World Championship & World Cup Competition. Australia confirmed its ranking in theF2C Team Race class by taking out first and second place. The team of Rob Fitzgerald and Mark Ellins, World Champions in 2010 and again in 2016, set a world record time of 6 mins 22.8 seconds to complete 200 laps. There was little between the competitors. Second place was Murray Wilson and Mark Poschkens in a time of 6:23.3 and the French Team of Thierry Ougen and Roland Surugue completed in 6:28.6. Australia won Gold and Silver plus the team prize for F2C Team Racing.
See picture gallery of World Cup, World Championships and supporting events (courtesy Neil ‘Nobby’ Baker).
The control-line aero-modelling sport and it is officially a sport, is little known in Perth but is well known overseas. Little known also is the fact that the WA Model Aircraft Sports Centre at Whiteman Park has the best facilities in Australia.
According to one of the Czech Republic Team, the Control-Line Aero modelling World Championships 2016 held at the WA Model Aircraft Sports Centre, Whiteman Park, Perth, Western Australia was “the best he had attended in the last ten years!”
The facilities were excellent; the weather was like a European summer and the dedicated team of volunteer workers ensured that all ran smoothly. Individuals and teams from 31 countries vied for the honour of being World Champion in four classes – F2A Speed, F2B Aerobatics, F2C Team Race and F2D Combat. No prize money was available but these trophies were!
F2A Speed was won by Paul Eisner of Great Britain with a speed of 304.3 kilometres per hour. In second place was Peter Halman of Great Britain with a speed of 303 kilometres per hour. Italian, Luca Grossi’s model attained a speed of 302.8 kph.
F2A Aerobatics was won by Orestes Hernandez from USA who beat the former 2014 World Champion Igor Burger of Slovakia. Igor had to settle for runner up and Richard Kornmeier of Germany came third.
F2A Combat final was between Russia and Ukraine. Illia Rediuk, a junior pilot, took the honour of being World Champion by beating Pavel Narkevich.
Report by Lorraine Stivey
Comprehensive results for both World Championships and World Cup Competition click this link: http://www.cl-wch2016per.org/
F2A Speed Report
The World Championships were held at Whiteman Park north east of Perth WA, at a purpose built flying site with a speed circle that was a smooth concrete surface and an excellent pylon made by Steve Walton.
The facility had benches under a roofed area which allowed the competitors to work on their models in full view of the public.
Some of the World Champs I have been to previously, did not have this luxury and as a result, the models were bought out just before their turn to fly so you did not get to see the models or speak to the fliers.
One thing I did notice was the friendliness of the competitors to exchange information and ideas. The only difficulty at times was the language; however, communication was either done via a third party interpreter or hand signals in some cases.
Like in all other F2 categories, ARF models, mostly from Russia /Ukraine, were very evident. Thankfully the English team used models of the home built variety, which is always refreshing to see.
By far the most popular motor was the Ukrainian Profi. produced by Alex Osovik. There was also a few Zalps and the British team used the Halman 15.
Thanks must go to the Speed Contest Director, Andy Kerr, the multitude of scrutineers and the judges of flight etc. for all their work.
Timing was done electronically by Transitrace with no need for hand operated stopwatches, and as far as I am aware, there were no problems encountered. It helped to have the designer of the unit, Goran Ohlson, monitoring it. A few of the individual com-petitors had their own unit as well.
During practice and the World Cup held before the World champs, it was obvious that Peter Halman and Paul Eisner of the U.K. were the ones to beat, both regularly doing 300+ kph without troubles. In the World Cup, Paul had a 303 kph run but the shutoff went off accidentally before he completed the required 9 laps.
After every flight their motors and models were stripped and checked /cleaned, even after perfect runs and not blowing a plug. In fact, Peter used a plug for about six runs and was still ok.
