The Fort Bend RC club hosted its third annual pattern contest this past weekend. The weather cooperated for the most part with partly cloudy skies, moderate temperatures, and humidity for September in SE Texas. Winds were direct crosswinds that varied slightly North vs.South all weekend making flight direction pilot's choice throughout the weekend
Leading up to this event I had been working on refining setups on my CA Models EPIC Evo. After redoing the wing and stab alignment and shifting the CG a bit more forward I felt the plane was tracking better in level flight plus up and down lines. Overall the Evo appeared more locked, especially in windy conditions. It was time to test its ability in a competitive situation.
In round one I was caught off guard by not flying with enough energy to overcome the crosswind. The plane was blown-in resulting in making dramatic adjustments to reposition my flight path resulting in score downgrades that were deserved. In the subsequent flights, scores improved by flying with more energy overall. The D3 Governor is amazing in the way it responds to help manage airspeed during both up and downlines in unfavorable conditions. Unlike ESC's I've used in the past the D3 there is no need to throttle down as much in windy/crosswind conditions the D3 senses the prop is unloaded in a downline and braking occurs by the governor regulating RPMs relative to the transmitter stick position. The ah-ha moment for me was discovering not having to reduce the throttle as much as I would in more favorable wind conditions. At this higher rpm stick position, braking still occurred on downlines and carry more energy thru a bottom radius. When establishing level flight the D3 senses the loaded prop and responds by increasing the RPMs relative to the stick position. The D3 makes it easier to control energy and pace in windy conditions.
It was a successful weekend. I learned a bunch about how to fly in direct crosswinds and power management with the D3 Governor. Despite a slow beginning, I was fortunate to come away with the win.
EPIC Evo details:
- Radio - Futaba 32MZ / 7108rx
- Servos - HV digtal
- Motor - Hacker C54
- ESC - D3 governor
- Prop - APC Carbon 22x13
- Spinner - Falcon
- Batteries - motor TP 10s 5000 / RX TP 2s 910
- Landing gear - Falcon
- RTF weight - 4756grams
