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FAI F1D World Championship Team Manager's Report |
Brett Sanborn
2018 F1D World Champion - FAI Gold Medal
Senior Team USA
2018 F1D Team Champions (Sanborn, Palmer, Kagan) - FAI Gold Medal
Junior Team USA
Third Place Junior Team (Clements, Luo, Szczur) - FAI Bronze Medal
The 2018
World Championships began with a traditional pre contest. The Jim Richmond Open
to honor Jim, an eight time World Champion. The contest also served as two
additional practice days for competitors to trim planes for the upcoming World
Championships.
The weather
outside was cool and cloudy and the air inside was just as bad with drift and
areas of both lift and down air. Conditions were nearly unflyable early in the
day. Jim Richmond managed to have the best time for the first day with a 24:15,
a flight that had both lift and down air. The weather improved on Sunday with
some afternoon sun. Several flights in the afternoon were in the mid twenties.
Former Junior Champion Evan Guyett won the contest with a two flight total of
48:46. Brett Sanborn finished second and Mark Benns third.
The cold and
overcast outside weather made flying nearly impossible for the first three
rounds. West Baden had a winter advisory on Tuesday that left us with two to
three inches of snow. The air near the walls had lift but if a plane ventured
anywhere toward the center of the floor the downdraft would ruin the flight.
Many flights were less than ten minutes. All recorded flights for the first
three rounds were under twenty minutes.
Sun was
shining through the windows into the atrium at the start of round four. The air
improved throughout the round. Reigning World Champ Juan Kang Lee managed a
22:57. Kagan flew for 21:43. Jake Palmer launched early in the round when the
air was hit or miss and went up and then down in 12:16. Sanborn went up late in
the round and had a record flight of 27:11.
The contest
was going to be decided with flights made in rounds five and six. The
conditions outside were the best they had been all week; mild temperatures and
some sun. Air inside the atrium would improve as the day went on.
Jake Palmer
just couldn’t get a break and after four rounds had a two flight total of only
18:05. If Team USA was going to be on the podium Jake needed to have decent
flights in rounds five and six. In hopes of better air it was decided that Jake
fly last in round five. Waiting as long as possible and still be able to get
all three flights in, Kagan had to start the round. The air was still
questionable. John’s flight went up and down in 17:12. Sanborn was getting
ready to wind when a plane hung on an artificial tree directly behind him. The
ensuing retrieval debacle postponed Brett’s launch by about fifteen minutes.
Time management was going to be crucial if Jake was going to get his flight in
before the end of the round. As soon as
Brett landed Jake started winding. The first motor broke but was able to get
the flight off with about seven minutes before the round ended. It started out
as a respectable flight. About six minutes into the flight a collision
occurred. The flight landed with a time of nearly eighteen minutes. The air
seemed to be improving so Jake chose to take a re-flight. That turned out to be
a good decision as the re-flight during the lunch break was 22:36.
The winners
would be determined by their performance in the final round. The air was the
best it had been all week and any of the top six had a chance to be the winner.
Brett had a 27:11 going in but a backup of only 18:53. SunOS, Mangalea, Benns,
and Kagan all had a decent two flight total going into round six. Jake Palmer
did a 24:46, his best flight. His final flight made it possible for Team USA to
take top team honors. Brett put it all together late in the round and flew a
tremendous backup of 27:01 that gave him a two flight total of 54:12. World
Champion! His total time was more than six minutes more than second place
Zoltan Sukosd. Corneliu Mangalea finished third.
This was a
great World Championship held at a world class venue. Unfortunately the cool
overcast weather of early spring made flying conditions challenging for
everyone. Special thanks go out to Bud Layne for his generous sponsorship, Leo
Pilachowski for the hours in planning and dedication to detail as the primary
organizer, Colleen Pierce for her work as AMA FAI Coordinator, Steve Brown
Contest Director, and Ray Harlan Technical Director.
Tom Sova
2018 F1D Team
Manager |
Created
By: Horace Hagen 4/11/2018 8:43:56 AM | Updated
By: Horace Hagen 4/11/2018 9:09:23 AM |
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Labor Day Super Spectacular Blowout Event |
L - R Rear: Stephen Brown, Jake Palmer, Brett Sanborn, Leo Pilachowski, Kang Lee L - R Front: John Kagan, Tom Sova, , Jerry Gross USA Senior F1D team members in bold letters. 2014 and 2016 F1D World Champion Kang Lee is defending his title. Ross Clements is a USA junior team member . Tom Sova is the 2018 Team Manager for the Senior team. Stephen Brown is CD for the 2018 Indoor World Championship. Leo Pilachowski is an assistant at the 2018 Indoor World Championship. xxxx
Great Attendance on Labor Day 2017
Left to Right: Nachainkya Reindorf, George Devlin, Brent Williamson, John Marett, Jake Palmer, Kang Lee, Dmytro Silin, Don Szczur, Joe Szczur, Stephen Brown, Leo Pilachowski, Brett Sanborn, Tom Iacobelli, Tom Sova. Ross Clements.
