>
> Man-on-man and less launch altitude could emphasize flying skills, also
> strategy would be important.
OK, so your choices are F3j or F3b. Both do a good job on man-on-man
soaring, but emphasize maximizing your launch altitude to gain an
advantage over your competitors.
After that it's flying skills and strategy. One interesting part, to be
successful you need enough equipment. Contestants providing thier own
equipment is the best way to do this. So everyone go out and get a
winch.
> Sort of like the duration task in F3B, only severely limit the power
> and height of the launches. A lot of pilots dont care to run around
> towing (F3J) or throw their arms out (HLG) and F3B will probably never
> attract a large number of participants due to cost and hassle.
I disagree on the F3b being expensive. OK, so I fly a $900+ model in
F3b and I have
more than one. But that is because I go to the team selection contest
and having a
backup model that flies exactly the same as the primary is important to
me. And I want to minimize the impact of the possible loss of a model
and the time it takes to optimize it's setup.
I can build a competitive model for much less, but I don't have the
time. I fly F3b with a few guys who enjoy doing it with used F3b models
that they paid less for than your typical AMA bagged model kit. And
they think they are a lot more fun to fly than a TD model.
As far as F3b winches, there are some relatively inexpensive F3b winches
out there.
They cost less than alot of those expensive motors the power guys crash
all the time.
Anyone price something like a YS140 lately? You can buy a winch for
less and new
loads of line cost alot less than some of those fancy carbon props. A
good winch
battery costs about the same as a four gallon case of fuel. The only
hassle I know of
is all the club members who like to come out to the field and use the
winch someone
else carted out and set up for them. F3b winches are typically less
powerful than
the average AMA club winch. The models just happen to be set up better.
The real reason people don't fly F3b is they don't understand and don't
want to try and understand. They are comfortable doing things the way
they have been doing things for the last 20 years. I'm not saying that
there is anything wrong about being nostalgic about the RES model you
learned to fly on. It's hard to find someone to fly F3b with in most of
the country so unfortunately most have no chance to learn. Fortunately
decent equipment is much easier to come by thanks to Tom at F3x, Dieter
at Shredair, Rich at Chicagosky1, and Sean at Aeromodel.
RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and
"unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
