Orlando Buzzards

Sniper “up close and personal.”

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I had the joy of seeing the Sniper in action – in person yesterday at the Brissy boys flying field. In two words. “Simply Spectacular.”
I have a rather unique perspective with having only re-entered the hobby a bit over 12 months ago and having only seen a molded sailplane for the first time at the end of 2008. I had grown up in Australia flying models and really only got into competitive RC soaring in 1981 when I met the great guys at the BMSC (Brisbane Model Soaring Club.) In those days the locals in Gary Jordan, Graeme Taylor, Jeff Poulsen, Dave Vels, Cameron and Bill Lawrence and others were working hard on developing designs to contest in F3B. At that time they were building veneer and balsa covered foam wings with glass over top. The designs were loosely based around the Southern Sailplanes Ricochet and I got really excited about F3B too. I bought a modified Ricochet from Jeff Poulsen at the time and learned to fly this new 3 task test with the locals at Redbank Plains in Brisbane.
In my case children came along and I stopped flying in 1986 for 23 years to return last year (after re-locating to Florida USA) and re-discover RC Soaring. I also found one of my old mates in this thread. That would be Larrikan aka David Vels.
To say I was “staggered” by the degree of sophistication the Brissy boys building talents had reached, would be a huge understatement. With only a short time back in soaring I didn’t have the knowledge of the evolution of molded model airplanes but had been led to believe that ALL this wonderful new technology came from behind the old “Iron Curtain.” With CNC milling techniques required to produce aluminum plugs etc it was obvious to me that the old guys in the hobby were correct. The sailplane models had got too complicated, too expensive and too “out of reach” for the average bloke to build at home!
Then I found David Vels, Evan and Jeff on this thread and like all the many readers around the world I was amazed at what they were doing and how really skilled these guys were in creating their own molded F3B masterpiece.
I became intimately familiar with a Sharon Pro 3.7 throughout last year campaigning her in TD contests in USA. I also owned and flew a variety of other molded models through 2009 such as a Europhia II, Onyx JW, Icon, Mach Dart, and more recently a HKM High End and an Xplorer. I had marveled at the strength, beauty and precision of these East european creations and had dabbled in the repair of some as well. As a machinist I could appreciate the complexity of the plug/mold creations and yes I was convinced that this was something beyond the talent of mere mortals like us.
Yet here on this thread an old mate who was a teenager last time I saw him and his aussie mates were actually biulding and sharing with us the creation of their own moldie. Not just an ordinary design either – but one with unique design requirements to be competitve AND light enough for the stresses of F3B competition. Yes I was staggered. I watched this thread daily for the last 6 months and couldn’t wait to visit Australia again to see this “beauty” in person and catch up with some old friends from a time long ago.
David was kind enough to arrange for Evan and himslf to fly at their club field at Harrisville on Sunday. Though I was a day late arriving with my wife from USA we did manage to hook up and the weather co-operated too.
My first impressions of the Sniper were “Hey this thing actually looks as good as any molded plane I have seen so far.” Then once Evan and David showed me some of the unique features of this bird and I looked really closely at her I can report that this airplane is a “work of art.” It really looks so good it probably should be mounted on a pedestal somewhere and never flown at all. It is simply way to nice and way too perfectly put togehter to risk actually harming it by flying it.
With a sort of religious reverance I asked Evan if I could hold it and in typical aussie style he said “go for it.” It looks perfect all over. It felt rather light for an F3B model and every part is so perfect that without doubt in my mind Evan would have to be the perfectionist’s perfectionist. The wing to fuselage transition is a beautiful thing with a leading edge “socket” for the wing to slide into and a trailing edge fuse fairing that leaves no gap for the spillage of air around the end of the flap whether in clean or launch flap position.
David also proudly pointed out for my camera lense the perfectly formed CF elevator horns hidden inside the fuse under an amazingly perfect cover.
Evan, Jeff and Davids workmanship with this model is something to marvel at.
The question was “how well does it perform?”
Jeff answered that question with a succession of launches and flights that were impressive indeed. F3B winches, mono, and technique have changed a lot in two decades away. The winches are weaker but the stretch in the mono is incredible. Full pedal from launch to zoom with the model holding tension enough to just allow the winch to idle over means a high and slow phase one launch and then all that energy is dissipated at the top as the phase 2 launch settings allow the model to accelerate and the dip and zoom is commenced. Pretty impressive stuff for a virtual “newbie” like me. The model appeared to thermal well also with Evan showing her off in a succession of flights thermalling downwind. She also moves through the air like a thoroughbred with that beautiful whistle a fast moving sailplane generates at speed. Evan demonstrated a mock speed run and the Sniper looked like she was on rails. The plane is a masterpeice and it will be great to follow this trios adventures in F3B competition as we go forward.
All in all we had a great day and I was reluctant to leave around 1:00pm as Sheralyn let me know it was time to move on. Thanks to all the other pilots at the old Brisbane Model Soaring Club including John Donaldson, Frank Long and the others for giving me a part of your time on Sunday. It was fun and I will be back.