FAI F1D USA senior team members practicing for the 2018 World Championship were John Kagan (not shown - retrieving his model), Jake Palmer, and Brett Sanborn. 2014 and 2016 FAI F1D World Champion Kang Lee will be defending his title. Junior team members practicing for the WC were Ross Clements and Joe Szczur. For the first time since 9/11 we had Canadians John Marett and Dmytro Silin joing us.
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Created
By: Horace Hagen 9/6/2017 6:12:47 PM | Updated
By: Horace Hagen 12/18/2017 9:45:52 AM |
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R/C Slow Flyers July 8, 2017 |
d t this text |
Created
By: Horace Hagen 7/9/2017 7:35:19 PM | Updated
By: Horace Hagen 8/12/2017 4:05:15 PM |
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Comments on 2016 F1D World Champs |
The final results of the 2016 F1D World Champs are listed on a separate page below. The 2016 USA senior team consisted of ECIM club members John Kagan, Brett Sanborn and Joshua Finn. Kang Lee was the 2014 Individual World Champ so he attended to defend his title. The 2016 USA junior team consisted of David Yang, Wyatt Wear and Joseph Szczur. Wyatt Wear was the 2014 Junior F1D World Champion. As shown in the Final Results Kang Lee successfully defended his title and won his second FAI Gold Medal. The USA team placed second and won the FAI Silver Medal. The USA Juniors did not medal in either individual or team categories. |
Created
By: Horace Hagen 5/4/2016 1:26:07 PM | Updated
By: Horace Hagen 5/4/2016 1:43:03 PM |
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2016 FAI F1D Indoor World Championship Results |
Sport: Aeromodelling - F1D - (Indoor Model Aircraft)
Title: FAI F1D World Championships for Free Flight Indoor Model Aircraft
Type : World
Date: 11.04 - 16.04.2016
Location: Slanic Prahova (Romania)
Final Results :
Senior
1st: Yuan Kang Lee USA
2nd: Zoltan Sukosd HUN
3rd: John Kagan USA
Senior - Team
1st: Hungary
2nd: USA
3rd: United Kingdom
Junior
1st : Calin Bulai ROU
2nd : Iyril Vitko UKR
3rd : Denis Zhariy UKR
Junior - Team
1st: Ukraine
2nd: Romania
3rd: France
The full results can be found at the following address :
http://www.frmd.ro
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Created
By: Horace Hagen 5/4/2016 1:13:10 PM | Updated
By: Horace Hagen 5/4/2016 1:17:14 PM |
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September 6 Report |
ECIM Vice President Rob
Romash provided the following report on the free flight activity on Saturday
September 6:
Tom Iacobellis and I
couldn’t hit the epic Labor Day free flight weekend so we had to settle on the
following one. Kudos go to Horace as neither
of us could get a base pass the day before and we dutifully followed him on
base. After flying in the hangar for
nearly 30 years now I am pretty sure this was the hottest and most humid day I
have ever spent there. Much of the day
was spent moving around making sure sweat drips didn’t hit the models during
preparation. Opposite to the salt mines
during the World Championships in Romania where we moved to stay warm,
this day we had to move to evaporate moisture so you could bear it.
Tom showed up with one of
last year’s F1D models and vowed to “stick it” in the roof. He wound the living snot out of it several
times but an extreme wing warp kept the model from really climbing out, he also
had the model doing some nice 360 degree rolls on takeoff, very entertaining. Tom also brought along his ornithopter and
that model did much better, he got the RPM’s down on the wing and made a flight
of around 5 minutes before a structural failure boxed the model.
I showed up with my new F1L,
we sort of knew. After a disappointing
showing at the Kibbe Dome in Idaho
with an attitude of “My old F1L still has some stuff left” it didn’t. I built this new model with a clear hope to
improve and from what I see it is doing pretty good at least for “Romash”. I brought my simple equipment package and
forgot my notes from a few weeks ago when I flew the model here. The first real wind I thought “What was that
back off?” seems it was more then I planned to use and the model slowly cruised
its way up just touching the ceiling beams right at the top, second hit it
dropped itself right on top of the of the beam. Good thing it was within easy reach of the center
catwalk and we had a 22 foot club pole. Not
so good was that the temperature at the top was near the surface of Venus. After a successful retrieve and the loss of
about 8 pounds of fluids I came back down.
