2006 Equinox Electrics

We have posted the photo album of this year's Equinox Electric event. The Fern Prairie Modelers generously let us take over their field for a weekend, and a variety of electric-powered aircraft flew in perfect weather. Enjoy the photos.

Fan/Motor/Controller Combos

As the #1 Schübeler dealer in North America, ShredAir always has Schübeler's electric ducted carbon fans in stock (the fiberglass fans are no longer manufacturered). We also stock spare parts from grub screws and mounting flanges to complete rotor assemblies.
Our high-end fan/motor/controller combos offer turbine thrust at an excellent price. Pictured are two examples:

Electric Up-and-Go Systems

	We are considering the import of high-end electric up-and-go systems for large scale gliders. These are difficult to obtain, but demand is there, and we are negotiating with the manufacturer of arguably the best units, Florian Schambeck Luftsporttechnik, to let us sell his systems in North America. Exact pricing and delivery remains to be determined; please stay tuned.

4th Equinox Electric Event

The 4th Equinox Electric Event in Washougal, WA, is on record, and the 5th is being planned. On September 30th and October 1st, over 30 pilots gathered to fly their electric powered planes. The fun-fly was interspersed with two airshow windows on Saturday and one on Sunday, when we show-cased interesting aircraft. Check out this non-ordinary Slow-Stick below: it has counter-rotating props. Speedwise, we saw everything between it and EDF planes and F5B and F5D gliders.

EE 2003	EE 2004	EE 2005

Germany Visit

Marcela and I had a successful visit to Germany. Besides the family obligations, we visited the Segelflugmuseum (gliding museum) on theWasserkuppe, attended an airport fest near Agathazell in southern Germany, watched a F3A qualifier contest, and slope soared at my childhood hill.

The newly-expanded gliding museum on the Wasserkuppe is a must-see. It has an excellent and huge model airplane section, which easily is worth the price of admission alone.
The airport fest in Agathazell combined a spectacular full-size airshow with a typical friendly southern Bavarian home town celebration.
We visited a F3A German "Acromasters 2006" championship qualifier event, where we met young Jan Rottmann who convincingly flew his Superstar. Of note here is that half the competitors flew electric-powered aircraft.

I got to fly on my home slope much more than I had anticipated: we had 2 weeks of good westerly flow. My favorite moments were flying my 1968 Graupner Dandy complete with 1972 Multiplex radio.
Of these three activities, we'll upload photo albums when they're good and ready later this year.

F5B World Championship

The F5B world championships in Romania yielded new records and a second-place finish for the US team before the Austrians who came in third.

The Germans creamed everyone and won the team and individual championships, with Wolf Fickenscher, Guntmar Rüb, and Heiko Greiner finishing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively.

Thomas Pils of the US team is again the fastest F5B pilot with a 51-leg run during the world championships. To do this, he pushed his equipment very hard and suffered one catastrophic battery failure. Guntmar and Wolf managed 50-leg runs without equipment problems. At this 50-leg pace, the model exceeds 100 mph AVERAGE power-off gliding speed on the course including all turns.

USA hosted the F5B and F5d World Championships in 2000.

4th Equinox Electric Event

The 4th Equinox Electric Event in Washougal, WA, will take place on the weekend of September 30th and October 1st. This will again be an open electric fly-in interspersed with airshow windows, during which we showcase interesting aircraft. Everyone is invited. Besides the Northwest, we are expecting guests from Idaho, Colorado, and even Europe to attend.

EE 2003	EE 2004	EE 2005

F3J World Championship

August always brings soaring world championships. This year, the FAI F3J WC were held in Slovakia.

Congratulations to F3J Senior World Champion David Hobby from Australia, and to "little Cody" Remington for becoming Junior World Champion. Cody and his team mates Casey Adamczyk and Joseph Newcomb also are F3J Junior World Champions. Congratulations to all!

Germany, USA, and Slovakia are the Senior Team World Champions. Italy and Germany won 2nd and 3rd places in the Junior Team Championships.

