Not all flights end well! Pike mid-air collision

As the subject line says, not all flights end well!

During a recent HTL (Highveld Thermal League) contest, during the high speed decent for landing my Pike Perfect and a Xplorer 3 had a mid-air collision.!

The Xplorer had wing tip damaged and could be landed, the Pike lost it's stab and the rudder was damaged. I manage to control it with the use of flaps, all went well till I realized I could still get close to the spot (no re-flights allowed for mid-air collisions!) I tried to drop the nose a bit by reducing flap but the plane dived into the ground from about 10m (Remember no elevator control!)

The damage was surprisingly light, other than the broken stab and rudder from the collision the one wing joiner broke and the firewall was damaged! I was pleasantly surprised as the ground was extremely hard!

To add to the mess I had to fly the next round immediately after the crash, no time to calm down! At least I had a backup plane assembled and ready, the good old Supra had to do duty again for the next flight and remaining rounds! In spite of the mid-air and the points lost due to the missed landing and reduced air-time I still managed to get a third place in the contest. I even manged to beat one of the F3J team member who was due to fly in the world championships a few months later!

Oops!

Trusty Supra to the rescue!

Since I hate broken planes in the workshop repairs were done at once! I managed to replace the broken stab with a spare Xplorer stab I had. I only had to machine the front a bit to make it fit perfectly! I build a new rudder and built a new joiner using the bits from the old one as a former.

Fixed and ready to fly again!

After the fix she seems to fly as well as before if not better than before, the Xplorer stab is a bit lighter so the CoG moved a tiny bit forward from a position rather far back, she now seems to fly better so there was some gain with the pain!

F3B workshop

The day of the first F3B workshop dawned bright but rather windy! Quite a few pilots arrived, it was decided to have a few demonstrations of speed runs and then practice runs by the new pilots.

Sunrise, rather windy!

Javelin and backup "heavy" Xplorer ready for action

I did 2 quick test flight with the Javelin to check the now more forward CoG and to see if the added color helped with visibility. The plane was flying well and I can now really see it well!

Easy to see in the air!

Soon there were quite a few planes assembled and the fun started!

A few of the planes present.

Lots of interest in the launch!

Away she goes!

The electric launch proved to be a huge benefit! I could easily do 3-4 practice speed runs from one launch!

All you need for some  F3B practice, an electric launch plane, TX and some batteries.

I am looking forward to the next workshop. The plane is really flying well and it will join my F5J fleet for those really windy days! I wish I had it during the Nationals, my light planes really suffered but the Javelin would have been perfect!

F3B Javelin electric conversion

In an attempt to revive the F3B class in South Africa it was decided to have a few F3B workshops. Since F3B was my first love in RC soaring I am quite excited about this!

I do have a few F3B planes in my hangar like the Trinity and Europhia but I decided for practice an electric launch F3B plane would be perfect! The easiest conversion turned out to be a F3B Javelin I acquired a while ago. It did not need much work to re-position the radio equipment to make space for the motor/ESC/battery. The nose is also wide enough to take the Turnigy Glider Drive 840KV motor that I had "in stock" so the decision was made.

I decided to run the motor on 2 x 3S 1300mah packs, the reason I chose these packs were because I could make them fit, I needed the weight to balance the plane and they could supply the current needed. To get more power out of the Glider drive than I normally do I decided on a 15x8 prop rather than the usual 14x8. This produces over 800W (the motor is rated for around 850W) and as it turned out was enough power for a decent rate of launch even if the plane was a bit heavy at 2.7kg.

The first flight was exiting! The plane was a bit tail heavy and a lot faster than my other planes, it turned out to be very responsive and needs to be flown all the time, great fun!

Ready for the first flight!

On the ground and in one piece!

A short video clip of the first launch. Thanks Frank!

I decided that I needed to move the CoG a bit forward and add some color to the wing. The day of the test flight was a dull overcast day and I struggled to see the plane far away!

Ready for the first F3B workshop!

Late winter practice and fun fly session

I have not made many posts here recently but it is not because I am not flying! I have just been so busy at work and building planes.

We are now heading into spring so with the temperatures rising we will be flying even more, if that is possible! It has been a mild winter, other than one Sunday with really high winds I managed to fly every day I wanted to fly.

Since it now appears that the first F5J Work Championships will be in 2019 at the earliest I have slowed down a bit with practice sessions and even skipped a contest or two. I am flying more for fun but still building skills. Since the first WC is so far away I think I need to fly in at least a few EU contests over the next 18 months. With the EU summer just about over for 2016 I will be aiming at a few selected contests in 2017.

I went to SGC early this morning for  trimming and fun flying session. I have recently changed the programming on my Maxa since the camber setting was not working well so the main "mission" this morning was to setup the camber for minimum sink and best rate of climb in weak thermals.

Maxa ready for trimming session

I also wanted to fly the Pike Perfect again, the last time I few it was in a contest and it suffered a mid-air collision, it is now fixed (rudder and stab replaced) but I have not had the chance to fly it much since the repair.

Pike and Maxa, field still dry from the winter.

The camber settings I configured at home seemed perfect, soon I was looking for a bit of lift, it was still early, before 8am but soon I found an area of light lift, the Maxa is really superb when working light lift, lots of fun! The flight below started as a low launch, just over 35m, intended as a landing practice flight, as I turned final I could feel a bit of weak lift. The next 8 minutes or so was spent carefully working it, trying to center the light lift to make the most of it.

I finally managed to work the plane up to 85m, you can see the peaks where I found better spots in the lift. I eventually left the lift and landed because a flying friend arrived and I wanted to say hi to him. It looked like conditions were going to get really good!

Maxa playing in light lift.

The next flight was even more fun! I launched to 100m, initially I could no find any lift, eventually when I was below 50m I found some light lift, the plane did not climb much but I managed to keep it in the air till eventually, after about 4 minutes the lift broke away and I rode it up to 150m before screaming down to a practice spot landing.

Maxa low level scratching.

The next few flight proved similar, light lift making for lots of fun!

Maxa dropping below 40m before climbing out again.

I then assembled the Pike, the lift was now a bit stronger, it was great fun thermalling up high then screaming down before looking for the next thermal.

Pike playing in the thermals!

What a great days flying! Next weekend it is the Postals contest and the weekend after that it is round 7 of the F5J league. My primary and secondary planes are ready to go, hope the weather is similar. When the lift is really weak I love it as low level and light lift conditions are areas where I am happy to take on any other pilot, more fun than when conditions are good and it becomes a landing contest!