Android App: Timer F3F

Thibaud Ringenbach, a french F3F pilot, developped a small but great application running on Android providing a F3F stopwatch and more. You can enter the pilot names, or import it via a txt file. Then you can record the times associated to each pilot. It is possible to enter the time manually and overwrite the time recorded by the application. You can also export an output file with times and penalties.

Other improvements and feature are in progress.
From now, this application is downloadable on the Android Market. it's free, it's Opensource, it's great !!! except if you have an IPhone :) !!!

Onboard Video: Welcome to my slope paradise !

An onboard video taken with my Dingo, during the summer 2010, above the best slope of the french Alps, near Corps (Isère - France). On this slope you can do everything: combat, F3F, aerobatics, large scale sailplane, cross, VTPR, etc ...

Radian PRO Review in Modèle Magazine

My review of the Radian Pro from Parkzone (Horrizon Hobby) has been published in the May issue of french specialized magazine Modèle Magazine. You can find this magazine in newsstands in France and around.You can also subscribe to the "digital" version for tablet PC. More info here.

Aerial Video of La Muela

Here is a onboard video of a flight above La Muela in Spain. This Mythic slope is located near Guadalajara, 80km north-east to Madrid. Every year during easter , there is a F3F competition, part of the Eurotour. This flight has been done the second day of the competition, while we were waiting for the wind.

GO Pro HD Review in Modele Magazine

My review of the Go Pro HD has been published in the May issue of Modele Magazine. You can find this magazine in newsstands in France and around.You can also subscribe to the "digital" version for tablet PC. More info here.

New MKS servos for HLG gliders: DS65k

MKS is going to release soon a brand new and innovative servos for HLG. Very few information at the moment except the weight of 7g and the dimensions. The servos case is full aluminium with a very innovative shape. It guarantee a better cooling and better holding of the parts inside, without any deformation.

Video La Muela 2011: Kevin Newton's Fosa

Another video taken at La Muela. This is Kevin Flying his Fosa.

Stratair Hurricane pictures

At La Muela, aside the competition, Stephan BERTSCHI flew his Hurricane, the day before the competition. Here are some pictures of this nice but quite expensive plane, designed by the Logo Team, and produced by Stratair in Austria.

XX powered by eneloop: AA format, low discharge and 2500 mAh !

Sanyo just released a new Eneloop low-self-discharge battery called "XX powered by eneloop AA", providing more power with 2500 mAh.

More information on Sanyo Website: here

I use Eneloop batteries for few years now and I'm quite happy with them. Going to 2500 mAh will give even more flying time !

Price is about 19 Euros for 4 cells, compared to the 15 Euros for the standard 2000 mAh we already know.

Willow F3F: an affordable sport and competition plane

Ian Mason contacted me few days ago to give me some news about the project he worked on the past few monthes. The result is a new F3F plane, called Willow F3F, with the objective to make mouldies more accessible to everyone. The standard (Carbon D box) version would be priced at between 500£ and 600£.
Few characteristics are the following:

• Span 2.75m
• Section (DF01)
• Ballast 1.2KG
• 2.4Ghz Friendly

More info on willowf3f.com

Aerial Pictures of La Muela

Some Aerial Pictures I took the second day of the competition while we were waiting for the wind.

Video: La Muela 2011 Fatest Time

Here is a video of the fastest time during La Muela 2011, done at round 4: Alexis Maréchal on Alliaj HM. The time is 41.06 if I remember correctly.

La Muela F3F 2011 Eurotour

I'm just coming back from a week in Spain, with some tourism in Valencia (very nice city), and ended by the F3F open of La Muela. Despite we were end of April, expecting good temperature and sunshine, weather forecasts were not encouraging at all, since a depression was centered on Madrid, with rain and low wind and temperatures as concequences.
Friday, after few rain showers, we have been able to complete 5 rounds in very changing conditions, especially in round 3 and 5, interrupted in the middle by rain, before to restart after a 20 minutes break. I payed cash these 2 interruptions as I was the next pilot to fly, and each time got very little wind compared to the first half. At round five, I was even ready to start under few rain drops but the CD decided to stop at that moment, too bad for me !
This cuts the pilots in 2 groups: the one who flew before the rain with time between 41 to 50s, and the second group flying after the rain with time between 55 to 75s. You can easily imagine the impact on 5 rounds ranking, even with one discard !
On saturday, the low and variable wind didn't allow to do additional rounds, so people enjoyed the slope with free flying with foamies, HLG and electrogliders.
The low number of rounds and rounds interruptions explain partially the ranking with good pilots finishing far from the top positions with very low points for Eurotour classification. Despite this cruel aspect of F3F, the pilots on the podium clearly deserve their position: Andreas flew very consistently all 5 rounds with his Alliaj HM, followed by Gerardo with his Freestyler and Andoni at the 3rd place.
On the organisation side, I noticed great improvements compared to previous years: First of all, the timing system worked flawlessly . No more voice in the mother tongue of the pilot, but very clear beeps during the count down or the last lap, etc ...
Round results were displayed very quickly after the end of the round. Other noticeable improvement is the organizer determination to fly the most possible: the course was ready at 9am when we arrived, and they were ready to fly late on saturday if condition permitted it, this is great !
Even if this is my worse result at La Muela Open, I will definitively come back because of the place, the people, and the food !!!
A big thanks to the organisers, including the bases judges who stayed all week end to beep us, and not forgotting the sponsors (MKS, Graupner and some others) who were very generous with us.

