Road to the Worlds
Simon Lockington

The 2005 F3C World Championships are to be held in Zamora, Spain.

The World F3C champs is conducted every two years by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) and is the event that just about all F3C pilots aspire to compete in. The cream of the crop compete with the latest helicopters, radios and setups.

The big names such as Hashimoto, Sensui, Youngblood, Gray, Fiel, Mann and the like are there along with pilots from pretty much every country, competing for the World Champion title.

Each FAI member country can nominate up to three pilots to represent their country. Large countries hold trials to determine who will go, whereas with the smaller countries are often represented by those who just want to go. The last couple of years, New Zealand has been well represented by Aaron Williams, and next year, I will be representing New Zealand at the 2005 World Champs in Zamora, Spain.

Currently, the Australians are about to hold the third of their three team trials rounds.

I’m very excited about the opportunity to go and participate in an event of this calibre, it’s going to be a huge experience for me which I will ofcourse endeavour to share in articles on this site.

I’ve decided to try and record my preparations on getting to the World Champs in a series of articles between now and the event itself.

While I’m sure the Vigor would love to get another foreign country stamp in it’s passport, I really do not see the point in taking two different machines to such an important event, best to take two identical ones I feel.

Currently, the setup I’m using is:

JR Sylphide 90
Futaba 9252’s on cyclic and throttle
Futaba GY601
Futaba GV-1
SAB 675mm main blades
Funtech 45 gram paddles
Funtech muffler
OS 91 PS with Viperhead with the return line needle.

So far, I’m pretty happy with just about everything here apart from the OS 91 engine. Unfortunately the much heralded lean mid range problem has been giving me a lot of trouble. If I lean the engine out to get acceptable top end power, the engine leans up and cackles when unloaded (ie at the top of stall turns or through the middle of rolls), it sounds terrible and pisses me off.

Truthfully, I just do NOT know how OS could have let this engine go with a carb like this. Two needles OS??? Come on! The previous C-Spec which I still have in my Vigor has been the best engine I’ve ever owned. Always starts, has immense power and runs consistent from start to finish. To be fair, this engine does have the Cline regulator, but even before I had this installed it was a great engine. To go from that to the PS? Even the Rap 90 SE that I reviewed in my last newsletter has started exhibiting signs of the dreaded lean mid range problem.

It’s annoyed me so much that I have considered, investigated and purchased a new YS 91 to replace this engine. The other Sylphide that I built for a mate has a YS 91 in it and damn does that thing impress me. As smooth as all hell even at the factory settings.

I’ve tried using the optional fuel return line needle valve which is supposed to help with the lean range to no avail. Infact the only thing I haven’t tried is the Cat Eye mod documented on helifreak.com by Shannon Davis. The reason I haven’t done this is I’m not entirely confident I could do it without screwing it up. I am being sent a new needle valve so hopefully this might go someway to helping. I’ll let you know how I get on when it turns up.

For the mean time, I have gotten around the lean mid range in the aerobatics by turning off the GV-1 and using a high throttle curve so that the throttle body keeps above the lean mid range area. As a work around this has been working not too badly, I do have to be careful not to overspeed the head during the rolls or during the pushover maneuver. However at least now the helicopter is sounding closer to the fabled Sensui sound that I witnessed in Bali.

I’ll let you know how my engine dramas develop. On the upside though, the Funtech muffler is excellent, beautifully quiet, deep tone that still develops good top end power.

The Funtech paddles are excellent too, definitely keeping those. Infact with these paddles and the SAB 675’s, it’s very difficult to screw up rolls, something I was quite adept at doing (especially rolling from left to right).

The first question I get asked when they look at the blades is “why are you running such small blades?”. Well now, this harks back to the whole blade loading theory (plankers will be familiar with wing loading). The idea being that the weight of the helicopter is distributed over a smaller area which therefore makes the heli a bit more stable and less prone to being blown around.

It was Mark Christy, one of Britain’s top fliers, and also a Sylphide pilot who pointed this out to me and also recommended the SAB 675’s.

Page Two