Ohh Im sure it was "in accordance with the rules"
Unless you know absolutely for sure that our National Champion did not build his airplane, you are absolutely wrong.
By MY DEFINITION, there have been countless Nats winners who have uses wings built by someone else.
Sure thats allowed, and its not even frowned upon, I get it.
I source my balsa and foam, built my own cutter, I cut my own core, physically cut my own ribs, lay them in the cradle I cut, glue them all together.
Im not dismissing guys who cant build a straight, light competitive wing..but dont sit there and tell me that building hasnt been compromised even " in accordance with the rules" by allowing ANY prefab parts.
Its pretty simple for me.
Did YOU BUILD the WHOLE plane ?
Its integrity at the end of the day, I wouldn't ever ask or expect the rules to change to allow someone else to FLY it for me, or even let me FLY 1 part of it.. why is this argument any different.
Your entirely open to your opinions.. and i will admit that plenty have won the Nats " in accordance with the rules"
But was it " in the spirit? "
unless it started as a pile of balsa and ended up :
as a completed plane
100% built by the pilot
Then 100% painted by the pilot
And 100 % trimmed by the pilot
And 100% flown by the pilot
I dont think deviation of this is open to interpretation.
National champion used to mean ( to me ) the pinnacle of skill in every area.
Not "we have changed the rules to soften this"
Ok lets forget USA for a moment, the FAI and the pinnacle of this Worlds have been reduced to a flying event.
Its accurate to say there have been "world champions who have built their own planes and others who didnt build their own planes"
Its not a big deal.... Im probably just bitter and resentful I haven't won anything, so dont take what I have to say with any authority..
PJ, I was editor of Stunt News in 2006, 2007, and 2008 and remember the tempest in a teapot that Rich Peabody and others tried to create out of whole cloth about Orestes Hernandez and his Shark. I interviewed Warren Tiahrt and Orestes Hernandez about the Shark and wrote about the false controversy and smear that had no basis in fact in the Nov/Dec 2007 issue of Stunt News on pages 4 and 5. Bottom line is you don't know what you are talking about and are stirring up a false narrative that is beneath you.
Here is the truth as I discovered it: Orestes Hernandez…In His Own Words
(Orestes Hernandez is the 2007 US Control Line Precision Aerobatics Champion. He is also a member of the 2008 United States World Championship Team.)
I’m originally from a small town named Florencia, in north central Cuba. When I was a young man, about 14, a guy came to my town with a model. I remember it well. It was a Nobler. My friend, Jorge Perez, and I started that day to build and fly models with small engines. (Before that we used a PVC plastic tube with batteries inside and one small toy car engine and a little prop. It was my first “model airplane”. It only ran…it never flew because there was no wing in it.) We flew combat for two years. I was the pilot and Jorge was the mechanic, but I always wanted to do one model for stunt. It took a long time to get my first model, a Nobler, constructed. It was almost ready and stored under my bed when I came home one day to see the model broken in pieces in the wastebasket. My parents said they destroyed it because I never paid attention in school and the only thing I thought about was model airplanes. I cried when I saw it and was sad for a long time. Maybe nobody here feels something like that. Things change, though, and my parents are now very proud of me because they know I really love airplanes and am a good flyer. After that I finished high school and entered the military university to be an engineer in motors and fuselages, MIG 21s to 29s and new models to come. In my third year there, for I do not know what reason, they changed me to another profession—electronic high and super high frequency radar. I did not like that and I quit the course. I finished my education in the civil university as a Civil Engineer (structure specialist) but I never got aviation out of my mind. I built a hang glider but never flew it. People thought I was crazy I came to the United States in January of 1998 from Cuba. In August of 2001 I got to hold a handle for the first time after almost 20 years. I remember I flew a Nobler, and in my first flight I made some loops and inverted flight. That flight had been in my mind for the last 20 years, the years without ever holding one handle in my hand. The next week I started flying a Caudron and with that model I flew the complete pattern, even before I finished my first gallon of fuel. After I arrived in the USA I met Orestes Perdomo. With his help I started flying stunt in August of 2001 at Tamiami Park in Miami with my friend Josias Delgado. Enrique Diez, another aeromodeler from Cuba, flew with us then also. Orestes Perdomo told me that there are stores called hobby shops where I could buy kits to build models. From that moment things were fine. I remember Orange Blossom Hobby Shop in Miami where I bought my first Legacy kits. At the time, I was living in upstate New York, in Watertown, and Orestes Perdomo gave me instructions over the phone for building my first model for the 2002 NATs.
