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towplane and glider had cleared the area.The rest of us just stood and admired theview as these gliders are BIG and withno head wind the climb out was long andslow, not much like some model tows I’veseen.During the initial pilot’s briefing it wasannounced that Glide Omarama haddonated a glider flight as a prize andthe winner would be chosen by drawingnames from the list of registered pilots.Quite a few were excited by that prospectand Graham Rose announced that hemight have to register a few more timesto increase his chances. His excitementwas very evident the next day when hisnumber was drawn and somehow the30 minute flight stretched out to 2 1/2hours, so pilot Justin Wills must havebeen enjoying the conditions and thecompany. Graham was still buzzinga day later and he would have had aspectacular flight which took in NZ’shighest mountain, Mt Cook, which is 105kilometres from Omarama.It seems as though you have to pass a“good guy” test to join the scale aerotowfraternity. What a great bunch of people!The weather was good, the models weregreat and the people were excellent.My congratulations and thanks go to theorganisers, Bevan Allen, Greg Clarksonand the rest of the team who did awonderful job and I’m sure that most ofthose present will be back next year.14Graeme Rose levers himself out of the Duo Discus after his prize flight.Finally, if you hanker to see a few movingpictures, try this link to Peter Hewson’sshort video of the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v 9WNa3vczxzU&feature youtu.be Okay, that’s it. It was an excellentmeeting that was universally acclaimed.I’m already looking forward to next yearalthough it’s a good long haul from myhome - 650 kilometres each way andno big interstates to cruise along in thiscountry. Good roads and not too muchtraffic though, so a pleasant drive with anovernight stop.R/C Soaring Digest

OSou610e2httathJ)3F(pentionaNancirfAssalCChagnidal Glispihsnm pioJan Sime, jansime@rpmtv.co.zaSlippery machine - a Fosa F3B slicing through the air to make it back for the landing.June 201615

Cloud and wind - lots of wind. This was the opening overture ofthe 2016 national championships held close to Bapsfontein inSouth Africa in April.16 2016 R VenterR/C Soaring Digest

As 2016 is a F3J world championshipyear the open class flew to these rules;a 10 minute duration task in 10 minutesof working time. It is thus impossible toJune 2016get a full ten minute flight as time on thewinch is at least 1 second and only thevery brave, or foolish, attempt to land inthe last second of working time.17

As the weather was challenging, the early morning battle lines were drawn betweenthe F3J gliders of Alan Smith and Ian Sime and the F3B machines of Craig andMichelle Goodrum.18R/C Soaring Digest

After some scratching and heroics on the landing spots, honours were grabbed by theF3J contingent of Alan and Ian witha perfect 1000 score each compared to a total of1975 by husband and wife team of Michelle and Craig.June 201619

Round 2 saw the competition opening up to allow Chris Adrain,Peter Moore and Craig to grab top scores.20R/C Soaring Digest

Juanita Smith and Robert Leadbitter alsocrept up the leader board.June 201621

Round 3 saw perfect scores fromMichelle, Chris and Alan with Ian onlymanaging 994 despite this impressivelanding sequence.22R/C Soaring Digest

A buzzer sounds to signal the end ofworking time and if your glider has nottouched before this you forfeit yourlanding points, potentially 100 if you landwithin 20 centimetres (about 8 inches).You are also penalised by 30 points beingdeducted from your flying time.s the open class was flown on the samedays as F3K discuss launch gliders thiswas the last round for Sunday and flyingresumed on Monday 2 May, a publicholiday.June 201623

The top five were now solidly entrenchedand fighting it out for the number oneposition.24The only F3J rule not enforced wasfor two-man towing teams. 150 meterwinches were used.R/C Soaring Digest

Gordon Browne managed a perfectscore in round 4 and two other backmarkers; Shaun Mileson and Jan Simedid the same in round 5.June 201625

At the end of day 2 the weather hadmoderated and turned out quite warmso, the last round saw no fewer than fiveperfect scores (1000 points) and fivemore over 900 points.Congratulations to all the pilots whobraved the elements and turned in somegood scores. Here are the final results.26R/C Soaring Digest

Thanks also to Rudi Venter who, despite putting his back out,shot most of the pictures seen here.June 2016More photos and videos can be seen on the South African F3JTeam Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/saf3jteam/ 27

