MAAA Wingspan

22 WING SPAN NOVEMBER A full-sized airfield renowned for glider flying, the Takikawa Sky Park in Japan is a beautiful site containing a lush green grass runway next to a river and a mountain range providing an awe-inspiring backdrop. This idyllic locale hosted last year’s F5B World Champions. Representing Australia in F5B-Electric Multitask Glider were senior pilots Brett Solanov and Bill Hamilton, along with Brett’s then 10-year-old son Owen. They commenced their flying with two days of practice at the site before undertaking the official practice, the Takikawa Cup and finally competing at the World Champs. “Both myself and Bill weren’t completely happy with our power train setups, chasing the elusive optimisation of power and performance versus low energy use,” said Brett. “A total of 1750 Watt minutes is allowed per flight, which is measured by a telemetry logger issued by the world champs organisers and a daily rotation of this equipment ensures a fair result for each competitor. Going over the Watt/minutes came with hefty points penalties. Bill also had a motor/controller issue during practice and swapped to a spare setup.” Brett said that competing Europeans had the upper hand, with fast models that used less electrical energy than they could fathom. “The process of power system tuning was underway for the Aussies. Bill finished 20th, I finished 17th and Owen, who flew a soft (8S) power setup, finished in 24th place, despite performing extremely well on the world stage.” As Brett discloses, the start of the World Champs was met with windy conditions, making high lap scores difficult, the thermal task into a hovering event and spot landings tricky, which were sometimes risky to the model. “Bill got off to a great start holding a surprise position of 7th outright after two rounds on day one,” said Brett. “Scores were not high due to the conditions. I put in consistent flights but struggled with energy consumption. Owen had a motor mount fail but unfortunately didn’t complete the second round after a good start in round one.” Fortunately, day two saw improved conditions and scores. “Bill dropped to 11th after a missed landing in round three. I was improving through the development of a better power setup. Unfortunately, Owen had a prop come off in round three, which resulted in a zero score. However, the interest in Owen’s flying from the entire flight line was heartening,” said Brett. BRETT SOLANOV TELLS HOW HE, ALONG WITH HIS 10-YEAR-OLD SON OWEN AND FELLOW PILOT BILL HAMILTON, PERFORMED AT THE WORLD CHAMPION EVENT travel STORY: 2018 F5B WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS IN TAKIKAWA, JAPAN