F5J & ALES - Electric Thermal Glider - Archive

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.