January 2002 was my first contest--the King Orange International. I flew one model of Orestes Perdomo’s and without appearance points I got sixth place in Advanced. It was my first experience in my life in stunt competition. In 2002, in my first NATs, I flew a Legacy. I remember buying the Legacy kit in the Orange Blossom Hobby shop. As I remember, I was in the Top Twenty, eleventh place in Advanced I think, but I’m not sure exactly. In the 2003 NATs I was in second place. That was the year of the strongest wind. I remember Kent Tysor was first in Advanced. In 2004 I got to first place (Advanced National Champion) with a Legacy. (At this moment I have two Legacys in my house ready to fly.) That year, 2004, was when I meet Yuriy Yatsenko and I started at that time to work with the Shark Project. 2005 was my first year in Open. I finished in sixth place, so close to the top 5. I flew a warm-up flight for the judges that year in the finals. Fourth place in 2006 was better than the year before but in 2007 I was out of practice all year after the 2006 NATs. I knew I had to get to work. From June 7 to July 1 I made 125 flights, as I remember now. My goal was to keep the fourth place, like the year before. For me it was impressive when I got the first place. I know I worked hard for that. Nobody can do it without much practice, I think. After the 2007 NATs and before the teams trials I spent four gallon plus of fuel--150 flights plus practice in Muncie. This year I think I was the first to arrive in Muncie. After my second practice flight at this year’s Team Trials I met Paul Walker. He was the first person on the field after me. We went to dinner that first night, too, and I want to say that I learned very much watching Paul’s flights and David Fitzgerald’s too.
I have been asked about the Yatsenko Shark I fly. I picked the Shark because the first time I saw the model its fuselage form impressed me. I always try to do something impressive. I had started to build a Caudron but when I discovered the Shark I never finished the Caudron. I will do that soon. Maybe the Caudron will be as lucky as the Shark. At the World Championships in 2004 Yuriy said that they would make kits for me when I insisted that I would need a kit airplane for the US NATs. I was friendly with the Yuriy’s people in Muncie and they seemed to feel good about my experiment with the Shark. Now I think Yuriy is working on a project to make kits available for everyone. I’m not sure when he will finish that project. At this time I have three Sharks done…one per year.
I don’t remember exactly how many hours it took to build the last one but I’m sure I had more than three hundred hours in the first one. The wing is made like a sandwich—two pieces of fiberglas over foam molding. The fuselage and stabilizer are balsa wood with fiberglas molding. The sections were aligned in a jig. The jig is easy to make. You just need a table and some little pieces of wood to align things. I used the Yatsenko controls supplied with the airplane. The paint scheme is my own and uses urethane car paint. My engine is a Discovery Retro. There’s nothing special about it. I use Randy Smith’s PA needle valve and glow plug and Omega FAI fuel. For me, the best prop is the Andreiy wide-tip prop. People ask me how it felt to win the Open competition at the NATs, the Walker Cup, and a place on the World Team. It felt especially good to win the NATs because the members of the 2006 US World Team were there and they are very good flyers. I have a good feeling for a lot of people who congratulated me when I got first place, some of them many times. I will never forget that day nor the day I made the US Team and I thank all the people who helped me in the last six years. I wish the best for everybody.
- Orestes Hernandez
Topic: Modelers vs pilots (Read 8519 times)
