Sunset above the french Alps

To end the year in beauty, here is a nice video from my friend Zhen, taken with a onboard GoPRO on a flying wing above the French Alps (Saint Martin de Belleville, Savoie). Enjoy !

production Prodij HM maiden

Here is a short video from one of the very first production exemplar of the Prodij HM from Aeromod (This one belongs to Loïc Blanco). It is the light version: The weight of the component is as following:

• one piece wing 234g
• fuselage 105g
• tailplane 38g

This gives a total weight under 380g, so a flying weight around 550gr.
It is interresting to see that some of the flying characteristics of the Alliaj HM have been kept on this new 60 inches.

RC Soaring Digest, January Issue

The January issue of RC Soaring Digest is available here. Among the articles, a presentation of the Willow F3F, some pictures about F3B, some F3K.

10 meters wingspan and 54 kg !!!

This video is about a superb 10m Arcus from Schempp-Hirth, 100% home made by Raffaele Fossi (Italia):

F3F World Championship: some news

The bulletin N1 of the 1st F3F world championship has been released on F3F.de with lots of information. Below is the logo of the championship:

Greetings

I wish you all and your family, all over the world, a merry christmas and a bright and happy new year  2012 !

I hope to everybody that this new year will be plenty of successes, new exciting projects, beautiful planes, and long flying sessions !

Hope to meet some of you on the slope ...

Pierre Rondel

My Weasel Limited Edition is waiting ...

My Weasel Limited Edition is finished and waiting patiently for her first flight. Unfortunately, the weather is not very cooperative with either sunny days with now wind, or strong wind with rain :(

Here are some pictures taken 4 weeks ago. Don't be afraid, some pictures look strange thanks to my camera which can produce some visual effect out of the camera (fish eye effect, miniature fake).

Electro Rotmilan

Few days ago I received the Electro fuselage for my Rotmilan from RTGModel. The fuselage is basically similar to the F3F/B version with the following differences:

• The nose is cut and the motor mount is installed at the right position/angle
• A separated and removable moulded servo tray which will be located around the leading edge position and is screwed on the bottom of the fuselage. This is a very clever solution.
• No command are provided or installed. Elevator control rod will be carbon tubes.

The fuselage came with a very nice carbon propeller and spinner at the exact size of the fuselage. The propeller is a 14x9.
Moulding quality of all the parts is again superb.







For the elevator servos, I have chosen to give a try with the new MKS DS6100, recently tested under Servormances and which gives outstanding results. Its ratios size/performance is ideal for such plane where space is limited but where you need still precision and torque.

For the motor, this is another story. I’m a newbie is this category so it took me several days to understand and select the right motor.

To decide, I had the following requirements:

• Motor diameter less than 29mm. The fuselage of the Rotmilan is very thin
• Propeller dimension is 14x9
• Flying Weight should be around 2.5kg
• Motor set must give about 250W/kg

I did some simulation with eCalc, mainly between Kontronik Kira 480 5.2:1 motors and finally choose the Kira 480-43 5.2:1 which should give the necessary power to climb.

I just hope I made the good choice. First flight will tell :)
I ordered the motor. Then I will select the ESC, to support between 80 to 100A.

Stay tuned !

F3F season 2011 slideshow

I produced a slideshow with some pictures taken during the season.  A good means to remember good moments, nice places, F3F actions, etc ...

Enjoy and see you all in 2012 !