10 August 2007
A Mixed Weekend at Jerilderie LSF
The 2007 Jerilderie LSF tournament will be an event I will not forget for a long time to come, for lots of reasons, one being that my TD Icon “died” during its first flight of the competition. That failure really capped off a very traumatic few weeks for me, actually.
I went into the Jerilderie tournament full of anticipation, and expecting to do quite well, but in the end would rather have not turned up. The only consolation was that I managed to add nearly 2000k’s to my new Subaru Forester XT, and that I finally managed to trim my F3B Icon to near perfection.
But the lasting memory will always be of watching my 6 month old TD Icon literally blow itself apart at the top of the launch on my very first flight in the event. I’d never seen one of these big F3J class sailplanes explode on launch, and (from a disjointed observer’s perspective) mine was quite spectacular to watch, but from a personal perspective, I was shattered, distraught, quite upset, and never really recovered afterwards. I’d lost my beloved Icon, the one plane I’d spent nearly $5k on, and it ended its flying life in an orgy of carbon fibre, balsa, fibreglass, and kevlar.
The launch was going to be one my usual launches, not spectacular, but not overly low either. The weather was clear, cold, blowing between 5 to 10kts, and there was a reasonable shear layer around the “ping” height. The winch didn’t scream away under load. The failure occurred right at the point where I switched from launch flap to speed, and initiate the dip and ping off the winch line. The resulting “explosion” was spectacular - one second the plane was gaining height nicely, the next it was a puff of glitter.
Luckily, the remains spun slowly to the ground. One tip panel was ejected about 50 metres away from the explosion, but the rest was a jumble of carbon capping, wiring, fuselage, and shattered centre panel. The only bits that survived unscathed were the elevator halves.
The fuselage has a crack at the tip of the nose where the battery compartment is, and a large chunk of the fin and rudder missing, presumably caused by the ejected tip panel. Amazingly, the wing seating and boat/fuse joint were fine (which is where I expected damage to occur).
The two tip panels are repairable, though one aileron horn is missing, and there are tears in the bottom wing skins caused by the aileron servo wiring being ripped out. Why the aileron servos tore off their mounts and caused the wiring to tear the skins is a complete mystery.
The centre panel is destroyed. The spar broke in two places, both on the RHS of the panel. The carbon capping was stripped off the top of the main spar, which is surprising, as this is where I think the failure started. The left flap is mostly missing, and the rest of the panel is basically confetti. The left tip joiner box was ripped out. The only part of the panel left relatively untouched is the wing seating area, which is surprising.
So, my very first Jerilderie LSF flight was a zero score. I was shattered, upset, angry, and thinking that my weekend was over.
But I still had my Icon F3B….
Round two came around, and I was still quite shaken up by my lost Icon, so I wanted a nice, safe, docile launch, where I could fly the F3B, and generally calm down. It wasn’t to be. The glider started up the line ok, but then dropped a tip, and after that she was all over the shop. I decided to abandon the launch, force a pop-off, and land. The F3B pretty much pinged off the line horizontally, and screamed out down wind.
Once I had it under some form of control, I thought that I could start to look around for thermals (my “never-say-die” attitude to flying), did a few circles, but kept wondering why she wasn’t slowing down, or thermalling smoothly. By this time she was way downwind, low, and I thought I’d better just get her home in one piece. I eventually landed it on the edge of the field, right between two trees. Another dejected walk, thinking that the only way forward from here was to go home.
Round three came around, and just as I was about to connect the F3B to the winch and launch, I did my usual wing waggle, and discovered the right-hand aileron servo wasn’t working. That was why I had so little control during the launch, and flight. Needless to say, Round three was a zero score.
In order to keep flying, I had to revert to my trusty 2M First. For the rest of the day, I flew the First and achieved some pretty respectable flights. More importantly, I was also able to tune the dual rates/expo/flight phases, so the First flies a lot better with the new transmitter (a JR PCM 9XII).
That evening we discovered that the F3B’s right-hand aileron signal wire had snapped off where it was clamped inside the Molex wiring harness plug. A soldered shunt, and all was good.
Sunday’s flying was nothing spectacular, but I was starting to fly fairly consistent high 8/sub 9 minute flights, with good landings. I had to somehow claw my way off the bottom of the leaderboard. Through some careful tuning (again for the new transmitter), I really dialled in the Icon F3B, which became quite evident late in the day. I had a launch which was ok, not great, scratched around for a few minutes at reasonable height (a height where I could think about flying away from the field ok), noticed a bunch of planes circling in a booming thermal way off the field, and decided to head on over.
Well, I entered the thermal below everyone else, and after about five minutes of thermalling away, I topped out above the lot of them, gaining so much height that I was guaranteed my first 10 minute flight for the competition. My flight was 10:03, and inside 2m spot landing. I was so pumped after that flight.
The final day of flying, and I was flying fairly consistently, thermalling ok, nice and relaxed. My last fight of the comp, I repeated the memorable 10 minute flight the previous day, in pretty much the same circumstances, scratching away towards a fairly meagre flight time, noticed some gliders off to one side thermally quite nicely, flew on over, started to get quite desperate, but continued on course, and somehow found the core of this now booming great thermal. It only took me a few turns, and she was way way up there, and I was suddenly thinking, “how on earth am I going to get her down in time??!!”. Somehow, I did, and landed a 10:02 flight, inside 2m spot.
An awesome end to a competition that I will remember for some time to come!
The death of my beloved Icon TD won’t sway me from flying the big unlimited-class gliders. I’ll just have to buy a new F3J Icon, one that will take the full pedal winch launches in it’s stride. In the mean time, the F3B will get quite some workout.
