RE: 10 kW Plettenberg Outrunner
I'll clear it up. I was there judging all week long. The freestyle's were very good even though the windy conditions did not give the pilots many options for the the down low and slow stuff.
2 crashes which resulted in Zero scores.
1) QQ 102" Yak. Joe McBride was really putting on a crazy show. He is truly insane man. He flew the 102" QQ YAK only in Freestyle and exited a blender very low about 10ft off the deck and downwind. As I said the wind was blowing pretty good. The model just didn't have enough energy and scraped the fin/rudder counterbalance on the desert floor. The result was it dragged along a little and then completed the 50 grit pass! By the way they fixed this model and flew it again in rd 3 of the freestyle. Joe flew through a huge dust devil. It was awesome! The best quote I've heard in a while..."Don't stop flying until all the pieces have hit the ground."
2) Don Szczur was flying the prototype Radio Wave Extra 300 midwing model. It is the white with blue and red. Don was not lucky all week. He lost his primary model before the contest. He borrow one of Jason's models and struggle a bit with it. Then his "backup" model arrived on Friday and Don put up some good flights with it. However the hole was a little deep to dig out from. Don flew well, but his contest was finished on Saturday as he was not in the top 10. Don did fly in the 2nd round of the freestyle event on Sunday having taken a zero by not flying on the first round of free on Saturday. The wind was blowing really good. As you can tell from the pics Don was in a pretty low Harrier and turned downwind. Since the model was so close to the ground....and being downwind in a very high alpha...the model was probably not as responsive as it was upwind. As Maxwell Smart would say "He missed it by that much!" Again the model just settled in on its top to complete yet another 50 grit pass. Don didn't do anything wrong it just was some bad luck and pushing the envelope.
Frazer did not crash at all. He flew his TOC Extra 260 from years ago and the one he won the event with last fall. It now has a DA200 (flat 4 cyl in it) It made the model come alive. He flew it very well as all the pilots did.
One other minor mis-step was Mark L, flying a QQ 102" Yak in Freestyle got a zero on the last round 3 as he hit Mach 18 on a rolling Harrier loop coming down the back side to the downwind direction. The wings were a total blurr and he had to be rolling 3-4 rolls a sec. Typical Leseberg rolls. Well this time the big counter balance tab on the top of the rudder departed the model giving him a zero for the flight. He kept the model flying for a little while and I suspect it flew like a turd with little rudder authority and even less yaw dampening so he just landing it about 2mins into the 4min freestyle flight.
This is the rundown.
Of note many guys flew different models in their freestyle than what they flew the sequences. Since in IMAC the freestyle is a separate contest...there are no rules about having two different models tuned up and ready to go for each event. Andrew Jesky, Mark, Joe McBride all flew the 102" QQ Yak. Chip and Jason flew a different model a 3.1m CARF super Extra which was actually the model that Peter Collinson was flying in the Competition. Whereas Quique, Marco, Jason Noll, Bernd, Hemple, John Glizelis, Frazer, Don, and Kyle flew their competition models in the Free.
Quique's models flew extremely well in the Freestyle. As an observer I felt that this model has the best control authority of any model I have watch go through a freestyle routine. The rudder-elevator are phenomenal at slow speeds and don't tend to "stall out" meaning loose their control as speed decreases. Many models have very effective rudders around neutral but die off as they get to the extremes. QQ's Yak doesn't do this. The 102" version or the 120" version both have excellent control at stall or near stall speeds. I think this is why guys chose to use this model for the freestyle.
PLUS the 102" models are cheap and fly so well compared. These guys really abused them! I'm convinced that Wayne and Quique really have a strong and effective design in that model. Those things were just taking a beating and came out on top....Hell Joe literally crashed it and flew it the next round with a little CA and some Ultracote trim sheets. It was like a NASCAR pit stop.
This is offtopic for sure...but hope it gets the facts straight.
Troy Newman