Canada’s Yuri Shvedenkov used this folder (facing page) in the F1C fly-off. Fifteen-year-old Luca Aringer flew both F1A and F1C (above left) and reached both fly-offs. Vasil Bezchasniy (above right) of Ukraine launches his son Artem’s F1A glider. The German team’s shirt (below, at right) showed the free- flight Ascent of Man. Bulgaria’s Nikolai Nokolov (below) made his glider easy to spot in a thermal.
F1C engine-powered models are allowed just five seconds of power run from their .15- size engines, which typically run at 33,000 rpm. Some are geared down to swing a more ef- ficient large diameter prop, sometimes with three or four folding carbon blades. They climb vertically before transitioning to the glide via a quarter bunt. Some models use folding wings, in which the outer panels of the polyhedral wing fold under the inner ones to form what is almost a symmetrical airfoil, and then fold out when the motor cuts and the glide starts.
Day 1: F1A Gliders The US glider team of Andrew Barron,
Mike McKeever and Ken Bauer had some problems during the seven rounds. Ken and Mike flew in Round 4 and the air didn’t look good enough for a max, so out came the flap- pers; this energetic technique involves run- ning around waving shirts and generally trying to disturb enough hot air on the ground to make a thermal bubble break away to boost the flight time.
It worked, and at the end of the rounds the
US team had a full house of 21 maxes; usu- ally this would have made a medal place pretty certain but here eight other teams gathered for the first fly-off round, with a five-minute max the target. A total of 62 people had full scores, an unheard of num- ber for a Championships, but the conditions and flying skills were so good that 54 of them made the five minutes.
The next fly-off round had a seven-minute target which 24 flyers still managed, but only Andrew Barron for the USA achieved
Mike McKeever’s glider away (above) for the first round. Indonesia’s team manager Dirgahaju Perdana (at right) launches for Benny Limanhadi.
FLYING MODELS 19
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