Graffen

The F4C World Champ´s in Norrköping Sweden ended today, and the winner was ANDREAS LUTHI of Austria (Bucker Antares), second place to MAX MERCKENSCHLAGER of Germany(F7F Tigercat) and PETER MCDERMOTT of Great Britain (Sopwith Snipe). Great competition all week, with lots of great entries. Visit http://www.scalechamps-in-sweden.se/ for more info and movies.
Wished you all could have been there.

Kmot

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Very nice! Thank you for posting the link. [sm=thumbup.gif]

abufletcher

Great to see so many WWI type competing. Seems like in the US you're lucky to have even one or two bipes competing with all the Warbirds and jets.

tailskid

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Some very beautiful planes there....and some great pics! Thanks for sharing.

Hurri

Congrats to Andreas Luthi on winning the champs AGAIN with the same Bucker. He is a superb flyer as is model great. But think this is 3[?] times ina row . Surely the rules should change to have same model to win each time .

Hannu Vuorinen

Hi,

some more photos from F4C World Champs:

http://www.kulloo.com/album1/ruotsi1.html
http://www.kulloo.com/album2/ruotsi1.html
http://www.kulloo.com/album3/ruotsi3.html
http://www.kulloo.com/album4/ruotsi4.html


best regards & mvh,
Hannu

BobH

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Super pictures!!!! Thank you for posting!!!

Flak

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Graffen,
Awesome!

Laird SS

Just a small nit Grafen, but isn't Andreas Luthi from Switzerland?

I understand he even has different colors and chips for the top and bottom of the wings to account for sun fading the paint. I also heard he made his chips on fabric like the plane is covered in and had the scale representative from his country approve them for authenticity. Needless to say, he statics very well.

Merkenschlager's plane has the folding wing tips as in the prototype, however, they are manually folded. Or at least they were in the 2004 Championships when he flew it because he would have been over the max allowable weight.

Wish we would see more FAI competitors from the US. It seems like finding good pilot/builders is like pulling hen's teeth. Am I wrong?

R101

I was very impressed with the Caudron G4 - anyone know what the power plants were (they were very quiet - electric maybe?)

R8893

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The program listed the engines as Laser 200 vee twins on the Caudron.

Planebeach

Allmost all pictures was taken by me, I did not have time to take any of them into photoshop (still havent[]) Looking forward for Polen in 2 years time.

Jim_McIntyre

... and Canada ...

Unfortunately it's not building or flying skills that are the limiting factor ... it's costs. I've been saving for my next chance, you wouldn't believe the all-in costs. []

John Cole

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The US has a tremendous amount of good builders/flyers, it's most likely the time and expense required to qualify and compete that you don't see more folks into FAI. Like the Scalemasters organization and Top Gun have done, perhaps it will need a seperately funded group to get it kick-started? I dunno...
John

Quadrapowerforflight

Me and 3 other guys at my club have been burned out on flying rc but unlike the others i didnt sell off everything. I was wonderng how you guys feel about flying scale ...Since non of mine were scale nor were the other 2 guys. Im wondering do you look forward to the flying or is the accomplishment of building or what in scale rc? IM talkng about how you feel after after at least 15 years also just chime in.. Thanks

BobH

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I qualify for flying for at least 15 years. I build scale. The challange for me is to construct a plane that is as close to the real one as I can make it. That's something that takes a while to accomplish but has it's reward in the end.
I don't get burned out on rc flying because for me that's just a part of the entire re experience. Here's an example of my scale building.

cocobear

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The building and the flying are both very satisfying. I actually enjoy flying my WW1 planes in almost all conditions. Over came my fear of wind by moving to Illinois. If you don't fly in wind, you don't fly. As to the FAI thing, Who can take off 2 weeks of work and ship a 30lb plane to Europe? That's why I haven't bothered. I'll stick to TG and scale masters for now. Stan Alexander has told me of an intriguing event next year which will pay 3k to win next September. That will force me to take the plunge. I will be building my Bristol to meet FAI as a result.

DJ

Red B.

You have some time to figure out how to get there :-). Better start building though. The next FAI Scale Champs are in Wloclawek, Poland in 2008.

BTW, as far as I know the 2010 FAI Scale Championship is still up for grabs, so far only Poland and the Czech Republic have applied. Why don't you guys in the U.S. apply to organize the event?

FAI competition is not only an European affair. Did you know that the 12th FAI World Aeromodelling Championship in F3D (pylon) will be held in Muncie, Indiana in 2007.

/Red B.

Jim_McIntyre

For me, it's about recreating reality as closely as possible. It begins with research which is rewarding in itself. Scale is not about building a type of aircraft but a particular instance of a type. Every aircraft has a history, some more interesting than other. Design and construction are rewarding in themselves, so is flying but, it doesn't stop there. The never-ending challenge of flying the aircraft in as realistic a manner or "prototypically" is the final goal. It's not about boring holes in the sky or even being able to fly maneuvers perfectly, it's flying them like the real aircraft does/did. This takes some research and much practice. The feeling when you get it right, and the judges agree is so much more than the rush of the intital test flight, which is reward enough for most.[8D]

Planebeach

Hi Jim, I have some photos of your Dr1 from Tilsonburg

The problem with travling internationaly with models for WC F4C and F4B is the size, you pay for volume not weight. Some of the people who was in Sweden had paid for 400 KG for their model, due to the size and the actual wheigt was less than 25 KG.

And in the US you also have way to many classes witch you guys compete inn, I belive its 5 or 6. It shold be noe more than 3 clases, because many of them can merge.

Jim_McIntyre

Kewl ... are they the inglamorous ones of my nose-overs?

At any rate, I'd love to see them, I was too busy to take any myself.

Your point is well made, it would be nice to standardize rules, this is something I was working on while I was the scale chariman. Unfortunately I have little stomach for politics and now even less time with my new job responsibilities. []

It's funny, when you talk to scale competitors, they generally agree what should be done but, when you talk to scale committees they tend to disagree.... maybe the qualifications for being on committees should be recent participation in competition?

bla bla

How did you guys fare at the 2002 WC in Canada?

Planebeach

Jepp Here are some pictures, did a fast job in Photoshop(not my best job)

Jim_McIntyre

Let's just say it was a real learning experience for us first timers....

Unfortunately Gerard is no longer with us but I remain in contact with his son. The rest of us have become fast friends.

This was my first at this level, I expected to be humbled, learned a great deal, thoroughly enjoyed myself and will be better prepared next time.[8D]

Jim_McIntyre

Nasty crosswind pavement combination, everyone seemed to get those photos, not many toom more complimentary in-flight pictures.

Thanks! Is it ok to post them on my website? If yes, how should I credit them (not 'Planebeach' I presume)?