Here’s the original page on RCGroups with plenty of photos too.

The “Gordon Report” in Australia.

Sunday Feb 7th dawned a little breezy and chilly. We managed to get in some good air early. Then the day was breezy on and off and the sun came out just before noon. Ed sent the new Xplorer up and it flew pretty well from what I could see. Al maidened his new Shadow. Jody and I got in some boomers. I turned my club application & check in to Mr. Eckel. LSF aspirant paperwork is on the way also : ) Here’s a few pics from the day.
Story and photos by Rick Horlander

Though it was forecast to be very windy and unpleasant – as is often the case the weather reality was a pretty fair day. Though a little breezy it was not bad but definitely not a thermal day. Jody and his dad Blaine got out early with Raed and Rick and set up a winch so we could get some flying in. Costa and Leife were there too getting some adjustments done on the ex Miller Edge. Tom Galloway made an appearance as did Jerry and a bunch of electric guys who I must apologize to – for not remembering their names. Rusty and arrived to set up the BBQ and by noon hamburgers and hot dogs were rolling off the grill. Everybody enjoyed a good day of comraderie and flying to officially start the year off at the Buzzards Field. I flew my Duck for 8 launches, shooting landings and attempting 5 minute tasks. With virtually zero thermal activity today the only hope was top slope the Northern treeline which worked quite successfully to lengthen most of my flights to 5 minutes or close. Raed maidened his gorgeous new Red on Yellow JW Ruby and did it fly well. A really nice ship and should give Raed a great platform for the 2M challenge this year. Rick was flying his Laser and like me found the air unfriendly with most downhill wherever we flew. The guys flew a few electrics between the slight drizzle which persisted. Though the weather wasn’t very co-operative for the Appreciation day it was still a great success and all that turned up had a great time.

With such gorgeous weather available who wouldn’t want to get their newly completed sailplane in the air ASAP? Rick has been keen for a week now to get some lift under the wings of his immaculately finished White and red trim Xplorer. Seems like Xplorers are flavor of the month with Ed White getting one too and both the Miller brothers equipped with one of these machines as well. They sure are a fine flying airplane as we found out with a couple of handtosses of Ricks’s ship. Right off the bench with a CG at 108mm the Xplorer flew like it was trimmed out. A couple of clicks of up trim and a couple more tosses saw Rick ready for the winch. Ricks comment after the first launch was “wow!” He found the Xplorer a lot smoother than the Supra and the bigger wing area really signalling lift well.
For a cool evening lift was plentiful. Jody, with his Xplorer and I with the High End flew a series of 7 min tasks “man on man” and managed to get our times fairly easily. I even managed a 7 min when I was last to launch and lifted the turnaround out of the ground for a very low launch but got away in some nice air right over the field. Finished thermalling about 500 yards downwind and low over the western trees at about 4:30 minutes but still made it back with the High End to get an improbable 7 min. Jody shot some landings and added 3 landings to his LSF Level 2 sheet. Rick was extremely pleased with his Xplorer’s first sorties and is lookijng forward to the weekend. Jamie also came out to fly and put his Icon up late in the evening as the full moon rose. Jamie Buckland also practiced some landings with some Icon launches into the evening dusk before we called it a night and packed up the winch.
Congrats to Rick and Jody with their new ships and also great to see you out practicing Jamie. I can see that with the skills these young guys have – us oldies will have to sharpen our skills a lot to keep them from hogging the wood at each contest. You guys are going to help make this year a really good contest series.
Gordon

