New 50E F3A

I think you will find the box is absolutely enormous and you will only have problems if you are too close in. When the big boys play F3A you can hardly see the models when they fly to the edges of the box.

JRI wrote of the 'big boys' where

you can hardly see the models when they fly to the edges of the box.

Those big boys aren't going to get very good scores for their turnaround manoeuvres - even NO (not observed) - on their score sheets. Judges don't have telescopic vision, if they can't see the model they aren't going to guess if it would have been worthy of a score. Those pilots may be big but they aren't very smart!

DavidTappin wrote: Those pilots may be big but they aren't very smart!

:lol:

As a follow up to Chris's image of Cashmoor and the position of 'the box'...here's one of my flights from last weekend. Today I'll fly and record the flight path of a schedule and see how neat I can make it compared to the attached, which was just flying around.

Wow Mike, that looks... well, um, very elegant and graceful, I'm pleased to see you've kept all the radii the same

I'm presuming your logging is still set to every 0.5sec?

Mike's just sent me the log file and it's quite entertaining to have Google Earth replay the flight, initially I thought you'd only get a static shot of the entire flight, but you can animate it from take off! The only odd thing is that there is must be low level stuff that Google Earth puts below ground level as it tracks the plane but doesn't draw the line.

I think the top speed I saw was 86, I'm guessing it's mph.

Were you trying to draw a ruddy shellduck Mike? if so it was very good!

Speed is in knots, but I can change this to mph now that I've learned a little more about setting up the sensor.
And the log file is just 0.5s so I guess some corners are a bit smoother in real life.

Am I the only one who followed the trace up to the bit where you crashed into the fence? As there is no trace from that point when you collected the pieces is that because you switched it off before you moved it or was it damaged beyond economical repair?

For thos who are (or should be) interested in F3A:
The Beaulieu comp is the 9th Sept. There is a competition calendar on the GBR/CAA site, start at the home page, in the list on the left. Worth noting that:-
1. To do the clubman, you only need an A cert, intermediate and above still require a B cert.
2. I believe you can do one comp without joining the GBR/CAA – I think!
Loads of time to learn the schedules then - and for anyone who hasn't tried a discipline like this, it is very rewarding and will improve your general flying skills no-end.