F5B Pilots & Planes

By Bruce Brown

 

Contest report for the F5D team selection, top three finishers to represent the USA in Takigawa, Japan in July 2018. The contest was held in Liberty,NC Sept.23-24, each competitor may enter three models, all models are equipped with an official supplied watt limiter, FAI rules for F5D govern the models and race organization.Twelve rounds were flown with the best nine counting. The weather was great both days, mid 80s with just a light breeze downwind.
The race is ten laps around three pylons at 180m x 180m x 40m, the score is the time in seconds to finish ten laps, one pylon cut add 10%, two cuts or DNF gives a 200 score. Final totals best nine of twelve heats.

 

Trey Witte   582.34 3rd
Jim Nikodem  560.67 2nd
Bruce Brown  552.99 1st Fast time 59.19

 

 Trey, Bruce & Jim

 

Less people mean’t more flying! We got in 2 rounds each of B and J on each of the 3 days. Nary a drop of rain impeded our fun! Day one, the get- organized day took us until nearly 4 P.M., the last day we got it done by 1:45 as we had a motive : a fabulous poolside barbeque served up at the Hawaiian residence of Ken Ueyama : Thanks Ken!

 

 

The Kawainui Airfield could be considered a bit “tight” for F-5B. The 150 Meter course drew a diagonal line through the entire site which was surrounded by plane eating jungle! There was not a lot of room for Base A climb outs from a low starting altitude even though we were standing right next to the jungle. Base B turns were against a hardscape back drop : can you say depth perception? Again, because of the size of the field, we had to place the landing circles on the course thus flew consecutive groups of (2) waiting for both to land before the next group. The starting order was arranged so pilots could help each other in their native languages. Most of the B folks suitably respected the jungle resulting in conservative lap counts. A couple of 47s were the high envelope, most folks happy enough with 44s. The lift was well suited to the L/D of the F-5B models, with very few excursions above 1750 Watt-Minutes (W-M). One notable exception was Jeff Keesaman whom watched his standout 48 leg distance performance end at a porky 1760 WM and went downhill from there finishing duration north of 2000 W-M, oh well, at least the Jungle didn’t eat it! At the end, Steve Neu won (3) normalized rounds and prevailed, Lenny Keer won (2) normalized rounds and took 2^nd and Ken Ueyama took (1) round and third place preventing all the tiki-trophies going to us Americans.

 

The Japanese however, preferred to tempt fate with the jungle. Ken demonstrated the mid-air wing detachment trick and both pieces disappeared into the canopy. Urban retrieved the wing while Fumi climbed a tree to retrieve the fuselage; that plane was done. Prior to that, Fumi learned about high speed stalls and excessive elevator the hard way augering into the deep wet stuff. The wing was destroyed but everything else remained intact. Not a problem, Ken and Fumi had the same design model and after a little programming were able to share the remaining wing between them. On a further flight with 1760 W-M already on the tally, Ken Ueyama decided that he didn’t need anymore motor run to stay within the field boundaries. He was wrong, the jungle was had it’s due again and the last wing between them was in the swamp! Undaunted, Ken blipped the motor to locate it by sound, sacrificing the propeller and Fumi made the heroic, soaking wet rescue : go Fumi!

 

 

In F-5J things were a bit calmer. Lenny with the superior airplane and thermal hunting skills prevailed and Joe Nave using local thermal knowledge but an inferior airplane took 2^nd. Steve Neu was the highest of the B-J converts and took third.

 

As you may have guessed, we bent a few rules and did everything we could to help each other keep flying; pretty much what you want to do for a fun contest that’s a long way from home and any hobby Shop. Steve Neu had to lend Ken a motor just so he and Fumi would both have a viable B Model. I want to close by thanking my dear wife Michelle for unflappable base judging, Barbara Keer for scoring both F-5B and J and Wayne Walker for assembling equipment and coming to Hawaii to hang with us.

