dave pattern

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want a couple of tips Chip?
the plane looks to fly outside tighter than inside most of the manuevers look that way anyway. try shifting the handle if its adjustable or flap to elevator neutral slightly
inside squares look a little soft on the corners.outside were better.
some of the best triangles i have seen.
vertical eight tighter on top than the bottom (tighter outsides) same with the overhead
clover intersections shifted off to the side. probably due to the tighter outside again.
all in all not a bad pattern probably in the high 400 maybe more point range

Dave jr.

Passport1

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Hey Dave thanks for the tips you your exactly right thats how it feels especially on calm days. That flight was with the heavy batteries as well. When I use the light ones its much better. The plane weighs 58oz in the video and flies reasonably well for a profile I would think, but it is night and day at 53oz. I am waiting for my new batts to show up they sent the wrong ones last week. Once I get them I will put up another vid if I get a chance. Thanks again and maybe we can meet up to do some flying sometime.

C

dave pattern

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sounds great chip .
if you get up to northern california (sacramento area) let me know. i took the last season off from stunt but intend to do some competition next season.
i fly at the woodland/davis field its a great site, controline circlesand rc at the same site.
the best stunt flyers in northern california compete up here.
fancher,fitzgerald,buck,aron and granderson just to name a few.
pm me if you want to chat.
that video looked to be a pretty decent pattern especially given its a profile.
maybe you can show me some tips on my rc flying, i hear your apretty decent flyer.
Dave shirley jr.

HighPlains

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Have any of you ever tried flying a control line pattern with an RC model? Lot of skiding turns but wingovers and horizontal eights look pretty convincing (except no 5 ft corners).

OhD

I watched Chip fly inverted circles less than ten feet off the ground with Steve Lampert's Arixtra and they were not too much larger in diameter than a control line circle. And I believe there was less deviation from level, including the roll axis, than when he flew his control line plane. By the way, Steve couldn't watch.

Jim O

Passport1

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Well its been just over a year since I started this thread and even though I took several months off to concentrate on F3A and the Nationals the whole time I was thinking about Stunt. I was lucky enough to get a hold of a former team members plane and have really been hitting it hard since early Oct.

What I have learned in this time period is that we as pattern flyers are not very technical (And maybe don't have to be) as far as how we go about fine tuning our equipment. Example: I went to fly with David Fitzgerald (Former World and National Champion) a few weeks ago and I thought I had my stuff working really good. The plane is the SV11 and it is powered by a PA(Nelson) 75 two stroke with a pipe, weighs 4 pounds, and the prop is a 3 blade 13.5x4.6.

After my first flight he walked out to the center of the circle and his exact words were "Well, its not terrible" lol. He suggested I raise the head .003 and shim the tank. I said ok how much, 1/4 inch. Everyone kind of chuckled and said yep he is an RC guy. Then he told me 1/32 of an inch is what it needed. I went along with that simply because of the fact, he is, who he is, the whole time thinking to myself "this will never make a difference" Well I could not of been more wrong it changed everything and made a huge difference. Here is a link showing one of my flights from last week and what difference a year can make. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v...93719584822851 I still have a long way to go, no doubt but its getting there. I have also designed a new plane that will be a composite fuse, foam wing and stab with retracts so I am really looking forward to getting the prototype together and see how it will compare. I attached a pic of the fuse plug below along with the plane I am currently flying.

Anyhow I still think there are a lot of similarities between both events and I know one thing for sure. Attention to detail is the key. Rest assured when I am rigging my new Final's Touch, I will be far more detail oriented then I ever have been in the past.

I hope to see a few more of you guys give it a shot, I bet it will help improve your pattern flying in one way or the other. As a matter of fact Brian's new stunter will be at the BASH this year I am sure he'll let a few of you get a pull on it. lol I doubt that!!!!!

C

Gungadin

Thanks for the up-date Chip. Any new developement with the YS ?

