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!

New addition to the fleet, Xperience Pro

Since I was contemplating entering the F3J as well as the F5J category in the National championships I urgently needed a ready to fly F3J plane. I was fortunate to get my hands on a very nice Xperience Pro but with only 1 weekend before the contest I did not have much time to practice on the winch!

XPro ready for early morning test and trimming flight.

As things turned out I never got a chance to practice winch launching as the times I could go to the flying field the club winches were not there. I did manage to build a bungee and get a few launches but it is not quite the same!

 Practice, a few bungee launches

Pike and XPro, final pre Nationals practice.

The final practice session went well, the Pike was flying well and I decided that it will be my primary F5J plane as well as the backup F3J plane (with prop removed) as it still has the towhook!

Round four of the 2016 South African F5J league

Round four of the 2016 South African F5J league was held at the GEMS field on the east Rand.

The weather prediction for the day was for cloudless skies and almost no wind, and that was exactly the way it dawned and stayed the whole day!

I was there early, as usual, I prefer assembling my planes and having a quick flight on each before most of the people arrive. It allows me to concentrate on what I am doing, when the other competitors then arrive I have time to chat to them.

Because of the weather prediction for little wind I assembled 2 planes, the new Pike Perfect ET I wanted to test in it's first contest and the trusty Supra as a backup, just in case. Today the Osprey was taking a rest.

A few quick test flights, and practice landings using RC-Timer Pro on my phone showed that all was well.

Supra and Pike ready for action.

Soon the other competitors arrived and we started flying. Round one went well for me, I did not manage a max but nobody else did either, landing last and getting close to the spot gave my my first round win and 1000 points for the day.

I flew round 2 immediately after the first round, this time I managed to find lift and even though it was still early and the lift was not strong it was an easy 10 minutes. My landing was again good for the second round win and 1000 points. Now the pressure was on, if I could keep this up.....

Round 3 was exciting, I could not find lift only sink so finally deciding I must land and at around 4 minutes to at least get a decent landing. Fortunately I found a small bubble on the base leg that I managed to work, winning some altitude and then loosing some again while I was trying to find the core of the thermal. At around 7 minutes the thermal finally broke away so I rode it up for a few circles before heading back to land. Another round win and 1000 points. This time I had to work really hard for the win!

Round 4 was almost a mess for me. At about a minute before launch I did a final control check only to find to my shock that the right flap was vibrating at around the 60% down position, it did not go down any further and refused to go up at the first try, only after a few cycles.

Since there was no time left to change to my backup model I decided to just fly carefully and avoid using the flaps. The result was a rather nervous flight, I found a good thermal but started coming down sooner than normal, loosing height with some aerobatics. The final approach was also not fun, keeping low and not too fast. As I got close to the spot I was still a bit fast but at least low so I managed to plant the nose to prevent a slide on the hard ground. I ended up landing a bit short, 3m from the spot but the landing along with the flight was again good enough for a round win and a 1000 points.

For round 5 I changed to my trusty Supra. I managed to find lift early in the launch so this launch was my lowest of the contest. The lift turned out to be weak and just about overhead and right in the bright sun. It was not moving since there was no wind so just about the entire flight was flown right above me! Not comfortable but since the lift was weak I was low so I could not really go look for other lift. I managed to hang onto the lift, despite my neck's complaints for the full 10 minutes. A decent landing gave me a round win and 1000 points. Getting this round win was rather painful!

Starting the last round I realized I have a good chance to win the contest, maybe a bit over confidant I did not really try to read the air before the launch as I normally do. I soon saw the errors of my ways as I launched into huge sink. The whole, very short flight was a battle to stay higher than the competition in my slot. As it turned out the other guy landed at 4:02 and I landed at 4:04, really terrible times but my 50 points landing over his 5 point landing gave me the round and a final 1000 points.

So I am happy to report, 4 months after starting to fly RC gliders and F5J, I managed to win my first contest with a perfect score of 6000 out of 6000.

We are now two short weeks away from out National championships, I am hoping I can get a bit more practice in before then!

I checked the flap servo on the Pike when I got home, looked like a stripped gear on the Graupner/JR DS 3210 servo but when I opened it up it looks more like a faulty, misshaped gear that must have come like that from the factory. Anyway, the servo was replaced and the plane is functional again.

Early morning trimming and practice session.

After the recent successful test flight of my F5J Pike Perfect ET I decided I need to play around a bit with things like camber, CoG and crow compensation before I could be sure that the Pike should be my primary plane for the next F5J contest.

Setting up just the right amount of camber for minimum sink for those dead air early morning flights is best done when there is no wind or thermals, so best time is just after dawn.

Sunday morning dawned absolutely quiet and quite cool for this time of the year, I was at the field assembling the plane just before the sun rose, after the very hot summer we had the 10C was really refreshing but I knew the temperature would soon rise to the predicted 30C.

The Pike ready to go, the grass was sopping wet from dew during the night

The first few launches was spent getting the launch trim right, the plane seems to climb best, at around 10m/s with neutral elevator trim. The best climb angle, after the initial vertical zoom, is around 80 degrees. A quick bit of down elevator before switching off the motor allows the plane to transition nicely into level flight. The Pike needs 20-22 seconds, depending on the wind, to get to 200m, during contest conditions the motor run will be seldom more than 10-12 seconds, when conditions are good it could be 5 seconds or less!

Checking the battery, a 3S, 1300mah 45-90C pack, shows that I can get 3 full launches and 3 10 minute flights on a charge. I change the battery after every round during a contest but for practice this is great.

Between flights, resting the pilot!

Trimming for minimum sink, using a FrSky Vario feeding telemetry back to my Taranis transmitter, showed  that for level flight around 2-3mm of camber provides the lowest sink rate. When in a thermal turn a bit more, 3-4mm, works best. The vario is a really useful tool to get to know your plane and getting the settings just right.

More club members arriving to enjoy the perfect conditions.

Soon the sun was a bit higher in the sky and the first signs of lift appeared. I love flying in marginal conditions since it is really challenging to keep the plane in the air working every little bubble of lift.

It soon became obvious that the Pike is really great at low level scratching, once setup she can turn really flat and the bigger wing span, 3.8m, is an advantage in marginal conditions. It did not take long for me to decide that the Pike will be used in the next contest! The powerful flaps also make precision landings easy, I just need to get used to how the plane just stops in the air with full flaps!

Launching 150m into sink and then working some weak lift.

A 75m launch into very light lift.

After a few flights I can confidently say that the Pike can scratch as good and even better than the Supra. The lighter Osprey might still float a bit better but the Pike's better speed range allows you to search far and wide for lift.

Pike waiting for the next flying adventure.

With a bit more practice I am really looking forward to flying the Pike in a contest, next round of the F5J league is on 16 April....