See you in 2012.

Below is my photo album. More to come with videos, aerial pictures and aerial video. Stay tuned !

More pictures here: http://www.henryf3f.com/foro/index.php?topic=730.0
and here: http://kevin-newton.blogspot.com/
official website here: http://www.lamuelaf3f.com/

Results Summary - La muela 2011
Overall Results		Nº rounds flown 5
		Discardrs 1
Rank	Competitor	Score
1	FRICKE ANDREAS	3785,17
2	GERARDO PLAZA LOZANO	3610,65
3	ANDONI GORRINOBEASKOA	3567,69
4	SERGIO SANCHEZ CONDE	3544,31
5	PERICOU SEBASTIEN	3531,47
6	LANES PHILIPPE	3517,75
7	ESPEN TORP	3482,71
8	LOMBARDO LAURENT	3479,48
9	MARECHAL ALEXIS	3475,04
10	TIRAND YVES	3469,98
11	ALVARO SILGADO	3455,63
12	JESUS HERRERA BORREGO	3433,35
13	MIGUEL A. GUTIERREZ LECUE	3428,27
14	LEMONNIER THIERRY	3411,47
15	BLUMER RETO	3400,75
16	RONDEL PIERRE	3390,15
17	JOSE JURADO PEREZ	3359,73
18	MICHAEL EVANS	3337,48
19	JORGE MEDINA HERRERO	3307,05
20	ALBERTO PORTELLA DOBLADO	3298,78
21	MANUEL CRUZ	3289,63
22	DANIEL PORTELLA DOBLADO	3280,66
23	ANGEL LOPEZ CABRERA	3273,22
24	COHEN ALLAN	3267,44
25	LANES SEBASTIEN	3263,25
26	JORGE RUGERO GOMAR	3251,31
27	TOMAS EKLUND NORRBY	3201,91
28	IÑAKI ELIZONDO CASADO	3200,29
29	ANDRéS CARDONA VIDAL	3184,80
30	JOSE MANUEL QUINTAS VIDE	3169,46
31	KEVIN NEWTON	3160,07
32	ETCHART MICHEL	3158,83
33	MICHAEL SHELLIM	3119,81
34	FERNANDO MORO	3092,76
35	JAVIER PORTELLA	3092,38
36	CARLES AYMAT	3080,53
37	IGNACIO JOSE TROJAOLA ALVAREZ	2993,39
38	BERTSCHI STEFAN	2989,97
39	JOAO MIGUEL MESTRE	2981,98
40	ALFREDO ARJONA GARCIA	2979,99
41	JUAN PEÑA MARTINEZ	2937,32
42	GIRAUD STEPHANE	2934,10
43	IÑIGO HERRERA MILLAN	2931,83
44	JOSE LUIS ALVAREZ FERNANDEZ	2918,17
45	VICTOR ELDRIDGE	2915,09
46	JOSE RAMON AZCONA CARRASCO	2910,71
47	JUAN CARLOS NOVOA FERNANDEZ	2843,60
48	LAZARO MARTINEZ NIETO	2808,70
49	LORENZO MAYOR DAVILA	2751,05
50	RICARDO CALVO ROJO	2478,58

First F3F contest of the french league

Last week end was the first contest of the F3F french league. No wind on staturday, so Alexis organized some activities with a duration/speed/precision landing informal contest.
On Sunday the the conditions were very good with 10 to 14m/s of wind. We managed to fly 7 rounds with 30 pilots. I got the best time of the day with 37.53s and won the contest. I flew the first round with my Alliaj HM, then switched to the Vampire F3F to be more familiar with it as I had less than 2 hours of flight on it. I reduced the elevator a little bit as advised by Thierry Platon. Overall, I satisfied with it even I need more tuning on it.

Results:

1 PierreR 1000 Vampire F3F
2 Alex 972 Alliaj HM
3 Philippe 947 Vampire F3F
4 Matt 928 Cyril
5 FredH 925 Freestyler 3
6 SebM 904 Alliaj HM
7 Marcel 894 Alliaj HM
8 Andreas 888 Alliaj HM
9 Jluc 886 Alliaj HM
10 OlivierM 879 Ceres
11 CedricG 877 Fosa
12 Allan 876 Alliaj HM
13 JB 875 Alliaj HM
14 LaurentL 869 Cyril
15 Yves 867 Vampire F3F
16 MickaelL 863 Alliaj HM
17 Serge 856 Dingo
18 MikeE 845 Tragi
19 StephaneG 839 Ceres
20 ThierryL 836 Ceres
21 PierreD 833 Alliaj HM
22 BenjaminP 827 Ascot
23 NicolasJ 809 Alliaj HM
24 AlainG 807 Martinet
25 ThierryP 784 Caracho
26 SebastienL 779
27 JoelC 692 Ascot
28 ArnaudL 667 Alliaj HM
29 Paul Eytan 583 Estrella

Here are the picture of the contest:

DSing the Vampire F3F

Here is another video, taken the same day than the video about the Ambrosia.
I stopped quickly after few laps to not go too fast and break the plane 2 days before the first F3F competition of the french league.