Dan

Ryan Smith

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Very cool to see, Chip. It amazes me how many disciplines you are able to excel at. The fact that there is so much science and exacting tolerances with setups on those airplanes is crazy, it makes pattern airplanes almost look imprecise by comparison. Head shims I can understand, but a 1/32" shim on your fuel tank making the difference from good to amazing is mind boggling to me. I'm looking forward to watching you progress with this.

Your new CL airplane looks like a badass Chip Foose car. Very cool look to it.

Passport1

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Thanks Ryan I never thought of it like that. Check this out the tank shim made a big difference but not as much as 1/10 of a pitch does. I have made a tone of props in the past that were good enough to set a few records and I thought splitting the difference between a 7 and 8 was a fairly fine amount when it came to re pitching props. Not. lol 1/10ths are though and the difference between a 4.5 and 4.6 is definitely visible and not just by the pilot. Its amazing I would land from a flight and Ray would say immediately you need to bring it down another 1/10th. Anyhow I really enjoy the technical aspects of this event as I feel we have eliminated to much of that in other events but that's just my opinion.

Look real close at the this pic. Its of the top my of the wing. See the VG's. I add 24 to the wing (top and bottom combined) and 12 on the stab. Immediately they improved my pattern more then the previous 300 flights did. I could corner harder and it really settled it down in the wind. However the biggest difference was being able to hit the bottoms much more consistently at 5 feet. I can assure you these will be on my F3A planes from here on as well. The improvements may not be as obvious because we fly so far away however I know they have to be better. One is of the wing,the other the stab.

C

Rendegade

VG's on the wing and stab?! Interesting...


P.S. I had a giggle at "Stunt Mongrel"

Passport1

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So its coming up on a Year since my first contest and after remodeling the garage, building 2 dirty birdy's for Joe, and painting a Q-40 for Rusty, in the last 10 days, I was finally able to get away. I arrived yesterday and it took me several flights just to get the plane and engine working like it was at home. We are about 2200 feet higher then home and just like with the pattern planes they fly a little different. However by mid afternoon it was coming together and I started to be able to relax a little and focus on some of the finer points. I think I was able to get in 12-14 flights and all in all was pleased at the end of the first day.

Day 2 started off really good and at this point, being sure I had my SV11/PA75 combo about as good as it could be I asked Bob Whitely if he would fly it to see what thinks. Bob is hands down one of the best in the world when it comes to trimming a stunter. Most planes are far enough off that he can just watch them fly and immediately tell what it needs. However this plane was built by a top guy and I have been fine tuning it for 300 flights so it was pretty close. Or so I thought lol.

Well I started it up with Keith holding while Bob went out to the handle. Keith let it go and like in the past Bob proceeded to fly a very respectable flight with a plane he had never flown. After it was over and as soon as the plane stopped he started yelling for me to come out to the handle. As I walked up he's moving the handle asking me if I hear something. It wasn't until I got with a couple feet that I could hear a faint clicking. It was the line clips where they attach to the handle, every once in a while would just catch in the hole. He said to bevel the hole on both sides and remove 3.5 grams of tip weight and try it again. Well once again how much difference could that really make? Well I will tell you NIGHT and DAY. lol Holy crap is it on rails now. BTW If this stuff is boring to you guys just say so and I won't keep posting I am just really blown away every time something like this happens and feel the need to pass it on.

3.5 grams, or 1/8th of an ounce off of a 62 inch wingspan model, with a piped 75 2 stroke just doesn't seem like enough to make a difference but it did. Anyway we flew until dark again and the last couple flights were my best to date.

Its Still 2 more days until the contest and anything can happen but at least its looking respectable and its early yet. I will get some pictures tomorrow of some really cool planes here. Not all stunters but cool none the less. I even got to see a scale Russian Bear with 4 cox o2o's and counter rotating props. UNBELIEVEABLE.

matt13

I enjoy reading your CL posts, and discovering yet another form of pattern flying.
as a kid, we all started with CL back in the day, and it was stunt that caught my eye.
moving to RC, the interest was just transferred to pattern, so keep the thread going.


