[Brad] hey guys welcome to Nighthawk gliders. I'm Brad. Today we're at the
West Baden Springs Hotel in West Baden Indiana, just south of Bloomington a few
miles, and we're here to watch the Jim Richmond Open and the World Championship
for the FAI F1D airplanes. As you can see these are very slow flyers and they're
amazing free flight airplanes and we wanted to experience this firsthand.
We want to find an expert though. We are obviously beginners in this whole thing
and trying to understand how this all works and we need to find somebody who
actually knows his stuff. I wish I remembered his name. No, I know his name but we... Who we're
hunting for I'm gonna keep a secret there for now. But he's supposed to be here soon.
Hey look! Here he is. Nice to see you! [Josh] Nice to see you!
We have Josh Finn here and apparently you've come prepared with a balloon so the the
Yeah it's a birthday party. I mean everybody is having a birthday.
The actual purpose of the of the balloons is to steer the airplanes around so when you're up at this height...
Actually we can see a couple balloons being positioned right now. This big blue
one, is one of the Romanians, and he's attempting to catch an airplane with it
and steer it out of trouble. [Brad] Nice! [Josh] So what they do is they snag them
by the propeller, pull them to the location, and they generally pull to the left a little bit
and that disengages the airplane.
The time the propeller is stopped is
subtracted from the flight time because otherwise you can just leave it on the
balloon for an hour. [Brad] yeah obviously so you don't want to do anything about like
trying to control its altitude. [Josh] Correct there are specific rules against that.
So there are definitely a few dangers in here as far as like you know
[Josh] Yes! So we could see every imaginable type of hang up. On the balcony,
On tops of the pillars, the pillars are the worst, up in the rafters I don't know if there any
pieces of airplanes up in the rafters today but there were plenty
yesterday. Plenty of carnage. [Brad] Ah, so a lot of chance for a mishap shall we say?
Yes, yes plenty of mishaps... this is very challenging stuff. It seems like a
very busy airspace. Yes it is and we've seen a variety of midairs. In fact
there was one earlier in which an airplane exploded, unfortunately.
Okay so why would it explode? The motor sticks are very heavily loaded.
So, the rubber motors are wound very tight and probably something impacted that
highly-tensioned motor stick and at that point it's just... it's kind of like
you can stand on a Coke can, but if you tap it just even tap it on the side it
collapses. [Brad] Okay, so there's a quick release of that tension and would
break the very delicate parts of it. Yeah that would be an explosion!
We also sometimes explode wings from over speeding. [Brad] Over speeding?
So, like instead of one mile an hour it's like two is too fast. [Josh] yeah. hold any given
[Brad] Does it fold up? [Josh] It can fold up any given direction it chooses.
Sometimes several at once!
[Brad] Fantastic... So lots of drama [Josh] Oh Yes.
["Jeremiah's Song" playing by Dan Lebowitz - Bright Country & Folk Guitar]
The number of airplanes up in the air was astonishing!
[Brad] Joshua Finn to do another launch.
There are a good number of planes flying today...
and a little bit of breeze in certain areas so josh is trying to go a little
bit more towards the center where there's a little less turbulence.
Here he goes.
I like its climb at the beginning it's pretty steep.
All right we're on a mission to alter its course with a balloon.
[Josh] Keep it up as long as possible.
[Spectator] Did you win?
[Josh] No, not yet!
[Brad] It's moving towards the middle.
[Brad] Okay Josh, another mishap? [Josh] Yeah so I'm loading up another
motor stick here and I'll show you in just a second after I get this on. We blew this
one in half. I think it was a mistake in how I was loading the motor. I think I
bent it to the side... but I'm not certain and it's one of those things I can fix
it but it'll add weight more importantly I don't have time to fix issues. We've
got like an hour and a half and I've gotta get Hope.. Uh, help her get a 20 on the board.
She's well within striking range of that so the problem is I had to
unwind the motor I don't know if that motor is gonna take another wind...
and I've got to re-trim the airplane. I'm gonna have to move a wing post because
if you look at this one you can see the underside of the wings sticking out here
so it's supposed to be is over like that. [Brad] Good luck with that! [Josh] Well i'll show you how we're going to do it.
I mount the wing post in the motor stick with Duco Cement.
[Brad] So that's gonna break up the glue joint? [Josh] Yes the thing is we've got to get our
wing more in here this airplane will crash otherwise...
Crashed very spectacularly earlier several times due to that. Yeah it's not been the best day for my flying...
Which is ironic because I'm in second place. I'm the master of quick recovery.
[Brad] That's what makes it!
["Jeremiah's Song" continues]
This was recorded on my iPhone 7 using time lapse...
Then, in iMovie, it was changed to slower speed.
[Brad] So this is a test motor, right? [Josh] Yes. [Brad] It's about a quarter the uh... [Josh] Yes, this is a quarter motor.
So we're going to make a full torque quarter motor to make certain nothing is weird.
[Bud] You got the big baby, you got the big baby!
[Josh] Uh, huh!
By the way we should mention this is Bud Romak. [Brad] Hey Bud!
[Josh] Bud, Bud, get in the video.
Bud is a former F1D world champion. [Bud] Years ago... ancient history, 1976. [Josh] Yeah well it was kind of a big deal.
[Bud] In 67 I made the team is 67 here.
[Josh] mmm-hmm Here? Really? That's interesting.
[Brad] Do you still fly? [Bud] Yeah I fly... go to the salt mines and fly in the Otto Hints Memorial
[Josh] You fly quite well I see videos of you all the time.
[Bud] Hell, I'm 90 years old...
[Brad Chuckles]
[Hope] You look good for 90!
Alright, Josh's airplane.
[Josh] See, now it's drifting back this way. [Evan Guyett] You're way up there now aren't you?
[Josh] Yeah, There's almost no hope of it making it. [Hope] It's going through the rafters.
[Evan] Hey, you'll never know...
[Evan] Aw... it's just kind of resting... well [Brad] And now it stopped.
[Josh] Alright, now the fun part.
[Hope] Flight's over. [Stopwatch beeps]
[Brad] Retrieval!
[Jeremiah's Song continues]
[Brad] Oh, that's crazy
This time lapse taken from the center of the floor...
looking straight up at the dome.
[Bruce] There she goes
[Brad] Collapse! Yikes! Good catch, Josh!
[Brad] Looks like it's holding. [Bruce] Yeah.
[Brad] It's in a good spot, though [Josh] Yes, it is largely staying put.
[Josh] Which is surprising right now.
[Brad] I like how the sunlight comes in and lights it up!
[Josh] Oh yes, it is absolutely beautiful.
[Brad] Okay Hope's is about to land or hit somebody...
and it's gonna hit the chair, looks like, and land right in the chair.
[Brad] Nope!
[Brad] Well good for her that gives our few more seconds.
[Bruce] Still going. [Brad] Oh my goodness... and there it hit.
Only one person can win. As John Kagan says, "Lance Armstrong is the Jim Richmond
of bicycle racing." But today people taking over...
so the winner of the first Jim Richmond open is Evan Guyett! [Crowd cheers!]
Thank you all for coming out.
We'll see you this next week for a great world championship!
Thank you! [Crowd cheers!]
[Jeremiah's Song continues]
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