RE: TOLEDO SHOW and ETOC 2012
Dave Lockhart let me fly his Donatus' designed plane after the contest last night. He let me flex (try to flex) the ailerons. They were probably as stiff as if they were made out of 1/4 inch plywood, but lighter than 2 mm standard foam. He uses very small (I don't recall how many mils) carbon fiber tubes (these are like micro-sized carbon fiber cylinders). The truss bracing was really a work of engineering masterpiece. A real case study for those Mechanical engineering students out there. Anyway I got some flying time on it with the 65C Duralite battery and the plane flew extremely well. Its like as light as a (stock) F3P model- and flies that light, but no flex anywhere so the snap rolls are crisp and knife edge loops are straight with no deviation from the track.
Ryan Clark was flying extremely well as always. His freestyle was well choreographed and he had some solid known sequences last night.
Seth Arnold flew well also and will be in contention to win. Remember I talked about imitation and flattery? One of the new maneuvers this year is the "vertical knife edge". Basically its like an elevator (plane come down almost vertically on its side). Seth has the best one. Its a secret combination of rudder inputs, just the right amount of idle on the motor, light weight and of course an aft CG helps...
Lets see who else- yes Devon McGrath. He is flying very solid and expect he will be in the running as well. He and RJ have a lot of the same types of setups on their planes. They are both flying (Joseph flew one as well) the Scott Bernhart design. I think I counted 6 or 7 of his planes being flown by competitors. He is a big name for ETOC designs this year.