PHOTOS: MARK BATTERSON
Ted Allebone’s Vickers Vimy British bomber (above), at the Non-Nats judging, was one of two WW I bombers he brought. The Vimy(above right) doesn’t lack for detail. Ted also built this German Gotha bomber (at right) powered by Web Surplus motors. The Gotha’snose (below) shows its great detail.
motors, one-cell 60 Atomic Workshop battery and Atomic Workshop Zombie controller. “I like to choose Power Scale projects that challenge my building skills and use new power systems. This one set new wing load- ing and power levels for my freeflight mod- els. Trimming was not uneventful and close examination of this picture shows repairs she flew with on timed Non-Nats flights. “I learned this ship is low drag, like the original, and launch thrust needed to be dialed down on the props and the twin 16mm EDF units. The EDF units become very effective at flight speeds and I set the controller to throttle them up to 100% mid flight to overcome the drag the contraprops impose after they power down.
“It was damaged during trimming the
night of judging. I completed repairs that evening and returned the following morning to establish trim at a reduced thrust level. This looked okay so I went for broke and opened up the controllers for full two-minute motor runs; first ever. To my surprise she completed three 3-minute official timed flights almost as quickly as I could retrieve, recharge and relaunch. I’m very pleased with this model.” (He only needed one flight of 120 seconds or more but enjoyed flying it.)
The other event at the Non-Nats that fea- tures electric power is the Old Time Gas Replica event. Any power source other than rubber can be used, but again electric power dominates it, although we did have a diesel and a CO2 entry. This event used a different target time for each of the three flights. The difference between the flight time and the target time is the score. The model with the least total deviation for the three flights wins.
The timed motor run is followed by a De- Thermalizer (D/T) operation at a time calcu- lated to drop the plane on the ground at the desired target time. The strategy is to figure out how fast and how long to run the motor to have it at the right altitude and set the D/T time so it comes down to the ground at the target time. Yes, a bit of luck is involved. A thermal or dead air makes a difference. Ted Allebone’s winning Old Time Gas Replica was a Ken Willard designed Cavu. It has a 23-inch wing span and weighs 85 grams. The motor is a Web surplus brushed motor (Mabuchi N12?) mated to a home brew gearbox (3.5:1) driving a Gunther 7–6 prop. The battery is a-cell 120 mAh Ni-MH (1⁄3 AAA). Per Ted’s usual practice, motor timing is done by varying the charge on the Ni-Cds.
The D/T is operated by a Tomy timer. Sam Burke’s 19-inch version of the Gara-
mi Half-Pint freeflighter for the Old Time Gas Replica event is somewhat overpow- ered with the ParkZone 8.5mm (P-51) mo- tor, Zombie timer and Turnigy nano 160 mAh 1S. It flies beautifully—straight up under power and glides really well for such a little squirt! The D/T is operated by a fuse, but the timing was not accurate enough for him to place. At other FAC contests the Old Time Gas Replica event is run as a total of three flights rather than target time. Sam’s Half-Pint would be more competitive under this type of scoring where D/T timing is not as critical.
Chris Starleaf’s Lockheed Model 14, is the civilian version of the Lockheed Hudson that Lord Chamberlin flew to Berlin to have his infamous summit with Adolf Hilter. The English press attacked Chamberlin for fly- ing in an American built plane. This rather heavy 90-gram, 42-inch span model is “old school” electric powered by two low voltage ST-2 can motors and four 280 mAh Ni-Cd batteries which provide plenty of power and duration. It is built from an enlarged and re- fined version of the classic Easy Built D-02 Lockheed Hudson bomber kit.
PHOTO: MARTYN RICHEY
PHOTO: PAT DAILY
Don Srull’s winning Pterodactyl (above) on a trim flight in Virginia. Martyn Richey’s Douglas XB-42A Mixmaster(at right) is a technical tour de force with its contra rotating pusher props and miniature ducted fans under the wings.
FLYING MODELS 59
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68