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!