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ModelArcheologyModel ArcheologyPhilip Randolph, amphioxus.philip@gmail.comModel archaeology: Attempting todiscern the motivation for leaving a sportin the splayed entrails of a model airplanethat sat on a shelf for nine years. Or:Fairly tight but randomly variable servolinkages keep a model out of trim andperhaps discouraged a pilot out of thesport.Let’s start with a parody of a classiccountry western ballad song:Ten years ago on a cold dark nighta pilot gave up on RC flight. He said, “Ijust ain’t able to skillfully fly.”fault of whoever installed the pushrods inhis Mini-Ellipse.I don’t even remember who the fellowwas who was bailing from the sport. Butfor his privacy I wouldn’t say anyway. Hewas older. At the time I thought maybethat was why he was giving up. Probablywrong.It reminds me of my second slopecombat, about 2002.The things we don’t know can hurt us.Well, it was dumb and I was newbieignorant.Buried in his model was the reason why:Slipping pushrods kept his plane out oftrim but the pilot gave up ‘cuz he thoughtit was him.I had put some control horns on servos.They seemed to fit pretty snug andworked okay until the wing was up into50 mph winds. Then I couldn’t keep it intrim.Yeah, doggerel. Put a collar on it. Downboy. Sit. Or, please start over:JR horns don’t actually fit Hitec servos.Well, in a way it was him, or at least theJune 2016Bother.Duh.Being graphomaniacal (adj.: having acompulsion to write stuff, whether onehas anything to say or not) I was at mycomputer when an email to the local clubshowed.I was first to call, so it was to me he gavehis plane. A Mini-Ellipse, a lightly built 58"(1.5m) vee-tail with hollow-molded wingsand sweet little fairings over the servopush-rods.I was looking forward to flying the Mini,but I didn’t.I kept going to slope hills with landingzones I refer to as “Chris Erikson1 rockpiles.”No place to fly something this delicate.And I had lots of other projects.1Intrepid slope explorer and flounderof CEWAMS. Oops. Founder.29

So it sat in the rack for nine years, hidingwhat is remarkably similar to mixing JRservo horns and Hitec servos, hidingwhat I guess was the source of thedonor’s presumed discouragement andexodus.Disclaimer: Here I’m taking wild guesses.It’s just toy airplane archaeology, lookingfor psychology in the build of a model.That’s only a bit less random than tryingto auger fate from tea leaves in thebottom of a cup or from the splayedentrails of a goat.Plus, I didn’t have a goat.Last week finally I hooked up a receiverand a battery to the Min-E. First time.Transmitter on.The left aileron was off by 13mm, theright by 8mm. Too far to fix with sub-trim.So I popped the ball links free andstarted screwing them tighter. Theywere a bit hard to get at because of thefairings over the push rods.The right one I exposed by giving fullright aileron and pulling the connector tothe battery.Oddly, turning it didn’t seem to help.For the left I gently pulled on the balllink. The servo was a bit tight so I pulledharder.1: The Mini-Ellipse pushrodfaring that hid slippinglinkages.2: Freshly soldered pushrods.Joint 1 was skinny wireglued into hollow threadedrod with CA. It slipped. Icleaned, fluxed, tinned therod with solder, and solderedit in. Joint #2 was shrinktube and CA. I wrapped it intwist-tie wire and soldered. Ithrew the other shrink-tubedpushrod away before I tooka picture. Bother. I only hadone Dubro threaded coupler(3) handy, so I only did onethe easy way, with new rodand a Z-bend.The rod came off.Out.30R/C Soaring Digest

I scraped off the clear tape that heldthe pretty little push-rod faring thathid the pushrod. Maybe it was a resultof standard build techniques for RedHerring pushrods.Back in the single-digit years guyswho were building light often saved athirteenth of a gram by joining bent metalrods for servo and aileron horns to lightercarbon fiber rods. They did this withshrink-tube and CA.3. Roughing up metalsurfaces gives tooth for glue.On the Mini, a 0.7 mm rod was joined toa 1.2mm rod with shrink-tube and CA.The 1.2mm rod hooked to the servo horn.That joint was slipping.The 0.7mm rod fit into a hollow threadedrod threaded into the ball joint.When I tried to unscrew the left one thewire turned inside the threaded rod. Ipulled and that came apart also. It waspretty tight, but.Rather than being soldered, it had alsobeen glued in with CA, which didn’t holdto the slick surfaces.4. The wing pin had slippedout. Also.The metal to metal in shrink-tube orthreaded-tube glue bonds might haveworked if the rods had been roughened.Chucking them into a drill and a bitof sand paper might have given themsufficient tooth to hold.They were smooth. As was the peg in thefront of the wing, which had slipped itsepoxy to reside in its receiving hole in thewing saddle.June 201631

