After the poor year we have had weatherwise, the entries in the Tomboy Competitions in 2011 have been a little down on previous years [the meetings started by David Boddington are now in their 6th year]. So it was a pleasant surprise to have 16 models booked in for the Mills .75 powered Tomboy 3 event. A number it appears had been built from the kits produced by Derek Foxwell of the Old School Model Aeroplane Company. To date he has supplied over 350 of these kits [both 36" and 48"] worldwide and the demand shows little sign of falling off.

 At 14.00 hrs the 14 competitors lined up for the 90 second start up time plus the normal 15 seconds no fueling, hold time. The sound of 14 fast revving engines heightened the excitement of what was to come. 

Nick Skyrme was the starter and as the start board was lowered the sky was immediately full of Tomboys all successfully avoiding each other and all pushing into the breeze as they climbed away. Steven Roberts was soon down having, in the excitement of his first event, not topped his tank up in the allowed 90 secs. Most of the engines stopped around 2 minutes and Bob Young, George Ford, Derek Etheridge and Brian Brundell were all in sink and were down in under 5 minutes. James Collis landed at 5 mins 20 secs to be followed by Paul Netton, Chris Bishop and John Strutt all in the same minute.Of the remaining five, Brian Ball was next to land, followed by Stephen Powell, with Tom Airey claiming 3rd place at 5 seconds over 7 minutes,

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Malvern SA News

The Final event of this years competition will be the Pylon race next Sunday.

Like many others, who attended the first session of the winter season at the Elms, my Sumo returned battered and wounded.

Based on the experiences of those pilots and observers present last night, I thought that it might be of great benefit to those of you who are still battling with the build to share our experiences of the evening. I would invite anyone present last night to add comment, especially Barry and Tony and anyone else brave enough to take hold of the sticks. Here are some of my observations and tips for anyone attempting the build and yet to attempt a flight:-

• It flies as beautifully as it looks !

• It has hidden magnets which attract it to the wall !
• Now onto the serious stuff. Weight appears to be all ; lighter the better.
• Any weight that you do have to contend with ( servos, receiver, ESC ) is best placed as close to the C of G as possible.
• The use of a programmable Tx is a distinct advantage especially with the tightness of our hall. It was felt by many, towards the end of the evening, that a rudder/aileron mix, with minimal aileron movement might well be worth a try.
• The Sumo’s flight characteristics are unique so to some extent you have to put convention out of your head before approaching initial flights.
• There is a distinct area of weakness where the prop ring/shroud is closest to the edge of the fuselage. A bit of extra beef around this area is well worth sacrificing a tiny bit of weight. I believe all of us who flew last night tore this section out at some stage of the proceedings. Just an observation on my own Sumo was that I had 0.7 dia carbon bracing on top of the wing and I didn’t have any tearing. However I didn’t have any bracing on the underside of the wing and the section around the shroud tore out quite badly.
• Whichever side of the fuselage you mount your ESC and Rx on, mount the battery on the opposite side ( it doesn’t need any excuse to fall off the straight and narrow)
• Hot wiring the components out using the Aluminium templates does give you a sealed skinned edge which does give you a slightly tougher, more rigid outer edge than chopping it out with a scalpel.
• The UHU por glue gives a far more flexible joint than foam friendly cyno ( not subject to so much tearing)

All the usual apologies for teaching grandmothers to suck eggs but I just though that it would be worth sharing a few of our findings at this stage of the game to save others a load of grief.

The Sumo is VERY DIFFERENT, it was meant to be ‘a bit of fun’, it was exactly that, and all those present would lay witness to the fact that we had a great laugh trying to get to grips with it. By the end of the evening a few of us even had something which loosely resembled sustained, controlled flight !

  Alan Alderwick

Photos at http://www.glos-mfc.co.uk/malvern/oe1/1.htm  

     http://www.malvernsoaringassociation.co.uk  

 Events http://www.malvernsoaringassociation.co.uk/cal11.html 

results http://www.malvernsoaringassociation.co.uk/tables2011.html