Over the day Tom had a high
time of around 20 minutes on his F1D ( I think ) and a bit over 5 on his
ornithopter. I managed to get some good
results for me with several flights over 18 minutes with a high times of 19.56
on my F1L. All in all any day in the
hangar is a good day. |
Created
By: Horace Hagen 9/15/2014 1:26:43 PM | Updated
By: Horace Hagen 9/15/2014 1:26:43 PM |
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President's FF Questions |
I spent some time observing
the FF activity Labor Day weekend and since I am not directly involved in
indoor free flight I asked a few questions:
Question 1 - Covering
Material:
Years ago the most commonly
used covering material was micro film.
Micro film was made by filling a rectangular container with water and
pouring lacquer on its surface. A wire
frame was then lifted from underneath to pull the floating lacquer film up and securing
it onto the airframe. The thickness of
the microfilm is 0.25 Microns. Today,
the most common covering material is manufactured by just one company in large
rolls and costs $10,000.00 per roll.
Fortunately there is an entrepreneur who buys a roll and then resells
the material in smaller quantities. The
material is primarily used as a separator in the manufacture of capacitors and
has a thickness of 0.5 Microns.
The film is transparent and is used that way by some competitors. Other competitors crumple the film and this
produces in a film that looks cloudy and appears more visible. It is interesting to note that this material
is used by modelers in other countries as well.
Question 2 – Propellers
There are many Free Flight
categories; some propellers use balsawood blades and others use built up frame
construction covered with the same film used for the flying surfaces. The balsawood blades are made from balsawood
sheets shaved/sanded down to .005 to .015 thousands of an inch in
thickness. The built up blades have
frames consisting of very thin balsawood sticks or carbon rod .009 to .015
inches in diameter. Each propeller can
take several hours to build. On some
models variable pitch propellers are used.
The propeller hub is designed to have maximum pitch on a fully wound
motor and slowly decrease as the motor winds down. On the larger models the propeller speed
ranges from 30 to 120 RPM. On the
smaller models the propeller speed ranges from 100 to 300 RPM.
Question 3 – Rubber Motors
The rubber used for these
models is manufactured by the Good Year Company and is used by Free Flight
competitors throughout the world.
“ArmorAll” or similar liquid is used as a lubricant to keep the rubber
strands from sticking to each other. To
test and/or estimate the number of winds needed to get to a certain height,
fractional motors use balsawood sticks of varying lengths in place of the
rubber. A half motor would use half
rubber and half balsawood stick. If the
model reaches a height of 90 feet with a half motor then a full motor could
reach 180 feet which is the maximum in Hangar 1.
Question 4 – Airframes
Wings and tail feathers are
primarily constructed using balsawood frames covered with film. Every competition category has prescribed
dimension and weight limits. Some
fuselages are made from solid balsawood and others are rolled tubes of
balsawood shaved/sanded down to .005 to .015 inches in thickness. Some models use a boron filament so thin that
it is invisible to the naked eye. The
filament is tied to the top of the fuselage at the nose and rubber motor end
and placed over a post in the middle.
The idea is to control the warping of the fuselage due to the tension of
the rubber motor which can affect the motor’s thrust line. The airframes and some propellers are so
fragile that if you walk passed them quickly you can damage same. Words of caution – walk don’t run.
Question 5 – Adhesives
To minimize the addition of
weight to the model a very common adhesive is Ambroid cement thinned with
lacquer thinner. The second most used
adhesive is cyanoacrylate (CA).
Question 6 – Model Steering
Indoor Free Flight models
are at the mercy of air currents within a building. To prevent a model from colliding with the
walls or ceiling a balloon filled with Helium tied to a thin fishing line is
used to steer the model. The balloons
are 2 to 3 feet in diameter and provide enough lift for a thin fishing
line. 3/8 inch diameter foam caulking
covers the top twenty feet of fishing line.
The caulking is soft and prevents the thin fishing line from damaging
the model and is more visible. To steer
the model the line (caulking) is positioned in front of the model’s wing and
when the wing touches the line it induces a turn. If the model gets into a position where
damage may result the line is positioned next to the propeller to stop same and
the model will slowly and safely descend along the line.
If you have not taken the
time to watch the Free light activity in Hangar 1 you are missing out on a
great experience. I marvel at the
patience these true modelers exhibit.