 

 

 

 I was pleased to see fellow competitor and friend Bruce Brown arrive for some practice flying on Thursday before the racing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I write this story late in October, we haven’t had rain in a month. The last rainfall we received was Thursday and Friday evenings before the race! The result was a soggy flying field in addition to cool temperatures and gusty winds (18 – 22mph). Unlike AMA heat racing, F5D is strictly a timed event where your score is your cumulative time with one throw-away round for every four flights. We flew six rounds each of the two days (12 total). A single pylon cut results in a 10% time penalty and two cuts (or a DNF or DNS) results in an automatic 200. During a race, the pilot cannot see the far pylon because he is focusing strictly on his plane. Pylon racing is entirely a team event because the pilot relies on his caller to count off the cadence and announce when to “TURN” when going around the far pylon (pylon 1). Timing and trust in your caller are absolutely critical to fast laps.
Competitor Bernie Vanderleest started out behind the 8-ball with the loss of his primary plane the week before. So I loaned him one of my racers which he flew as well as one could with an unfamiliar airplane. But an unfortunate landing in standing water on Friday doused the ESC keeping that plane grounded the rest of the day. Bernie had to resort to his own backup which is a VERY distant 2nd plane resulting in slow times and difficulty completing the ten laps under power before the on-board Watt limiter shut off the motor.

 

 

 

Bruce started out shaky, but he got better every flight as he continued to work out the jitters. With the exception of a motor failure for my last flight on Friday (resulting in a DNF and a score of 200 for that round), Jim and I both flew well with no other problems. Six rounds were in the books for Friday, so we called it a day.

 

More rain overnight made for an even “soggier” field on Saturday, but we soldiered on not letting a little water (and wind and clouds) ruin our fun! We got the motor in Bernie’s Viper going again and he was eager to get back in on the fun with a competitive plane again! We all started where we left off on Friday with every flight getting better and better. I put in a “barn-burner” which turned out to be the fastest time of all with a 61 and change, but Bruce and NMPRA District 5 President Jim Nikodem were hot on my heels with more clean flights of their own. It’s an interesting dynamic because when each of us is calling for each other we are a team, but when flying against one another we become competitors. That’s the nature of such a small group of good people.

 

 

 

 

When it was all said-and-done I took the overall win with Jim a close second and Bruce in third comprising a full, three-man team for the World Championships next year. Bernie wasn’t able to recoup from the previous day’s misfortunes, but we hope he will stay with the team and join us as a manager and caller. He is also eligible to compete in the two-day Open F5D contest just prior to the four-day world championships.

I

n the big picture we all know F5D is a small piece of the pylon racing pie, but F5D planes are as fast as the fastest in the other pylon racing classes and are powered by electric motors for those who enjoy that aspect.

Tim

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We contacted the local RC club “Maui RC Modelers” got the wheels turning to take care of the necessary details. The club flies off a old WW2 Maine training field that is now shared with race cars and motor cycles. The club members were very helpful in all aspects of making the event happen–including getting city permits and even having breakfast in the early morning for the fliers/helpers and organizers!

 

It turns out that getting to Maui is now easier than ever—Alaska Airlines flies daily nonstop flights from San Diego! What could be easier. Even hauling models is pretty easy—just get a “Sport Tube” which is normally used to haul show skies around the country—airline people see them all the time and don’t ask many questions! In this case someone taking a ski container to Maui in August did not raise any questions.

 

The event was run over 3 days in August starting the 28th. Two full rounds were flown each day with daily flight schedule being done by noon—why stop so early you ask? It’s easy–so people could go enjoy the many attractions to be found on Maui.

 

Several Club members from SEFSD including Steve and Michelle Manganelli and Wayne Walker made the trip to run the event. Steve was the CD and Michelle spent hours out in the hot sun pressing the button at the base “B” turn. Wayne helped keep the timing equipment setup going back in the pit area.

 

This year the Japanese team came very well prepared—in practice flights on Thursday before the start of the contest they put the fear of god into us when they posted a 54 lap distance run while we were getting 48 laps! The weather that day was perfect–thermals and very light winds—-but things would start to change. A hurricane was making i’t run near Hawaii and as the contest progressed the winds did change(much stronger)—-and as it turns out towards our favor.The Japanese planes were very light which was ideal for the light wind conditions—our planes on the other hand were fitted with much heavier motors. As the conditions became tougher the favor moved to the heavier models.

 

In the end the US took 1st and 3rd places with Japan in second place. The RC groups web site has a thread with more pictures and scores: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2358411

 

After the contest most people played tourist and just enjoyed Maui.

 

*Monday it was Lenny Keer of Colorado’s turn to get a gremlin, a flap servo decided to not travel smoothly, he replaced the servo that evening.

