F5B and F5D World Championship Photo Album

Steve Neu shared his photos of the F5B and F5D World Championship for electric powered models in Pitesti, Romania in August 2006. There were teams from 15 countries flying in the F5B glider event and in the F5D pylon racing event.

The F5B gliders fly two tasks for each round. Planes weigh around 2,000 grams and have 1.8 meter wings. The first is a distance event where the pilot tries to get as many laps between two sighting devices set 150 meters apart during a 200 second window. The motor on can only be run when the plane is off the course. This leads to planes that have very fast climb rates. A typical F5B plane will have a 3,000 watt power system and can fly at over 175mph in the distance task The second task for the f5B gliders is 10 minute duration flight. In this task the pilot works to keep the plane in the air for ten minutes using as little motor as possible. As the end of the ten minutes there is a spot landing. The current F5B planes can fly the ten minute duration with five seconds of motor run.

The F5D pylon planes fly around a three pylon course that is about 180 meters in length in the long axis. The current generation F5D racers are running the course at over 190mph and are able to fly ten laps in under sixty seconds. The event is usually flown with three or four planes at a time, but the event is timed for scoring. For low and fast flying this is the event to see! The planes have power systems that are running about 1,000 watts. Weight for the F5D racers is around 1,000 grams with the wing span around 1 meter. The sound of the F5D planes is hard to forget with props turning at speed of up to 50,000 RPM. The planes are hand launched and do not have wheels.