The indoor free flight venue is the Templeton Community Hall
Some of you may not be aware that CMAC hires the Christchurch City Council hall at Templeton on a monthly basis where indoor model flying occurs – and that is held on the second Sunday of every month generally between the hours of 1.30pm-3.30pm.
So what is indoor flying you might ask – as an ex control liner and r/c pylon flier perhaps I am the wrong person to ask – however here are my views.
Indoor flying is not unlike that of free flight.
We can define free flight models as in principle being either scale models, or those contest models that are flown to attain their best flight times – and except for the open power events are all unaided except for the wind currents and precise trimming…. and all are built and flown to the MFNZ rulebook. Some are powered by either rubber or motor; and others are glider types which are simply ‘trimmed’ to perform at their best in the outdoor conditions. Weather does play a big part in all of this and many a thermal has been followed to attain the best possible recorded flight times. Of course the flying sites are generally very large…. a good example of that is the Willows site.
In contrast to that indoor flying is, as the name suggests flown in halls that are generally large in size and with a high ceiling; and as to be expected there are many more restrictions viz model size, weight, and the need for exceptionally good trimming practices. To attain the best possible flight times the indoor models are built very light – the average model weight is measured in grammes and not pounds – and to attain this the models have a bare minimum balsa structure with the flying surfaces covered in a very lightweight film or tissue. For propulsion they have a ‘special’ type of rubber formed into a band attached to the propeller and a hook at the rear of the fuselage which is wound to a required number of turns to provide the rotation of the propeller – I suspect there is an acquired knowledge as to how many turns the rubber is wound as that will determine the performance of the model. The launch procedure is quite simple-both the model and propeller are held in the hand, and on release of the propeller the forward propulsion for the model is created by the rubber band slowly unwinding and of course that then turns the propeller…. this sounds simple but there will be a complex technology relating to both the propeller structure and pitch that I certainly have no intimate knowledge of.
So why don’t the models hit the walls and ceiling of the hall you might ask…. the models are very carefully trimmed to fly in circles at a slow rate and the modeler has set the model flight characteristics by altering the angle of the wing with wash-in or wash-out, and/or altering the angle of the tailplane – they all have an effect on the flight path. The indoor modeler is generally very experienced at the trimming of such models and the last thing that he/ she wants is to damage their model. – BigT