 

 

Jeff Giving Launch to Steve’s plane

 

*Tue. It was Jeff’s turn to find a gremlin in that his prop kept coming off during launch, EZ to fix with a new dab of Locktite.

 

*Wed. Patrick Liddy of Pasadena shows up with his parents after getting a two week pass from High School to attend the Worlds as our F5B Junior representative. Patrick is certainly an up & coming competition pilot and flew several extremely good rounds that even posted in the top 25% of all Senior rounds for the day several times. Of course we were all rooting for him & urged him on to go faster in the Distance task as that is known as the most important of the three tasks. The other two tasks are viewed as “Opportunities to Lose Points” by the World Class Pilots!

 

On Patrick’s first launch in practice his prop came off too! Then Lenny finds erratic behavior on another flap servo! He spends the evening inspecting and re- insulating all of his planes servo plugs. He must have done a good job, as his Gremlins are now Banished!

 

*Thur. This is the first Day of the two day Turnau Cup, a warm-up event before the Worlds which start on Mon. the 25^th to shake out any bugs in the operations of the two Scoring & Timing crews on the field. The field is a full sized Glider Port for the Turnau Gliding Club and by our standards gorgeous in that it is very smooth grass and wide open, until of course you put both the glider and pylon racing events side by side! There was of course a wide buffer between the two events, about 250-350 meters, but there was still some complaints from the F5D Pylon Racers, mostly about the busy background sights if you flew low, and the Timing & Scoring crew was not really up to snuff until about 1/3 way through the championships.

 

 

Steve making sure the plane was in the circle–dork!

 

The airfield has two very large hangers for their club planes and a very nice café at the field end of the hanger row so you can watch the tugs tow the gliders up & out to the nearby mountains to start their day of soaring among the mountains & valleys of central Austria.

 

The entire event was sponsored by Red Bull, so as you can imagine it was a very lavish production from the oversized and well equipped competitors’ tents to the Free Welcome Banquet and most impressive closing ceremony any of us had seen, ever!

 

Both days were overcast with some showers & colder than the previous week which had been sunny & warm for our practice. We had this before in Kiev, Ukraine where the practice was sunny & hot with sun screen being used liberally, only to have the competition be in cold, rainy & windy weather! Oh well such is flying by the calendar vs. flying by the actual weather!

 

Of the four rounds planned, only two were run due to the weather, with most scores improving markedly on Friday. Results of the Turnau Cup were, Lenny 17^th, Steve Neu 25^th, Jeff 36^th & Patrick 44^th (2^nd Junior!)

 

 

Party Time

 

*Sat. they had the Opening Ceremony in the Big Tent as it was raining all night. A very large Brass Band of traditionally clad musicians in Lederhosen, performed traditional Austrian Alps music while we were served beer & wine before a buffet of Austrian foods, the table had to have been over 25 feet long! Many Thanks to Red Bull for their sponsorship of the entire event, it was awesome.

 

*Sun. This was the check in and registration of the models & batteries. Today’s Gremlin was that ALL of the Watt/Min. limiters failed! Jeff & Steve soon figured out the problem & back at the Hotel they did some re-wiring and when checked a second time all were within specs.

 

After the “Official Practice” where the field with the Timing & Scoring personnel to be used in the Worlds is given to each team for 20 minutes of uninterrupted practice, “Sparky” Patrick managed to short his battery while taking it out of the plane. No tissue was damaged in the Big Flash” but both connectors needed replacing!

 

*Mon. Jeff Keesaman was the “Lucky” #1 in the flight order, and managed a respectable 46 legs for 27^th out of 46 competitors, the best were 4 score of 50 legs. Patrick did 45 legs to take the lead in the Juniors until Bastin Mlineric beat him by 2.5 points!

 

*Tue. I went sightseeing in Vienna, opulent palaces and the Belvedere has a stunning collection of art from Andy Warhol to Van Goth’s last painting to a collection of medieval art. Unfortunately the Belvedere itself was closed for remodeling.

 

Back at Turnau, Lenny’s gremlins returned! His backup model had a wing bolt embedded nut come loose, so it couldn’t be flown. When he turned on his ‘A’ model and aileron servo was dead, so he taped the aileron in neutral. It flew a little squirrely, but he managed to make 44 legs in his flight.