Engines should not blow plugs all the time and worse detonating the piston and head. It is not all about too much compression. Sometimes if the compression setting is too low, the tendency is to lean the needle off to get it on pipe, resulting in the engine “going over”, which in turn, can cause detonation which can flare the top of the piston causing it to rub on the liner creating more problems, wiping oil off the bore and also heating up piston making the situation even worse. In this case the piston needs to be very gently relieved at very top.
All good motors have a tapered relief at the very top of piston down in length by about 1-1.5 mm. The piston diameter is about .001″ smaller in this section.
One highlight for me was to see Carl Dodge (USA), then current World Champion, fly his 1972 -1976 PINK LADY conventional model powered by a much modified TWA that he had used in the 1972 -1976 World Champi-onships. I saw the sister model in 1976 at the W/C in Holland at that time powered by Carl’s own bar stock motor.
The TWA engine was made by Bill Wisneiski in 1966 to win the W/C, the first win for a tuned pipe motor; Bill was an engine designer at K&B.
Carl did not fly his modern models as he has trouble keeping up to a 300 Kph model at his age. I can relate to that! Carl flew in the spirit of the comp, great to see. It fired me up to get my standard TWA out in my Pink Lady to fly at our next speed comp in Victoria in July. I have just made a new piston for it and I will fly it as per 1972 rules.
The world cup was won by Peter Halman closely followed by Paul Eisner, and third was Alex Osovyk.
Of the Australians, Murray Wilson had been going well before he left for Perth, doing 300 kph a couple of times, but not consistently. His model had been performing the week before in Perth, then things deteriorated and it kept going off during the run, or not coming on pipe if set richer and blowing plugs /detonating.
In the World Championships, Andrew Heath and Ian Gapps could not find the speed that they had in the past despite working hard during the 2 comps, Andrew was the fastest Aussie at 289.9 the same as Murray’s best but Andrew had a faster back up flight.
Murray was lucky to get a time as in the first round he and Ian were DQ’d for handle not contacting the pylon. A protest was lodged which in turn was upheld. The finding was that the crossbar was always contacting the yoke at one point it does not have to be two.
I ended up crewing for the Canadian Paul Gibeault (J.Bolt) as he was the only Canadian flying so he could have an outside helper and we also helped Neil’s Lyhne Hansen from Denmark. I enjoyed it as it gave me something to do as I was not allowed to help the Aussies. The rules state you have to be on the speed team to help.
As expected the top placings were between the two English guys but a challenge by the Italian Luca Grossi nearly changed things as he had been doing speeds in the 304+ range in practice, he was the last flyer at the end of the comp so we all watched the readout display with interest as he was doing around 305 kph but did not sustain that speed so he had to shut off.
So final placings were Paul Eisner 304.3 closely followed by Peter Halman 303.00 and Luca Grossi 302.8 Alex Osovyk 4th. Unfortunately for Britain, they did not win their usual team prize as they only had two fliers competing as the regular 3rd member Ken Morrissey could not come due to a bad illness. I hope he gets well soon, his models are just as fast as the other Brits so it could have been inter-esting.
No new obvious developments, just fine tuning and matching all the critical are-as of, prop/ pipe/ needle setting/ plug/and compression, and a good piston and liner.
Pipes on Profi’s appeared stock looking, but I do not know the various lengths and stinger diameters.
The Italians had home-made pipes from s/s sheet rolled and welded having multiple angles but straight sections.
One different setup was G. Emelyanov (Russia) had a home-made motor with the carb on the inside of model i.e. 180 degrees to a normal one it also had an inside of thrust line tank and a balsa fairing covering it slid down the wing at root. I noticed he did not use in W/C only in World Cup.
Models now all look the same. Alloy and carbon fiber wings were used.
Quite a few flights started of fast but went off later, most likely going for max pitch but then the engine gets too hot and cannot maintain the load /heat, or going to lean, it is a fine line between a good run and a bad speed.
I do not see where more speed can be gained in future, there must be a limit to how much mixture we can get up through motor, as that is the heart of the matter, better pipes could maybe give improve-ments, also better props. If engines rev much faster prop efficiency may drop?
Robin Heirn
