Events

Flying rules for F3J are quite straight-forward and require as much flight time as possible in a ten minute “slot” period ending with a precision landing.  The gliders are flown in groups (usually of between six and ten models at a time) so as to neutralise the effect of any one slot having nothing but “poor air” so resulting in nothing but low flight times for that slot.  The model should be landed close to a marked target spot to get landing bonus points.  In competitions, launching is generally accomplished in Australian events with a power winch but hand towing (150 metre line) is a requirement for international status events and two persons are allowed to tow. 

These two tow men generally use a pulley and stake and, by so doing, even more power can be injected into the model than from a power winch giving rise to quite spectacular launches.  Because the flyers believe that some of the group who will find thermal air to allow for a ten minute flight (and they can re-launch if they choose anyway), flyers will launch simultaneously at the start of the slot time; this gives a quite spectacular start to the slot and the landings, if multiple models fly out the ten minutes can be equally exciting.

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A Discus Launch Glider (DLG) is a radio controlled model sailplane  launched using a 'discus launch' in which the glider is held by a wingtip and rotated around the flyer by hand before release. Using this method of launching the average flier can achieve launch heights of greater than 140 feet (43 m), with the better throwers exceeding 200-foot (61 m) high launches.

The discus method of hand launching has now in effect replaced the older 'javelin style' launch, where a hand launched model glider would be launched over-arm, like a javelin would be thrown. The discus launch is far easier, more efficient and less physically demanding than the javelin launch.

F3K is the international contest class for radio controlled, hand-launched model gliders.

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F5J is an electric motor launched version of F3J.  No high cost motor/battery combination is needed and the maximum wing span is 4 metres.
The maximum (and only) motor run allowed is 30 seconds.  There is a penalty based on the maximum height reached from launch to 10 seconds after the motor is turned off. Normally 0.5 points up to 200 metres and 3.0 points for each metre over 200 metres.  There is a device in each model that records the height during the launch phase of the flight and allows only one motor run up to 30 seconds.  There is no penalty related to motor run time.The flight target time is 10 minutes measured from the time the model leaves the hand to the time the model touches the ground.  No landing bonus if the flight time exceeds 10 minutes. The landing bonus is a maximum of 50 points.The aim is to use the minimum launch height needed to achieve the 10 minutes, and this is a matter of fine judgement since there is only one motor run.

ALES (Altitude Limited Electric Soaring) is a competition class for electric powered gliders. Gliders are all flown to a set altitude where the motor is turned off for the remainder of the flight. A thermal duration task is then flown and the flight ends with a precision landing component.

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Scale presents a different scope to RC soaring which is reproducing the characteristics of full size sailplanes in scale versions. The discipline of scale includes reproducing full size aerodynamic principals to scale representations, scale detail for visual representation and then finally scale flight characteristics and piloting.

Many of the scale events are aerotow based and display the process of aerotow with a scale tow plane, just like the full size. Scale slope events tend to be a little more relaxed as the focus is on seeing scale sailplanes closer up which is the vantage that is provided from the slope.

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