We've been following young Joseph Newcomb's progress ever since five years ago during the Arizona contest, we spotted his potential and helped him along his way; now he is Team World Champion. We wish him and his team mates continued success.

F5B World Championship

The snarling F5B gliders will duke it out in Pitesti, Romania this year from August 19th ot the 24th.

The US Team consists of Jeff Keesaman, Steve Neu, and Thomas Pils, with David Pitcairn as alternate. We wish them thermals on course and 30-point landings.

F5B planes have become very fast: the current record is 48 legs of the 150-meter course in 200 seconds. Assuming 35-37 seconds spent climbing, this means an average motor-off gliding speed of 100 mph, including turns.

USA hosted the F5B and F5d World Championships in 2000.

Energy Management is the Spice of Gliding

Here at ShredAir, we end our winter slope'n season with the Tri-Slope Six-Pack.

Slope flying is in my blood since my Dad dragged me up our local slope 45 years ago. Interestingly, slope flying hones general soaring skills: a good slope pilot learns how to recognize and use thermal lift, for example, and how to manage energy for maximum performance.
Summer brings wind shifts and thermals, and while we still fly slope in the nearby clear-cut hills, other soaring fills our summer. One high-light is the annual cross-country race around Montague, California.

While you'd have to pay us to compete in any thermal duration contest, add the dimension of having to go somewhere in a hurry, and we enthusiastically attend! There is nothing like having to weigh the time spent thermaling against the speed at which one covers the course. It's wise energy management all over again. You definitely do not want to circle "forever" in a weak thermal and get nowhere doing it. The next Montague Cross-Country Challenge will be the 10th annual, and it'll be spectacular.
When the summer slope lift gets spotty, electric power carries us over to the next slope season. For me that means F5B.

Don Pesznecker and the Portland/Salem clubs organize monthly F5B contests April through October. True F5B airframes are light, strong, and tweaked about as carefully as Formula-1 cars. The result is a snarling monster of a glider with phenomenal performance. How many vehicles can accelerate from 0 to 100 mph in under 3 seconds? But the name of the game is minimizing motor run time and maximizing glide speed around a measured course. Again, energy management becomes very important, and it doesn't surprise me that two of the three US F5B Team members, for example, have a solid slope background.

2006-Tri-Slope Six Pack

The 3rd annual Tri-Slope Six-Pack (3S6P) was successful because there was good lift Friday and Saturday. Sunday was calm and damp, making it easier for people to leave the slope and head home.
Conditions at Eagle Butte were stellar; those at Chandler "flyable" on Friday, good on Saturday. Friday afternoon brought a big thunderstorm and in its wake good flying until dark at Chandler.
Right now, we're planning to make the 3S6P a 3-day event (May 18-20). The format will change to enhance group cohesiveness while promoting fruitful commutes between the flying venues. Please feel free to e-mail us with comments and suggestions.

The Next

The "Next" is a wingeron designed and built by Paul Hamilton-Smith of Bogota, Colombia. It is based on the Mach-1 we took to Colombia 15 months ago. Flying in the Andes in often thermal conditions at 10000 feet, the Mach-1 (designed for coastal slopes) was hard to keep on step.

Paul took the proven planform of the Mach-1 and gave it a more lifting airfoil. Daniel Gomez brought this Next from Colombia via his home in California to the 3S6P, but unfortunately, we missed the opportunity to fly it. We're planning to again meet up with Daniel to test-fly this wingeron.

F5B Northwest Contest

The Northwest's 2-day F5B event is coming up July 15/16. The event will be hel at the Willamette sod farm north of Salem, Oregon. Besides the 7-cell, 10-cell, and FAI classes, all electric-powered gliders - even Speed 400 - are welcome to compete.

Team 24" Wood—3rd Place

Every year, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) holds a Design/Build/Fly competition for university students. In this 10th such competition, 49 student teams competed.

