The 1995 Radio control championships has taken place in
Kasaoka Japan. I went there for the last two days of the
9 day meeting. I was just in time for the prize ceremony.
Here are the results;
Airplane
Japan: Naruke
Lichtenstein: Wolfgang Matt
France: C.P. le Roux
Airplane Team
Japan
France
Canada
Helicopter
USA
USA :C. Youngblood
USA again!
Helicopter Team
USA
Japan
Switzerland
NOTE: At the time, I did not have a notebook, so these are
off the top of my head; do not bet your life on them...
Last day was the flight show, and we were entertained by some
interesting models.
The highlights were
The flying house. By a Japanese modeller. The first few minutes
were really hairy! I was not really sure if it was
flying or hanging on the prop, but after the first turn It gained some
flying speed. Japan being an earthquake country, I was not surprised when
the pilot rolled the house! With the motor cut, it gave a new meaning to
the saying "Gliding like a brick!"
The fun fly Frenchman. This is the guy who took third place in F3A; C.P. le Roux
(I think he is famous for his show(s?) in a GYM).
He rolled his plane while it was hovering in front of him!
The plane was never more than 50m away from the take off point,
and never in a straight and level attitude!
The miracle electric heli. There was no info on that one, except
that it was from Germany. It flew aerobatics for five minutes...
Curtiss Youngblood flew his unbelievable maneuvers. It was the
first time I watched him. He flew loops and rolls- backwards!
The flipping maneuver where he turned the heli from inverted hover
to upright should be seen to be believed.
There were six A6M Zero's of different scales. One lost
engine power during the flight. The pilot chose to go for the runway
which was far, instead of landing in the soft tall weeds in the field
just ahead. The model was too low and slow, and spun in when turning for
final. (Heard this somewhere else?)
Also, two identical, very large and superbly finished Zeros. Did great formation
flights.
We had some interesting helis. Two had contra rotating main
rotors, and put an interesting show. The other was a more radical
V type rotor arrangement. The two rotor discs intersect each other. Unfortunately, it was hairy even before take off. It had
vibration problems, and tipped over and one rotor
disc scraped the ground. The pilot stopped the rotors, concluded all
was OK, and reapplied the power. It did leave the ground, but flew in
a really dangerous manner. Eventually, one rotor disc disintegrated,
and it went straight in. Hope to see more of it in the future, because
it is such a brave effort...
The star of the day was the large 747, powered with
TWO jet turbines. It was finished in the All Nippon Airlines
'Marine Jumbo' paint scheme. It looked great, except for the
wire landing gear!
There was some trouble starting the engines, and we had to wait
for around 30 minutes. Finally it took off. The sound was incredible,
but this was the most twitchy Jumbo I've ever seen. It looked
too fast, and too unstable. It completed one circuit, the pilot
realized that he would have to fly over the crowd. To avoid this
he banked the plane 90deg. and pulled real hard. He did manage to
turn away, but (probably) from the resulting stress, the elevator
started to flutter, and disintegrated. The plane went straight in...
It was a complete write off. I hope that they at least rescued the
engines...
A photo heli , with SLR photo and video cameras,
this one took photos of the crowd and the surroundings. Don't know
if I can lay my hands on them, but if I do, you will see them here!