Matt

flywilly

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+1

Rendegade

More! Post more!

Passport1

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Well the contest was last weekend and everything went pretty smooth overall. I have been able to pick up in stunt where I left off with pattern as far as the draw goes it seems. Yep 1st up lol. At least in pattern you can tell yourself "I will have the best conditions" However in Stunt that's not the case. True it will be calm but that is just about as bad as a 20mph gusty wind. See these planes are so big and turn so hard they leave bad air in calm conditions and if your not constantly walking around you will crash. Its nothing to move back 10 feet during the loops and then as soon as your done hustling back to the center of the circle. Oh and btw I have been flying pattern for something like 37 years now and its normally windy it seems. Well its been calm for the past 18 months since I started control line. That's about right lol.

My first flight was ok and I scored a 538, and that is without appearance points. Since I did not build my plane I was basically spotting the field 17 points which is huge. 20 is the max possible for a perfect plane but 17 is a realistic amount of points for a plane that I build. Just like pattern you also take a hit for being up first so I wasn't surprised by the score. The wind gradually increased to an ideal 5-10 mph and Brett Buck ended up with the high flight of the round with a 593. So since I am doing this to see where I stand against the best I normalize my score even though they don't. With 17 appearance points I would of got a 940. Some of you may have heard that name before as he is one of the best and won the Nats and Walker Cup in 2006.

Well I had heard the name and also that he is one of the most knowledgeable guys around when it comes to aerodynamics/engine set up etc. As a matter of fact he is a rocket scientist so that probably explains the whole 10 pound brain thing. Anyway, last year at this event was the first time we met. We talked for a few minutes and asked each other about certain things like judging and shapes. At the end of the conversation, I was still a little unsure if I was going to fit in, but that soon changed.

Now, keep in mind, this was my first contest flight and I was already plenty nervous. I was in the ready box getting my plane ready and trying to remember all the stuff I needed to, when out of the blue Brett walks by. He looked at me and asked "do you breathe during the inside loops" Right then, I knew I was going to fit right in. Of course it took me 3 months to stop screwing up my loops but it also provided me with new weapon for the Nats last year that went something like this. Dave, do you breathe during your rolling circle? lol

Anyway we flew the second round and the wind calmed down for almost everyone which made it really interesting. Brett commented after his flight that you know its calm when you almost crash in six of the eight corners of the square 8. I was up last since they invert the order and had a really strong flight going until the last couple maneuvers and they were just mediocre. I ended up scoring a 551 which beat my goal by one point. With 17 appearance points it would of been a 568 to Brett's 597.

Up until now I have only been working on the flying part and have not spent any time building but that's going to have to change. I have let a couple of the top guys fly my plane and they both told me I need something better because I am having to work 20% harder then I should be. That's ok with me right now its making me a better pilot but I will have my own design in the not to distant future.

I am doing a composite fuse with a foam wing and built up stab, retract take apart plane. I have attached a pic. of the plug that is just about finished, so hopefully, I will have the first plane in a couple months. I am also thinking about going with a full flying stab but not sure as of yet. More Later

C

Ryan Smith

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Fascinating stuff, Chip. Keep it coming!

grotto2

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Chip-
This really is one of my favorite threads.
-Ron

ekir

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I enjoyed this thread on U-Control and Chip. I first saw Chip fly R/C Pattern at the Rough River Pattern Contest in Ky. Chip was not driving age, best that I can remember.

I know it has been a few years since this thread, but is Chip still flying some U-Control?

n233w

Hey Chip - remember loving this thread 18 months ago and it came back to mind after seeing the video of your flight at the Cajun Nats last month (on CKAero.net)...

My question is regarding vortex generators as my hunch is that these things are marvelous especially for models -

1) did you refer to a formula or anything when you decided how far back from the leading edge to put them - or did you just go by "feel", and
2) have you been putting VGs on your F3A models? If so, how'd it go?

Thanks,

Bill