable and can fly slow.
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...-RES-Resources

Best Regards

With FrSky hardware and OpenTX there is a chance to log cross country plane and pilot without additional devices, beside a second GPS in the TX.

Here is the hardware and the tracks of my first logged ccbf (cross country by foot) flight .

XC by foot is how it's been done here in the UK for decades. I just wish there was more of it!