Nats Concluded - Finally a Winner

At least one person remarked I packed a lot of airplanes in my small car; I flew most of them but not all in competition. My Jetstream towline glider I never took out of the car. I flew my Wilbur rubber model just for fun but ran out of time to fly it Friday in competition. Friday I had too many events; P30 rubber, PeeWee 30 gas, hi-start glider, classic towline and OT Stick rubber. The last two I never flew, there was about an hour left Friday afternoon and that is not enough time if you are walking. Tuesday evening I ran the E20 event for Bob Stalick but did not fly. Taking pictures, video, and recording scores kept me plenty busy. I had created a scoring spreadsheet for my tablet which worked fine but it is hard to see a screen in sunlight.

Basic Yeller Pee Wee 30

E20 Event Tuesday Evening

Friday morning started with very little wind, I wanted to fly my Polecat X p30 model first because it uses a long 3/32” rubber motor that runs a long time but climbs slowly, good for calm conditions. I had test flown it the day before and a strand of rubber broke, so I replaced the motor. The first contest flight I wound to 1200 turns and the plane barely flew. I tried winding to 1550 turns and the motor broke every strand in the rear. To speed up things I tried tying the strands together, it broke in front this time. New motor from same batch of rubber I carefully wound to 1500 turns.

Polecat X P30

I launch the model and it was stalling like crazy and came down, one attempt. In my stress to get in another flight I put a shim on the rear of the stab instead of the front. It stalls even worse, another attempt. Fix the shim and wind the motor to 1500 turns and the plane is flying better but bouncing around in the wind that is increasing. My last flight took it across the field almost to the camp ground but the duration was short of a max. It just seems to me the previous batch of rubber I used in the plane worked better.

Wilbur Rubber Model

On to my next event PeeWee 30, my Basic Yeller has had many flights just for fun but never flown in competition. The first launch it had a little too much right and not enough rpm and hit the ground breaking the pylon. I glued that up and flew two hand launched flights that were around a minute long. For the last flight I had the motor adjusted better which it needed because the last flight was the ROG flight. I was afraid it might hit a tree going into the wind but it turned back and provided another long walk down the field.  There were 6 people signed up for the event and only 3 flew. I won my first trophy at the Nats and it was for first place. Having my name called in award ceremony for the first time in three years was nice.

Retro Gnome Hi-start Glider

Models Brought to Nats

The last event I flew was not an official event but fun just the same, hi-start glider. One evening I had flown the Retro Gnome glider I had built a couple of years ago using 1/16” rubber on the hi-start instead of 1/8” rubber which is really too much. With the thinner rubber the glider appears to adjust the flight path to straight better than when it launches too fast. Flying in the contest it was gusty but my glider launched without crashing every time. The last flight I think I stretched the rubber a little too much and the glider had a little trouble releasing. One flight resulted in a rather long chase but duration was not great in any of the flights. I was just happy how well it launches.

2018 Sympo

This concludes comments on my trip to the 2018 Free Flight Nats, it sure was a great time that went too fast. I really would have liked to have been more social but it was great getting so much flying in. The 2018 NFFS Sympo was for sale at the Nats, I have two articles in this issue. One is on recruiting kids to free flight and the other is on viscous DT timers.

Bill Kuhl