"The only way to avoid line breaks from the normal wear and tear on the line across the field is to go to the 280-300 lb line."
Michael, You can still use the heavy lines if you adopt a standard week link extension that would go between the parachute and the plane. That way everyone has the same test week link and if you break it you fly it. That would standardize the launch strength. John -----Original Message----- From: Michael Lachowski [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 01, 2004 7:29 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [RCSE] Contests, Landings, etc. The correct way to limit launches is on the motor side, not on the line side. Broken lines just slow down contests and make everyone unhappy. The only way to avoid line breaks from the normal wear and tear on the line across the field is to go to the 280-300 lb line. Everyone loves more power. That's why folks want 6 volt motors. Unfortunately there is no strong reason for folks to move away from the Ford long shaft motors. They are cheap to use to build winches. F3b solves the problem by limiting the winch motor resistance. Of course, it complicates it by the fact that everyone brings thier own winches, which is a good thing. You only have yourself to blame on the winch problems. This allows lines and drum sizes to be selected to optimize the winch for the launching conditions. If you took a F3b winch and put a small diameter drum on it with heavy line, you would not break line and you would not need super strong wings unless it was really blowing. I agree that the maximum (it's not required) line length in the AMA rule books is really silly for a TD contest. It's long enough where current models have to look for sink to not make the 10 minutes. Short lines increase the variability in a contest. A short launch in really bad air may not be enough to escape the sink. So you have to trade off between a landing contest and a luck contest if you just select winches. The only true way to avoid that is to run man on man contests. This takes us back to field size limits and the fact that a lot of pilots don't have thier own winches. The only folks cheering for everyone having there own winches are the poor victims who carry out the winches every weekend for thier clubs and the ones that have to rebuild them after they get abused by everyone else. But, it all comes down to what you do as an individual. If you don't like a contest, you don't have to go to it. If you think you can run a better contest, then go and do it. The fact that we use winches and everyone uses the same winches is what I like about soaring. I think the electric comptition guys are crazy. That ends up being a motor technology race. I'm more interested in the airframe technology and the flying. But then, they do have models that will do a good crash and burn. Sailplane pilots usually have to pick on power lines to do that. RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off.