The primary design objective for this year was to fly three payloads: 48 tennis balls, two 2-liter bottles of water, and a 4”x4”x24” wooden block. The score for this mission was based on cargo loading and unloading time.

ShredAir has been sponsoring teams over the years, and this year we supplied a motor, controller and various props and spinners to the 3rd-place winner, Team 24" Wood, from the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. Congratulations!

2006 Montague Cross Country Challenge

Visit the XCSoaring website for results.

Lehner Motoren Tecnik —LMT Motors for EDF

We have received the first batch of Lehner motors for Schübeler's "DS94" 120-mm fan, and the second batch is on its way. We have added these motors and more information to our Motors page. Lehner motors are low-production, hand-built, and top-quality. Their segmented rotor design makes them efficient and cool running.
The LMT 2240-17HA/8 for 8S to 10S Lipo packs can produce 11 lbs of thrust.	The LMT 2250-13HA/8 for 9S to 10S Lipo packs can produce 13 lbs of thrust.
The LMT 2280-9HA/8 for 11S to 12S Lipo packs can produce 19 lbs of thrust.

Hi-performance Lithium-Polymer Packs

Upon special request, we are offering expertly assembled hi-performance Lithium-Polymer packs for electric drive trains. Seen here are four 6S2P 3800HDHE cells which will be used in a 2x 12S2P application for a ducted fan twins. Note the balancers which are essential for safe charging of such high-cell-count and high-performance packs. Lipo cells and their pricing are continuously changing, but for reference, a 12S2P assembly as shown with the balancers and balancing harnesses today would cost about $1500; please e-mail for details.

Transmitter Harness

Fred Guilfoyle, the inventor of the original glider stands, now offers a simple cross-over harness for your transmitter. It’s easy to put on, comfortable, and can be worn “all day.” It’s great for transmitter trays, but Fred offers a strap to adapt it for clipping any transmitter directly to it.

To contact Fred visit his website.

Also new are the Neu 6-mm stecker connectors. Two types are available: one with a flat plate for direct-soldering to the battery terminals, and one with a cup for soldering to wire.

The Tri-Slope Six-Pack (3S6P) is scheduled to take place on May 20-21, one weekend before Memorial Day.

Thanks to a well-orchestrated Internet blitz, it appears we dodged the bullet, and the AMA is now working to provide supplemental insurance for Eagle Butte in time for the 3S6P. AMA officers received e-mails and faxes from slope flyers all over North America, and even from Europe, urging them to find the necessary insurance. We sincerely thank everyone who wrote.
The AMA person in charge is Carl Maroney (cmaroney@modelaircraft.org). At this point, it is appropriate to thank him for the progress made and to encourage him to shepherd this issue to a positive conclusion; only then is it time to celebrate.

The Tri-Slope Six-Pack (3S6P) is scheduled to take place on May 20-21, one weekend before Memorial Day.

Eagle Butte Alert: There is a significant problem with Eagle Butte, where the private land owners require insurance coverage to be $4 million rather than the AMA standard $2.5 million. The Mid-Columbia Soarers have been working on this issue since October 2005, but finding supplemental insurance at an affordable rate has not succeded as of January 2006. If this insurance problem cannot be resolved, Eagle Butte will be closed to all flying on April 1, 2006. In this case, the 3S6P will be cancelled.
Please contact us or the Mid-Columbia Soarers for more information.

With the help of photography by Paul Naton, Dan Thomas, and Andy Fazzio, we have been a semi-regular contributor to the German Aufwind magazine. One of Paul's photos of sunset flying at Cape Blanco even made the cover.

For those interested in RC gliders and electrics, and who read and understand German, Aufwind is hands down the best magazine I know of:
It emphasizes performance products and events;
It is full of technical and understandable information;
Event reports and product reviews are honest and unbiased and written by appropriately qualified pilots.

This magazine targets quality- and performance-oriented flyers, and if you can read German, we highly recommend it.

ShredAir is expanding into the aerial photography business.