 

Patrick’s competition in the Junior Division, Bastion from France, actually pulled ahead of his seniors team mates so Patrick was now well behind him. The rest of the Team USA posted good to average scores, but not good enough to make the top ten.

 

*Wed; Early in the 2^nd round a big gust of wind, 50-60 mph, struck the flight line and tents, literally blowing the sides out of the Australians tent and slightly damaging one model. The judge’s tent was also blown out and some equipment was knocked over. The afternoon round was cancelled.

 

For my sightseeing that day I went to Salzburg and visited the Mozart House and found it very original and packed with great Mozart displays including two of his original pianos. On the way to Vienna I tried to stop at the Beethoven House, but it was closed for remodeling.

 

*Thur; The day started bright, and sunny with only a few scattered clouds, in contrast to the weather since Monday which was always cloudy with periods of rain from sprinkles to heavy cloudbursts with periodic wind to lower the chill factor to 40 or so.

 

At the end of Wed. the top ten spots were Italy, Austria, and Germany with Steve Neu the top of Team USA at 18^th.Thursday scores were all in the 44-46legs range, with Steve doing 48, and Patrick doing 47, his personal best!, everyone making good Thermal Duration times and 30 point landing as the norm. As it was all week, the Base A & B judges were either early or late in their button pushing signals to the pilots, not the type of precision expected from Austrians!

 

Fri: Bright sunny & warm! This was the makeup round for the one lost Wednesday afternoon. Lenny got a 47 leg run and finally shook his gremlins! Patrick did 45, Jeff 45, Steve 47. When the Contest Results were posted the Team USA results were;

 

Steve Neu                   17^th

Lenny Kerr                  29^th

Jeff Keesaman             31^st

Patrick Liddy                32^nd, 2^nd Junior

 

There were a total of 46 pilots.

 

Team results were;

Germany                      1^st

Italy                             2^nd

Switzerland                   3^rd

USA                              7^th

 

It is interesting to note that the top two pilots were only 2.6 points apart out of 6,962.8 points!

 

 

Team Germany enjoying the sun

 

On the way back to Zurich to get our flights home, we detoured to see the picturesque Mad Ludwig Castle that was the inspiration for Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle. It looks like it came right out of the 14^th century with tall spires and turrets all around..

 

On the way in we had stopped at Ludwig II’s most famous castle, a reproduction of Louis IV of France’s Castle at Versailles. The castle is on a private island in the middle of a lake, and is known as the Chimsee Castle. Its construction and decoration nearly bankrupted the ruling family at the time and was never finished, only the main halls and bedrooms were completed. It’s interesting to note that Ludwig only spent a total of less than a month living there; his longest stay was 10 days in the year before he died at the age of 43 of drowning in a boating accident that was never really explained.

 

Although the flight over was on-time & very pleasant, the trip home was right out of ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’. Even though we left our Guesthouse early in the morning, the freeway was backed up for many miles because of a large accident. Jeff used his iPhone to come up with a way to get around the freeways using secondary roads, but Jeff & Shania were the only ones to make the scheduled flight. Steve was held up at Security while they poked through his batteries so he joined me on the next flight to Chicago. While we were waiting, I found a 50 Euro note on the floor ($70)! So I went back and had a shopping spree at the Duty Free store before we left.

 

When we got to Chicago to change to United for the trip to San Diego, the lines for Passport Control, Customs, and Security were so long that we both missed our connections and had to wait another 2 hours to catch our final flight. We finally got in after 11pm vs. the 8pm we were scheduled to arrive home. Boy is the San Diego Airport lonely at that time of night!

 

No one has made a bid for the 2016 Championships yet, but we bugged Japan to sponsor the event in Hawaii! Who wants to go?

 

 

More pictures:

 

 

Austrian pilot and helpers during final flight

 

 

 

Belgian pilot concentrating on landing

 

 

 

Belgian pilots and helpers looking a little worried

 

 

 

F5D pilots relaxing after their first flights

 

 

 

F5D winners

 

 

 

Last day of contests in the morning–beautiful day!

 

 

 

Lenny and Steve help keep an eye on Jeff’s plane

 

 

 

Let the sales begin–F5D models for sale after the contest

 

 

 

Party time–some Swiss friends

 

 

 

Team Australia after last flights

 

 

 

Team Australia making some last minute adjustments before heading to the flight line

 

 

 

Tim Lampe and Bruce Brown–USA F5D working on models

 

 

 

Unique Danish methon to heat cure epoxy

 

 

 

Was it the nose that had to be in the circle?

