RE: F1D rules change proposal

From: <joshuawfinn_at_gmail.com>
Date: 07 Feb 2014 04:59:11 -0800

><john.barker783_at_...> wrote:
>Joshua,
>I wish we still had ‘on trust’ BOM like we used to but I helped >to remove the BOM rule in England because I could find no >way of wording such a rule.
  
 Firstly, I have said nothing about BOM in either this discussion or the other one. People have been selling VP hubs for 15 years. That horse left the gate a long time ago, and I don't really see it as an issue. Advancing in F1D may require technique, but it also requires extensive design work. Most of my performance improvements in my own F1D program have come from design refinements rather than improvements in technique. Technique has improved the consistency of my flights, but definitely not the peak performance.
  
>Now to F1D, some of the most beautiful creations on earth. >Where do you see this class going? .... However if all the >concentration is on light weight do you want to spend the next >ten years looking for a covering material that is a milligram >lighter or a magical piece of balsa that is a fraction stiffer than >usual? Do you want F1D to go the same way as EZB, lighter >and lighter until only a few people dare to try the class?
  
 None of my experience indicates this will happen, partly because the super light materials aspect is an illusion. Most successful F1D fliers are using OS film. They could aquire Y2K2 at an admittedly high cost, and some do, but many show no desire to do so and show no cost in performance. Covering really is the only part of the model requiring something exotic. The wood is readily available, and boron and carbon reinforcements definitely are not going to become suddenly hard to obtain. Bottom line, the whole minimum weight thing is an illusion as is the flying site "problem". I'd add as proof the fact that Mike Kirda, a relative newcomer to the class, is already making carbon outlines for his props. I'll also note that since early 2012 when I had roughly the same materials as I do now, I was happy with an 18 minute flight in Cat I. Almost entirely through refinements in my designs, I have bumped that to 26 minutes (I do attribute a small amount of performance to better rubber, but I had respectable 3/02 back them). Better materials may make my designs more repeatable, but I haven't seen an indication that they represent more than a few percent of the peak performance, perhaps because we already have access to really good materials--even the ones we take for granted.
  
 -Joshua Finn
  



Received on Fri Feb 07 2014 - 04:59:11 CET