15/03/2010

Tanga F3B Part 2

The wings have conventional control horns and are fairly straightforward to fit out. In line with current trends the horns are tiny to try and keep them inside the wing skins. This means the smallest horns that the 3150s come with have to be used and the clevises modified to fit other wise there is too much movement and too much slop.

An RDS option is now available




The wing root. 8% thick section and chunky wing joiner.







An aileron horn glued in place.








The hardware used to connect up the servos and control surfaces.





So what does it go like? Greg flew it for the first time at the last round of the Northern F3F Winter League series. The test flights and the first round of competition were very promising. Unfortunately another flier landed his model in the pits and damaged the rear of the fuselage and a V-Tail on the Tanga so that was it for the time being. This also meant that Greg was unable to compete in the Speed competition and show us what the Tanga can do.

Some pictures here: http://www.nymrsc.org.uk/WL5-2010.htm

14/03/2010

On Speed Practice from Clive Needham

The wind turned out to be a little stronger than forecast but was by no means near to the limit, however, it was constant all day with little variation in direction, which no doubt resulted in the many high launches.

As the direction was from the N or NNW, at this time of the year it meant there was very little of what you could call good air, due to the high launches it might have been expected that even faster times would have been registered, particularly looking at the way the models were travelling, especially the Cyrils
Therefore in the main, the results were not affected by luck, so reflect the level of each pilot’s abilities and the capabilities of their models.

There are at least three Targets and Dingos on order so it will be interesting to see how they perform when they finally arrive.

As expected Steve Haley was the man to beat and 10 year old son Simon is the be congratulated on his performance in his first speed comp, his results would have been even better but for two bad calls from Dad resulting in cuts at base B,

A big thank you is due to Neil Harrison for sitting at base A all day, calling the pilots forward and booking down their times, especially since had hoped to fly his second Zenith model which is lighter than the first build.

Everyone was happy to help each other and ready to allow use of their winches after many towlines were broken due to the huge loads put on them by the wind and the model set up.
The fact that no models were broken due to the high loading reflects well on the strength on the latest designs, the feeling by some of those who do not fly F3B,that the contest is a model breaker is now just not sustainable; it is the pilots who break models!!
Several pilots flew personal bests: - Bill Haley, Mark Passingham, Mike Challinor, Ken Woodhouse, John Phillips and Simon Haley, if I have missed anyone out I apologise.

If enough of you want another Speed Comp I am quite happy to arrange one, it’s just question of fitting one in, or use the reserve date if not required.
It might be a way to encourage the people who keep saying they will have a go at F3B to come along as it is disappointing that the numbers are not increasing.
Thanks again to all of you for making it a good day.

Regards,
Clive.

Speed Practice Sat.13th March

1 Steve Haley 100 Shooter/Radical

2 John Whittle 89.39 O/D

3 Paul Carrington 88.23 Needle 124/Crossfire

4 John Phillips 76.27 Masterpiece

5 Bill Haley 76.07 Precious

6 Mark Passingham 74.24 Cyril

7 Ken Woodhouse 70.89 Cyril/Radical

8 Mike Challinor 70.77 Precious

9 Bob Dickinson 68.03 Estrella

10 Clive Needham 61.88 Estrella

11 Chris Jubb 43.82 Cobra

12 Alan Jones 38.05 Crossfire Evo

13 Simon Haley(jnr) 32.53 Obsession


For the full results, please see :-

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/F3BUK/files/2010%20Season/Speed%20Practice/

03/03/2010

Tanga F3B

The Tanga is the latest offering from Breta models. It was designed by Norbert Habe and the Bohlens and is aimed primarily at the F3B market. We saw it fly at the Belgium Eurotour event last year in the hands of Stefan Bohlen who finished 8th overall so the model would appear to have plenty of potential.

Greg Dakin has bought himself the 'Titanium' version as one of his models for the Viking Race in France. He will be flying it at the F3B Speed event on 13 March 2010 to see how it goes. As I am building it for him I thought I'd publish a few pictures of the build and get Greg to add a few words on the flight performance in due course.

I started with the fuselage as this appeared to be the trickiest part of the build. The fuselage is
quite skinny with a small canopy and you have to squeeze in a large carbon ballast tube which has at only about 1mm clearance between the wing joiner and the towhook. The tube has to be cut to size and shape at the front and there is no supplied ballast retention system.



The tube and retention bolt ready to be installed in the fuselage.






The fuselage dry fitted before gluing. The wiring loom is installed before the servo tray is glued in.







The finished fuselage. The pushrods are solid 2mm carbon rods running in snake outers.






As there is plenty of carbon in the fuselage the aerial has to be extended. Stinger installation shown.

The wing installation to follow soon . . . .