 

 

 

Early morning on the flight line

 

F5B is a class of “motor gliders” as defined by the FAI which is a international body based in Switzerland that governs all types of “aero sports” Information on the FAI can be found here: http://www.fai.org <http://www.fai.org/>  The F5B event is comprised of 3 tasks. The first and most important is the distance task where the pilot tries to get as many legs on a 150 meter course as they can with in a 200 second window of time. The pilot  are only allowed to run the motor on the end of the course where he is standing—when the plane enters the course the motor must be switched off. A typical distance flight will have 10 climbs of 2 seconds or less with the rest of the time spent gliding at high speed on the measured 150 meter course. A contest level pilots will get between 44 and 50 legs in the 200 second window followed by a 10 minute duration flight. In the duration phase the pilots can run the motor as desired but the timing system will subtract the motor run from the score. At the end of the 10 minutes the pilot has to land within a series of circles as close to the 10 minute mark as possible. A good pilot will get the model on the ground within 3-4 seconds of the target time. Additional points are awarded for landing in the smallest circle. For those that are interested here are links to the full  event rules for the event :http://www.fai.org/fai-documents Click on the “Sporting Code Section 4-F5 Electric”

 

 

New for this year were “juniors” trying out for the team. Both Gabriel Mather and Patrick Liddy gave it their best with Patrick gaining a spot on the 2014 team spot which is reserved for young fliers.

 

 

Also notable was the return of Grant Messenger who came out from Florida to give F5B a go again after being away for 20 years! Also Jerry Bridgman and Bob Sliff came down from Orange County—both of whom were very involved in F5B in the early years.

 

Steve and Michelle Manganelli along with several club members helped make the contest run smoothly—although some broken wires did manage to delay one round for a bit until some file soldering could be done. Michelle did a great job in making sure we had a nice lunch spread for both days. A special thanks to all of those that helped!

This coming  weekend is the F5B team selection contest for electric powered gliders. There will be up to 8 rounds flown–4 on Saturday and 4 on Sunday. The top 3 finishers will be going to Austria next year to represent the USA at the World Championships.Come out and see some of the top pilots fly their planes on the distance course followed by a 10 minute duration. If you haven’t seen one of these planes fly this is a opportunity to see first hand some of the highest power -weight models around. The filed will be open to sport flying until 11am on Saturday—after the 4 rounds are complete it will reopen. On Sunday with the change of time the filed will close at 10am and will reopen when after the contest is concluded. Come early and fly and stick around and watch!   Steve Neu

 

Congratulations to the new 2014 US F5D Team: Tim Lampe, Don Rice & Bruce Brown.

 

By Steve Neu

 

We had our regular practice day at Mission Bay on Sunday August 18th. In addition to the usual local group we had two from out of town. Lenny Keer from Colorado and Kris Duggan from San Francisco. Kris flew down for the day to attend the practice—and proved that not flying a F5B plane for nearly 2 years is not a disadvantage as he managed to get a personal best of 49 bases on his last flight. Lenny turned in several high scoring flights including a 50  base set. Jeff had to settle for a 49 base best. I managed to get two 51 base runs which makes me suspect that the sighting devices might have been out of alignment—or our piloting ability just got a whole lot better:)

A good time was had by all–Costco pizza was served for lunch before the start. As usual we welcome anyone who feels the”need for speed” to come down and check out one of the practice sessions. I try to have a suitable “rental” plane for those that want to give it a try.  A special thanks to Steve and Michelle Manganelli for unwavering willingness help make the practice sessions happen.

Below is a picture of Kris flying and Steve Manganelli pressing the buttons.

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The usual suspects from the local area were out along with Lenny Keer from Colorado. Lenny is what you might say is dedicated to these planes since he makes the monthly road trip with his wife every month to San Diego. We also had a visit from a legend of modeling Larry Jolly—looking  things over. Sounds like he will be back in the near future to play with some fast planes!

As for flying with the F5B gliders  the weather which was fairly cool for the middle of July with calm winds made for near perfect conditions for turning in very good lap counts in distance. The scores for the most part were in the 48-51 bases—with yours truly getting the 51 base score. Of course there were the usual comedy routines—the best was provided by Jeff Keesaman when he managed to miss a third of the  turns at the far pylon on his first flight.

