Free Flight: Duration
"YOU MEAN there's no radio?" If you have ever tried to explain Free Flight to a nonmodeler, or someone who is only familiar with Radio Control or Control Line, I'm sure you've heard that response. And it's often followed by the question, "How do you keep them from crashing?" A Free Flight model, even the simplest Hand-Launched Glider, is actually performing a delicate balancing act on every flight. Through the years, those of us who fly Free Flight have learned, often by trial and error, to make the very small adjustments to a model that not only make it fly without crashing, but also climb the highest and glide the best. We have even learned to adjust our models to seek out thermals and avoid downdrafts.
Free Flight: Duration
WITH ALMOST 250 contestants and dozens of events spread over five days, the Nats is hard to describe, let alone chronicle. What follows are some random observations. I hope that these, and the accompanying photographs, will at least give you some of the flavor of this annual event. AMA's International Aeromodeling Center in Muncie, Indiana, is no Lost Hills, but it certainly is a very good Category III site. And when the weather cooperates as it did this year, it is big enough for the three minute maxes needed in the larger FAI events (F1A Glider, F1B Wakefield, and F1C Power).
Free Flight: Duration
SERENA: That's the name of the new Coupe being imported by Sal Fruciano of Starline International. Like the Andre Burdov coupe that Starline has been importing for the last year or so, the Serena is available as a ready-to-fly model. Here's Sal's tale of how the new Coupe came to be: "Our new Coupe, now named Serena, is made in Ukraine by Alexie Bukin. He is a flying buddy of Stephan Stephanchuk. Alexie won the Anatov Cup for F1B this year. I met him in 1994 on our trip to Kiev.
Free Flight: Duration
TEAM SELECTION FINALS: The 1999 United States Team in F1A Glider is Brian Van Nest, Jim Parker, and Steve Spence; in F1B Wakefield, John Sessums, Bob Piserchio, and Vladi Andriukov; in F1C Power, Faust Parker, Ron McBurnett, and Ed Keck. The Finals to select the team to represent the United States at the 1999 World Championships in Israel were held September 16-19, 1998 in Palm Bay, Florida. The Finals are held every two years, alternating between the East and West Coast. The three events are F1A Nordic Glider, F1B Wakefield Rubber, and F1C Power.
Free Flight: Duration
MOTOR MAKEUP: When I first got started flying rubber-powered models, just about everybody used 1/4-inch-wide rubber strip. You'd check the plans for the suggested motor length and number of strands. You would next measure out however many feet of rubber that was, tie the ends together, and by trial-and-error, arrange this into a motor. Sometime in the early 1960s I switched to 1mm diameter Pirelli Lastex. A typical 50-gram Wakefield was 104 strands-well over 150 feet of spaghetti. I soon learned to make up motors by winding the rubber onto a sheet of thick balsa sheet cut to the required length. Then I'd slip it off and bind the ends of the motor with small rubber bands.