5. The “L” bends to the ruddervator horns had nokeepers.7: Ruddervator keepers.326. Carbon rod, shrink-tube and CA make fine keeperssince there is no tension force.8. The Mini-E/Z connectors were installed withoutkeepers. Better to fix now rather than post-crash.R/C Soaring Digest

The result: The aileron linkages felt assolid as my JR-Hitec mix, but wouldalways have slipped enough under loadto keep the plane out of trim.All buried beneath those cute fairings.That must have made for pilotdiscouragement.Hidden toy traps and pitfalls.I wish someone could have diagnosedthe problem way back when, andperhaps kept the guy happy enough withflying to keep at it. Bother.Incidentally (meaning, in hopes ofpreventing incidents), there is a greatguide to pushrods and connectors at d-connectors-2/ .Nearly postscript: The last thing Idiscovered was that the Mini E/Zconnectors between the pushrods andthe servo arms didn’t have retainers.I found this when one popped off a servoarm.I’ll probably either do a “snake” bendor a simple “L” bend with a shrink-tubeand carbon rod retainer like I did for theruddervators, which also didn’t haveretainers. But not tonight.Maybe this all explains why there was arepair of the fuselage.Now I just have to get to some place thatdoesn’t have rocks for an LZ.June 201633

Replacing the TARANIS Trim SwitchGordy Stahl, GordySoar@aol.comTaranis hardware quality only equaledby. . a 1954 transistor radio!Of course I’m only slightly kidding.Until the Taranis, transmitters have beenelectronic and hardware works of art.Each brand bragging about their smoothgimbals, and ergonomic case designs.And of course there is a price to all thatquality.Fr/Sky took a different approach, andprovided us with unlimited function, butvery limited form. And they only chargeus for what we paid for; paint that wearsaway, no rubber grips, a tiny voicespeaker, not extremely durable switches,yes, and the Taranis’ notorious crappy,short lived trim switches.Here’s the scenario:You decide to adjust your Elevator trimonly to find out it’s working, but only sortof working.Only one elevator trim function isworking, either the down trim or up trimbeeps and changes the elevator trimsetting, the other does not.34This is not too big of a deal cuz you cansimply go to “Outputs,” Edit Elevator,scroll down to Trim and choose to usethe Throttle’s trim lever! Now yourElevator trim is along side the Throttle fora field quick fix until you can put in thenew switch assembly.(This should normally be switched OFFin that spot since you don’t want to beaccidentally changing flap trim.)A new screw-in component from ALOFTHobbies only costs 4 plus shipping andit only takes about eight minutes to swapone out. Remove the six case screws,fold the back out of the way, pull its plug(red wire toward the top when you put itback), take out the two screws holding it,install the new one. done.The known shortcomings of the Taranis’hardware drives competitive brandmanufacturers crazy because the“cheapness” of a Taranis’s componentsisn’t viewed as a bad thing by its users.The Taranis trim switch assembly.Swapping out the internal mechanism fora good one is not difficult and takes onlya few minutes.In fact it’s this kind of thing aboutthe Taranis which gets a lot of nerdR/C Soaring Digest

types excited because its something they can find animprovement for themselves and then do a thread on RCGroups about it.If one of the “quality” brands experienced this kindof hardware problem, goofs on Groups would bethreatening lawsuits and boycotts!!!In this case the bonus problem is the elevator trim switchmechanism. One of the guys in the Taranis thread founda higher quality and more durable direct replacementcomponent made by Panasonic.This is a replacement button that drops right down wherethe original button switches sit. But the Panasonic’s gutsare substantially better.Swapping out the original switch buttons:If you look closely at the sides of the original whiteswitches you’ll see a soldered point. There’s one oneither side.Using an X-Acto blade to slip under the switch bodies,and a very clean pointy soldering pen, you can carefully— sequentially lifting one end a bit then the other — theswitch will finally separate away from the soldered spotsas you heat the solder. Remember, lift in bits, one side ata time, so you don’t lift the board connection points offthe board.Left: Original Taranis trim switch on left, Panasonic replacement onright. Right: The installed replacement, ready to go flying!The board is marked with a white outline rectangle toinsure that you get the buttons perfectly aligned.The Panasonic buttons are white bodied with black buttons, versusthe white buttons of the original equipment shown in the photo.One at a time, hold the new button down in place insidethe outline - then tack each connection with solder.And yes, you can ‘feel’ the difference once installed.Extremely simple.I bought a dozen from DigiKey and got them almost nextday! However, I’m only doing my Elevator trim spots,since the others are seldom used.June 2016Here’s the link. There is a story about the hunt for the switchreplacements on RC Groups, where I found out about them. 516 Too cold and wet to fly, so might as well solder in trim buttons!35