Stop News: First F3F World Championship in 2012

The CIAM voted the first F3F WC to be in 2012 and accepted the candidature of Germany to organize them in October 2012 at cape Arkona (Rügen).

This is a good news for F3F which is finally recognized as a real category.

Team Selection in each country can start :) !

DSing the Ambrosia F3X

Yesterday, I flew my Ambrosia F3X on the darkside of the slope. It flew very well, but I couldn't accelerate too much to not damage it 3 days before the beginning of the season. Here is a very short video of it. Stable, fast, precise, we retrieve the quality of the plane. I flew it with 600g of ballast.

D-60 Maiden Flight

1.7 kg for 1.52m wingspan. This is unusual, but this is the flying weight of my D60. Yesterday, I maidened the D60 with 20 to 30 km/h of wind at my home slope. After the launch, I have been first surprised by the lift of the plane despite its high wingload. Then the cruise speed is already quite important. This is a good frontside sailplane for heavy conditions. But its home is back side :)

After few laps backside (or darkside ;) ), I had just one word to summarize the D60: woowwww !


Here is a short video of the first flights:

Rotmilan: the new F3X plane by Milan Demčišák & Norbert Habe

Milan Demcisak is a well know Slovakian manufacturer who produced the Demo series, and more recently the sucessfull Extreme F3F:

Milan Demcisak will release soon the successor of the Extreme F3F, called Rotmilan (The Red Kite, a medium-large bird of prey), designed in cooperation with Norbert Habe.

Below are the specifications of this new plane:

• Wingspan                   3018 mm
• Wing surface              60,69 dm²
• Ratio                         15,00
• lenght                        1493 mm
• Section                      HN-Straak
• Flying Weight            2150 gr - 3600 gr
• Wing loading             from 35.2 gr/dm²

Preseries have already been molded. Production is starting right now. 

More to come ...

Stay tuned !

Flying session with the Vampire F3F

Today, I went to the col des limouches. Conditions were perfect for the flight, but too much for a safe an peaceful landing. I flew the vampire for 1 hour before to start to land. the landing zone is very small, and near the edge. This is the only place to land on this slope, because behind the eadge of the cliff, this is a suicide. I finally managed a good landing without any damage.
Here is the video of the flying session. 30 Km/h of wind. 900g of ballast in the plane.






The Vampire confirmed to be a fast plane with plenty of grip in the turn. I think again that the ballast strategy is very important with this plane to obtain the best compromise between straight speed and tight turns. The plane seems to not like to be overballasted.

my first print in a non-RC related magazine

Yesterday I received a copy of a village bulletin of Jarrie near Grenoble which published one of my aerial pictures of the castle located in the village.

This is the my first print in a non-RC related magazine :)
Pictures were taken with my Easyglider equiped with a GoPro HD.
Few other pictures should be used in next bulletins.

"Open Air": a nice video clip about F3J

A nice video clip from Lopi about one of the first F3J contest of the season. Lots of slow motion sequences, plenty of nice gliders:

Midday flying session with the Radian Pro

Weather is absolutely beautiful at the moment in the French Alps. 24° at midday, going up to 27° in the afternoon, no wind to a very little thermal breeze. It was the perfect conditions for a Radian Pro flying session.

Thermals were popping everywhere, allowing fast climb without motors. I used only 1/3rd of the battery to achieve 30 minutes of flight.

The Radian Pro demonstrated again its great thermal capabilities, circling, transiting easily, etc ...

In conclusion, a good flying session !

Complete Review of the Ambrosia F3X

You can read the final review of the Ambrosia F3X here

http://pierre.rondel.free.fr/images4/AmbrosiaF3X/

Some additional Samba Model F3B/F information

Lots of people though that this scoop was a April fool. This is not ! This project is in the pipe for more than 1 year.

I got few more information regarding this new plane. Design is from Johannes Dillinger, Philip Kolb and Benjamin Rodax.

The wing uses 8 different sections PB571 - PB578

I will continue to give you more information as soon as I get them.

Stay tuned !

BatGlider maiden

I maidened my Vampire on Saturday at Montchenu near Romans sur Isère, then had a second flying session on the local slope on Sunday.

The CG is at 91 mm which corresponds to the front of the wing ballast compartiment. This position seems very good. the plane has no bad habits and is quite fast.





So what to say on the Vampire ? I would say that it is comparable to an Alliaj HM but lighter. You can achieve very good speed empty. The grip in the turn is amazing and the speed at the exit of the turn is absolutely excellent.

I found that the Vampire is more sensitive to the ballast than the Alliaj HM. If you ballast too much (1 or 2 brass bars more, which correspond to 150 to 300 gr) you immediatly feel it in flight.

Overall, I would say that the Vampire is a good complement of the Alliaj HM for small to medium conditions, but need more attention on the ballast strategy.

Anyway, I need more airtime on it in the coming days ...