Was a reasonable day at the field today. Even though the Appreciation day was re-scheduled and Raed sent out an email – a few did not receive it – so it was good to meet with Hank and John and Mike and a couple of others who did turn up out there expecting to see a crowd. We gave them the new date of Jan 30th to return for the real Appreciation Day.
Meanwhile Dave Forbes flew DLG and we checked out his Eraser Extreme but radio problems did not allow him to fly it today. I flew a few sorties with the High End and practiced landings with Leife Francisco. I showed him how we plan an approach to get some consistency with the timing of the landing. We plan to practice that with Leife flying his bird next time out. Costa flew his DLG with Dave and I finally got my 2M “Wood Duck” in the air. I love this old bird. She has heaps of wing and flys much better than the Laser 2M I flew last weekend. She also launches unbelievably high. Looking forward to getting her out on a good day.
The conditions were very warm and slightly breezy most of the morning with cloud obscuring the sun. By the time Jody Miller rolled up, the wind had increased considerably and flying wasn’t quite so pleasant as earlier.
Jody specifically came out to the field today to provide a Christmas gift to Costa and Leife – A present of Jody’s old Edge for Costa and Leife to learn to fly full house. What a wonderful gesture by Jody and I am sure that Costa and Leife are extremely happy with the gift. Good Karma points there Jody! Well done and well done Buzzards. We need a lot more of this sort of club spirit in the Buzzards! Very encouraging stuff indeed. A good day was had and we look forward to next weekend’s Gainesville DLG bash. CU there.

A small group of us flew on Thursday – Christmas Eve including Allan, Rich, Jody, Ed, Rick and myself. A good friend Tim Gess from MI was in town and wanted to show us the most recent developments of his self launching device for sailplanes. I had tried launching my OnyzJW with the device with Tim in March and it worked well but needed more improvements which Tim had made and was now ready to test it out again with some big ships. Thursday was very windy which dented the enthusiasm of Ed trying to trim his new Ava but Rich, Al and Rick were flying and I also used the opportunity to get some stick time on my High End. I found some great lift in the windy conditions and got a good 25 minut flight in. Rick launched his 2M Laser with Tim’s self launcher a few times with Rich Kiburis doing the towing. The launches went very well achieving launch heights which looked equivalent to a good winch launch. After a couple of winch launches with my High End we decided to try Tim’s launcher with a “big ship”. Once again Rich did the “towing.” I was only at about 150 feet when something broke on the apparatus and Rich pulling hard on the device was struck in the back with the end of the towing twine. Struck pretty hard too apparently as it left some nasty welts even through his pullover. Clearly the towing system worked extremely well but needs a little beefing up in a few places. Tim has a great concept which allows excellent launches either on your own or with someone towing. We called it a day around noon and packed up to go home and get ready for christmas.
Gordon

Gordy Stahl, Ingo Donasch and myself planned to try for our LSF 5 Goal and Return flights at Kennyworld on Dec 12th or 13th. The weather forecast all week indicated that we would be in for a hot day with record temps in Ocala of 84 degrees. The wind was going to be swinging from east to west during the day at a strength of around 8 mph to 12 mph. Though not ideal wind the task was still doable so we set out on the Sunday to give it a try. Jody Miller came with us from Orlando and we were also joined by Art Scheurer at Kennyworld.

Unfortunately for us the entire XC attempt was going to be in vain because the weather forecasters got it entirely wrong. We were greeted in Kennyworld with overcast skys, cold wind and a cloud base of barely 600 feet. We didn’t see the sun all day and the buzzards were finding conditions tough. In fact when we were watching Buzzards successfully thermalling they were disappearing into cloud! It was a great opportunity for a dry run to test our equipment and planes. The old Vyger was assembled and flown a few times but the windy conditions were not her forte. I flew my High End for the first time and got some trimming and mode settings done on it. Ingo flew his Shadow a few times also to test the air. The biggest problem we had all day was that we needed much longer stakes to hold the turn around down in the loosely ploughed peanut field. The turnaround continued to pull out of the ground on any strong launches. We did have a fun day all round but we’ll need to try again with better weather conditions. Thanks to Jody and Art for being our loyal assistants.
Gordon