More tips about the Taranis hardware in an upcoming issue ofRCSD!Things like: Why do I suddenly have the Blue Screen of Death when I turnon my Taranis? How to keep the Menu Button assemblies from poking intothe case? What does the SWR Telemetry tell me? How can I use the Taranis to find my lost model? Which way should the transmitter antenna lean? A tool to tighten the toggle switch nuts? Updating transmitter module and receiver firmware.The Fr Sky Taranis transmitter. How does Mix Weight differ from Mix Offset? Should I update to Firmware 2.1 or stay at 2.0?The Taranis s a “fun” transmitter!The one on the Left is an original, you can see the buttonswitches are looking pretty funky (I put a lot of flight time onmy stuff!) The black buttons are the new Panasonic buttons,the original uses a metal dot single point connection to makecontact inside, the Panasonic uses gold plated multi-pointsystem inside.Easy to swap out!Most TX’s are utilitarian in design, I think the word funand transmitter have never been used by an RC sailplaneenthusiast since for the most part we never wanted to futz withtransmitters or programming at all.Our interest is in hunting and working thermals.The Taranis has changed that.Until then, my Taranis is “Completely Operational and All ItsCircuits are Functioning Properly.”Make sure you mount the new switch with the red wire up whenyou put it back in or down will be up!36R/C Soaring Digest

Tom’sipsConverting PSA to Hook & LoopTom Broeski, T&G Innovations LLC, tom@adesigner.comBefore Hook and Loop, all my orbital sanding disks werePSA (pressure sensitive adhesive).It was always a pain to try to keep them sticky, especiallyif you changed grits often and before wearing them out.I would spray glue them on, but they still only stuck onceand often made a mess of the pad.I eventually converted my sanders to Hook and Looppads.Of course, I still had a box full of good PSA disks with nostick left, as you can see from Photo 1.I also had a bunch of worn out loop disks.It was a simple thing to glue the worn out loop disks tothe good PSA disks.1May 201637

2Almost any spray glue will work. 3M77, 3M 90, Camie, etc. Photo 2 shows asampling of those I’ve used.3Photo 3. Take the good PSA and spraythe back. Take the worn loop disk andspray the front.Slap together and voila. A good loopdisk as shown in Photo 4.438R/C Soaring Digest

FlyDreamAltitude PermitAltitude SwitchA How-to SeriesGordy Stahl, gordysoar@aol.comOften the suppliers of our equipmentare not American, so mostly the deviceinstructions are translations of theoriginal language, which often leads toconfusion.The FlyDream’s Altitude Permit MotorSwitch instruction are very detailed butleave the new operator scratching hishead on something that should be verysimple.I will be doing a series of How-To Tipsto help Altitude Permit owners betterunderstand its features.The first and most often asked aboutfeature is how to set the motor restartfunction so that the motor can berestarted when ever needed.One setting that is very obvious in therestart menu is the “OFF” setting. TheF5J FAI competition class does not allowmotor restarts for any reason during aflight, so that is one of the settings formotor restart in the A.P.’s ProgrammerMenu.June 2016Here are the steps to use theProgrammer to set the Restart functionaccording to desire or contest rules.The “settings” are done via threebuttons located along the bottom of theprogrammer. See Photo (1) at right.Connect the model’s motor battery afterconnecting the AP’s Programmer.The first menu page shows threeselections, each correspond to thenumbered buttons at the bottom ofthe programmer. You can navigate theProgrammer screens by pressing buttonnumber 1 until you see the screen youneed. So the first step will be to pressbutton number 2, “Setup A.P.”In the SETUP A.P. menu, choose theRESTART option.The bottom line displays “A.P. 15m OFF,”as seen in Photo (2) on the next page.Choose the option you want by pressingthe left, middle or right button.(1) The “settings” are done via threebuttons located along the bottom ofthe programmer. The first step will be topress button number 2, “Setup A.P.”39

If you want to confirm that the setupis correct, you have to go back tothe “Read Data” function, then pressbutton number 1. This will display‘RESTART: A.P.’, ‘RESTART: 15m’, or‘RESTART: OFF’.

RC Soaring Digest is published using Adobe InDesign CS6 The May edition of RC Soaring Digest included information on the Działowski Bydgoszczanka, an early Polish sailplane. Our intent in presenting this information was, as always, that a reader (or perhaps several readers) will tackle the design, c