Well last practice done, (hopefully) all equipment packed, tommorow morning im driving to Znojmo (CZ) to take part in Europe Extreme Flight Championship, from participant list you can tell level will be real hi. This year news is team competition, i will fly with last year EXFC champion Gernot Bruckmann, this will be quite fun experience since we are the only team that have pilots from different countries.

 As i wrote in last article, i will use Extreme Flight RC 110inch YAK 54, so far i made about 60 flights with this plane and im really happy with my setup and YAK flying characterystics. 

First hover affter brake in. 

 Big models is new experience for me, and im gratefull for some friends imput and advices, Mathew Poots gave me some advices how to improve cooling. First few test flights i made with canopy without any plate in front, and i notice engine become quite hot. Such setup mean allot of air was able to go in cowling, but there was not enought area to leave.

Here is Mathew advice;

I noticed one thing from your photographs on your site which I would recommend you do. Although the cowl opening on the Yak is huge, very little air will flow over the cylinder heads with the big hole in the front. The air will simply flow outside of the cowl and not cool the engine well. What we do and many others is to create some ducting which forces the air straight onto the cylinders. We have carried out tests with this and here is one interesting result, a DA100 on a QQ Yak54 with the cowl off (so the engine was in open air) after a flight, engine temperature at the cylinder head was 92 deg, we let the engine cowl and put the cowl on with ducting, then flew again, temperature was 56 deg at the cylinder head after the flight. I have attached a few pictures of ducting, we just use some light ply and light glass cloth to bond it to the cowl.  

I did exactly like Mathew suggest and result was amazing, engine themperature was much lower.

Next update i mount was PowerBox smoke pump, it help not only to make flight more atractive for spectators but also to set up right C.G.

Soft mounted pump from Powerbox, very reliable unit.

Smoke pump is connected to both headers, i ask for such modification for MTW.

 Build with German quality!!!

 Some random pictures of YAK during practice;

 Some evening/night flying in Alytus;

If i find internet, i will try to update my page with some news from EXFC, this should be amazing week!!!

 Sory guys for really late update, but its crazy time for me right now..;) Anyway few weeks ago together with Evaldas we visit one of biggest RC shows in Europe. This time it was quite different from shows i flew in past. ICM show was held in Ferta Alais airfield, with very nice gras runway, and interesting background. This field had few working WW2 planes, it was quite interesting to see them in flight.

Mr. Christophe Paysant le Roux

 Votec from versailess modeles import, that i flew in show.

  Powered by 6S 4400mah Flight Power EonX lypo and unique AXI 5320/18 motor.

VMI stand.

Bill Hempel planes was flown by Belgium demo team.

Sasha Fliegener C ARF Yak powered by DA-170, unfortunately because of to bussy schedule and strict french organizers possition Sasha was unable to fly in show...

 Bipe that was 2009 poster, really amazing plane.

Most impressive plane i saw durring the weekend, unfortunately because of propeler blade failure plane, was damaged on friday and was unable to fly in show....

Waiting line.

 Im glad to announce that i won Virtual Freestyle challenge in Unlimited class. As far as i know this was biggest online simulator contest, total 54 videos were sent, not as much as expected but still number is quite impressive. I would like to say thank you for www.acro3d.com team and competition sponsors, for big work and donated prizes! Thx to this contest i have new Artistic Aerobatic routine for World Air Games!

 Here you can find full competition results with all videos.

 Several people ask what plane i flew in contest and what radio setup i use. First of all lets start from simulator, many years i was fan of AFPD, but after testing Real Flight 4, i saw big improvement since old versions. In RF4 planes fly more realistic, i would say its harder to fly 3D in RF compared to AFPD, so i believe this is good thing that will help you improve in real life flying.

For setup i always try to setup my freestyle planes with only one mode, its quite hard to find right spot where plane could fly smooth big and precise maneuvers and also wild 3D, but with some work its possible. On sim video is use stock Yak 54 with streamers from RF 4. Here is my radio setup:

Aileron DR 125%, EXP +50%

Elevator DR 125%, EXP +30%

Rudder DR 125%, EXP +20%

Good luck in flying, and see you on field!

 Our good friends from Netherlands at the end of December will be organizing unforgetable show/cometition "Wall-halla NL", it was inspired by last year very successful show/synchro flight competition Wallhalla in Germany that was organized by Mr. Martin Muller, Stephanie Schwan and Markus Zolitsch . Looks like competition in Natherlands will be main F3P event for 2008/2009 year.

 Such pilots as Martin Muller, Derk/Bert Van Der Vecht , Gernot Bruckmann, Benoit Dierickx, Denis Horn and many more will compete in spectator friendly competition, that will include Synchro flight  Aeromusical, new modiffied F3P 09 sequence, famous CZ Airrace and Aeromusical!!!

Here is my last practice video for Synchro AM competition with Gernot (his 2007 AM routine);