Sunday 27 October 2013

Vendetta

Here's a interesting thing... Inigo Herrera has produced the Vendetta as a personal project but is prepared to produce a couple to recoupe some of the cost.

The Vendetta can in many ways be considered a prototype for the Viper. Inigo has done a very good job of building them and the quality is excellent. In the air it is equally impressive, with good straight line speed, excellent cornering and great energy retention. It has fuselage and wing ballast and is capable of carrying over 2kg of ballast.

Some really good information and photos from Inigo are here.

If you're interested in acquiring one at a very reasonable price contact Inigo.

Saturday 26 October 2013

Holy crap...

Sunday 13 October 2013

La Muela fun

More from La Muela soon, in the meantime here's some video fun...

La Muela 2013 from Kevin Newton on Vimeo.

Saturday 5 October 2013

Rotmilan

It's time for a quick update on the Rotmilan now that I've flown it a lot more.

My initial impressions were of excellent quality, great looks and very impressive flying characteristics. After spending several months flying it as my number one model I have if anything become even more impressed.

The quality is as good as planes twice its price. In fact, with fuselage ballast, crisp fit and finish, pull for up really neatly done and excellent wing linkages there is a real joy of ownership about the Rotmilan that makes it one of the best packages I've ever seen.

The flying is excellent whether you're flying old school or energy management. The Rotmilan also gobbles ballast and carries the energy beautifully. The fuselage ballast is handy and I regularly fill up the joiner too. As a bonus, it is without doubt one of the easier models to set up.

You can pick one up from Milan Demčišák Jr for €1,090, which probably makes it the most readily available, best value top class F3F machine out there. Why one earth wouldn't you drop Milan an email or visit the RTG website?




Viper - TecnoEpoxy

I recently spent a really interesting few hours with team Medina who run TecnoEpoxy.

I've had one of their Vector DS's for years. Not only is it a great DS model it os also a fun alrounder that's fun to fly and massively strong and versatile for those untested slopes. In fact mine has done thousands of miles as it permanently lives in my camper van.

It was really interesting to see the CAD design and moulds for their new F3F model the Viper. The Vendetta, which Jorge helped design, has many similarities and its performance is excellent. Jorge intents to use the excellent LDS system rather than RDS. The prototype fuselage was very light yet incredibly strong.

Production should be underway by Christmas. Contact team Medina if you want to know more or get on the waiting list. Also check out their website for some interesting UAV stuff and their excellent Latigo F3K model.   


Friday 4 October 2013

Welsh Open 2013

Welsh Open 2013

Day one was tricky, with a light wind that dipped intermittently below 3 ms, causing several reflies. By flying until it was virtually dark we managed to squeeze three rounds in.

Unfortunately those three rounds were all that we would manage as the dreaded Welsh clag (low cloud) set in making flying F3F impossible for the next two days. So with three rounds we had enough for a result but it did not qualify as a Eurotour result.

The conditions were pretty variable as evidenced by some pilots of the highest quality finishing well down the order (poor Stefan took some stick!) but Pete Gunning has been knocking at the door for a while now and thoroughly deserved his win and was very happy to get his name on the legendary Welsh Open Trophy and to win the excellent prizes provided by MKS servos. Team GBU of Thornton, Newnham and Newton again took the team prize.

Model-wise there were the usual Freestylers and Needles. I was flying a Rotmilan and I can't understand why there aren't more of these around, it really is an excellent package that is remarkable value. It's fantastic quality, a stunningly good all-round plane and costs less that £1,000.

The Vendetta from Inigo Herrera looked really good - and I'll add a few words and photos about that soon. It is in some ways the prototype for the new Viper from TecnoEpoxy in Spain - which looks very interesting indeed. There was also the new Merlin being sold by T9, which looks like incredible value.



1
Peter Gunning Mickey's Massive
2718.40
2
Jose Luis Alvares Paketes
2691.74
3
Martin Newnham GBU
2672.17
4
Gerardo Plaza TWC
2659.98
5
Simon Thornton GBU
2658.85
6
Joel West Mickey's Massive
2605.30
7
Inaki Elizondo TWC
2585.88
8
Graeme Mahoney
2574.37
9
Paul Upton RPM
2563.81
10
Scott Ravenscroft
2556.87
11
Fernando Moro Paketes
2547.35
12
Paul Garnet
2540.18
13
John Phillips
2534.15
14
Richard Bago RPM
2481.68
15
Mark Abbots Team Wrecker
2475.84
16
Frank Hulton Team Willow
2472.23
17
Tom McPherson FARTS
2465.90
18
Mark Redsell
2464.56
19
Kevin Newton GBU
2441.58
20
Tony Livingston
2431.44
21
John Edison FARTS
2414.37
22
Keith Wood FARTS
2410.04
23
Alvaro Silgado TWC
2409.57
24
Carlos Rivero
2403.09
25
Mick Walsh
2370.47
26
Andy Burgouyne Team Willow
2369.13
27
Jorge Medina Team Buckaroo
2368.37
28
Markus Meinssner
2327.25
29
Ronnie Lampe Team Wrecker
2320.70
30
Inigo Herrera Team Buckaroo
2283.72
31
Dave Rumble Team Wrecker
2281.01
32
Tony Robertson Paketes
2270.99
33
Ian Web
2259.82
34
Mark Treble
2259.23
35
Lazaro Martinez Team Buckaroo
2253.90
36
Martin Drewitt
2241.99
37
Ian Mason Team Willow
2198.36
38
Daniel Schneider
2190.95
39
John Treble
2174.04
40
Stefan Bertschi Mickey's Massive
2156.82
41
Mike Evans
2148.55
42
Thomas Henselmann
2132.16
43
Tom Foreman RPM
2111.87
44
Paul Stubley
1950.19
45
Marcelino Punal
1589.01


1
GBU
7772.60
2
TWC
7655.44
3
Paketes
7510.09
4
Mickey's Massive
7480.52
5
FARTS
7290.30
6
RPM
7157.35
7
Team Wrecker
7077.55
8
Team Willow
7039.72
9
Team Buckaroo
6905.99
10
Tea Swillers
4725.10