They are world class competitors using the latest technologies and have
brought back the World Championship FAI Gold, Silver and Bronze medals several
times. |
Created
By: Horace Hagen 9/15/2014 1:23:30 PM | Updated
By: Horace Hagen 9/15/2014 1:23:30 PM |
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Labor Day Weekend |
Prior to the 2014 Labor Day
weekend I received a few emails and phone calls alerting me to expect significant
free-flight activity in Hangar 1. As
president of our club I decided to spend some time with our free-flight
modelers/competitors. This was the most
active Labor Day weekend in several
years. The following folks took part in
the activity:
Tony D’Alessandro (PA), Hope
Finn (GA), Joshua Finn (GA), Bill Gowen (GA), Sheryl Gowen (GA), John Kagan
(OH), Kang Lee (CA), Alan Mkitarian (NJ), Leo Pilachowski (IN), Nick Ray (TN)
and Brett Sanborn (MD).
Tony and Alan did not have
DBID badges so I had to escort them onto the base. The other folks got access by getting a paper
pass at the welcome center on the preceding Friday or via Brett Sanborn’s CAC
card. An interesting side note: When
escorting Alan Mkitarian a couple from Ohio
was waiting in the welcome center parking lot wondering how they could get onto
the base. We asked them to follow us in
their car. When we got to the gate the
guard asked us if we were staying just one day and when we answered yes he let
us proceed without a paper pass. I am
not sure if that was legal but we did not ask questions. Some time later another couple arrived at the
welcome center and called Brett on his cell phone. They got the information about an Indoor Free
Flight Team Trials from the AMA web site.
I went out to the parking lot and got them in without a glitch. They just wanted to observe the activity.
Brett Sanborn provided the
following summary of the flight times (minutes:seconds) recorded during this
contest/record trials:
F1M
(Current record – 17:27 by Larry Coslick)
Bill Gowen: 18:10, 20:33, 22:05
Bill's 22:05 is a new AMA
Cat IV record. Bill also holds the Cat
IV World Record for F1M at 23:00 which was set before F1M became an official
AMA event. The 22:05 is also the second
best time ever flown with an F1M model.
F1D 1.2g (Current record -
42:03 by Brett Sanborn)
Kang Lee: 34:27, 35:35
F1D 1.4g (1.4g F1D is not
yet an official AMA or FAI event. This
will become an event on January 1, 2015)
Josh Finn: 20:43, 19:59,
22:28, 21:15
Brett Sanborn: 30:25, 27:43,
28:19, 28:34, 28:07
John Kagan: 27:36, 22:10
Leo Pilachowski: 21:01,
21:00
HLS -Hand Launch Stick (AMA
Open stick) (Current record - 61:30 by John Kagan)
Tony D'Allessandro: 32:43
Nick
Ray: 35:44, 35:09
F1L (Current record - 25:47
by Larry Coslick)
Hope Finn: 14:32, 14:18
Leo Pilachowski: 21:30,
23:00, 23:01, 22:10, 21:57, 22:47
Ministick (Current Record -
16:39 by Rob Romash)
Josh Finn: 11:00
Nick Ray: 12:34, 13:42

Limited Pennyplane (Current
Record - 19:04 by Tom Iacobellis)
Max Zaluska: 13:27, 14:56,
15:35, 16:32
Bill Gowen: 14:52, 17:02,
17:58, 17:48, 11:48 |
Created
By: Horace Hagen 9/15/2014 1:19:09 PM | Updated
By: Horace Hagen 9/15/2014 1:19:09 PM |
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Annual Xmas Party |
On Saturday December 14th the weather was threatening with snow and ice. On top of that we received word that the diesel generators would be exercised. But that did not stop the brave souls pictured below from coming to Hangar 1 and attending our annual XMAS party held at the nearby Lakehurst Diner. It was so cold in Hangar 1 that we all went to the Diner an hour prior to the scheduled time. As in the past, the food was excellent and enjoyed by all. We all left at around 1:30 pm and everyone got home safe.

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Created
By: Horace Hagen 12/15/2013 12:25:24 PM | Updated
By: Horace Hagen 12/15/2013 12:47:00 PM |
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2013 Annual Club Meeting |
Above is a picture of the club members in attendance. A short agenda covered:
1) Base Access : We can no longer get DBID badges at McGuire AFB on weekends
2) Safety reminder : R/C models - Max weight 10 ounces - Motor max 300 type - Max power 120 Watts
3) Membership : 2012 - 182 , Present - 140
4) Donations : $750 to Air Force, Navy and Historical Society
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Created
By: Horace Hagen 5/12/2013 8:23:16 AM | Updated
By: Horace Hagen 5/12/2013 8:55:39 AM |
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2012 Annual Club Meeting |
Unfortunately something went wrong with the camera or photographer and the group picture can only be used to count the total number of members present. You may be able to identify yourself if you remember what you were wearing that day. Sorry about the faux pas. We must try harder next time.
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Created
By: Horace Hagen 5/18/2012 4:34:28 PM | Updated
By: Horace Hagen 5/12/2013 8:53:04 AM |
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