We had Don Corum, of the local top heli pilots took up my offer and flew my high powered F5B “rental” –he also looked over the F5D planes and it looks like may have another  local joining us soon.

 As usual Steve and Michelle Manganelli looked up into the sky and pressed buttons for the afternoon–many thanks for their efforts! Most here might not know it but Steve and Michelle will be running a F5B World Cup contest in Hawaii in September. We will have a three day contest with pilots from Australia, Japan USA, Russia, Switzerland and Italy in attendance. The idea was first proposed by one of our Japanese friends at the last World Champs in Romania. After a series of F5B events in Eastern Europe a venue like Hawaii seems like paradise! We worked with the FAI and AMA  and the local club in Hawaii to make this possible!

By Steve Neu

We had a good turn out for  the June version of F5B day at Mission Bay. Most of the usuals showed up including Lenny from Colorado and Eric from the L.A area. NeuMotors provided lunch and drinks for everyone. Michelle Manganelli baked cookies which were all gone by the middle of the afternoon. Wayne Walker and Steve and Michelle Manganelli did the duty of starring up into the sky and pressing buttons for those flying the course–many thanks from the fliers!

Elias and Gabriel Matar (father and son) came down from L.A with their fleet of full on F5B planes. Elias turned in a personal best of 34 laps with a Avionik B05–then is 14 year old son did what you would expect any teenager to do and that was best his dad with a 42 leg run with his brand new Avionik B01. Both were happy at the end of the day!

Eric, Lenny and Steve kept pushing the scores higher with typical lap results ranging 42-49 legs. Eric had one flight where he seemed to forget that base B was 150 meters away–he kept turning at 140 meters:) The result was a not so impressive 28 bases–the low score for the day! He tried to make up for that round by turning in a blistering pass that could have resulted in 50 legs—but Eric forgot that he was limited to 10 climbs and the computer gave him a 46 leg result. Steve decided to give Eric some pressure for next time by running 49.9 legs on his last flight. The lap spread among the regulars was close–with most flights being 46+ legs.

The next F5B day at the bay is set for July 21st at our field–bring out your hotlines of similar planes and enjoy the “need for speed”.

Elias flying the course with Eric coaching

                                                                                                        Lenny waiting to fly

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Steve Dente and John Forester flew introductory flights with my “rental”  B01 Avionik –powered with mild 1000 watt setup. Steve Dente vowed to give return next month and give the 6000 watt rental a go on the course. John had a good time and did a respectable 21 laps for his first time out.

 Mark Ferreira brought his Enigmia and flew a very constant 35-36 laps. Juan showed constant improvement as the day went on with his last flight up to 38 laps.

Bruce Brown took the opportunity to do some test flying of a new F5D racer. For those that haven’t seen one–they are about 1 meter wing span planes with 1000 watt power systems that fly around a course at up to 200 mph!

 Eirc,Lenny,Jeff and Steve battled it out with laps ranging from a low of 43 to a high of 49. Most of the lap scores from the “experts” were in the 45-46 range. Around 3pm thermals started getting quite strong and some scores reflected this–yours truly got a 49 lap run when the lift gods smiled. Lenny was turning in some good runs also–he got a easy 47 on one set.

 Steve and Michelle Mangenelli kept things going by doing the the button pushing for both base A and B–many thanks! By 5pm people had drained all the charging batteries and had had enough of flying and the sun. The next practice is set for June 23rd. Given the success of the last one we will arrange for some food to appear before the flying starts!

For those with hot liners and similar planes come on out next time and give it a try! If more than a couple Radians or similar come out we will run them on the course—might lead to a new fun class:) There is a nice foam glider that Hobby King sells :http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__21946__Durafly_Dynamic_S_Performance_V_Tail_Glider_1560mm_EPO_PNF_.html <http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__21946__Durafly_Dynamic_S_Performance_V_Tail_Glider_1560mm_EPO_PNF_.html>  It is a foam hot liner and in the UK they are flying these as a “one design” class for F5B entry level. It comes with motor,controller and servos for under $120.

Steve Neu

 

By Donald Rice

I wrote a report. If you’d like to read it, you can find it here.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=797192&page=9
It’s post 133.