I have received a preliminary schedule indicating that the Contest Director and his staff have approved the Toronto Balsa Beavers' 100 Mile Sport Race.

This race has been held every in Toronto every September for the last ten years.   The rules have been sorted out very thoroughly.  We have use of the circle for four hours on Thursday which will allow us to run two three-up races with a total of six entries.  Experience has shown that six teams is the limit of how many people want to go 100 miles, which is 1,400 laps on 60' lines.  

Most teams can do 100 with 20 pit stops in 100 minutes, thus averaging 60 MPH.  Somebody usually wins by doing it in 89 minutes, 67 MPH.  I already have an offer to enter from Bob Whitney.  Any others who want to stake out a place, please check in here.

I am planning to submit a more detailed explanation to CLW by Feb 15th. the deadline for the next issue.

Brad LaPointe, the key man behind the addition of the 100-miler to The Brodak, pitting a Brodak Hot Shot.
Heavy duty hardware, as required to go the distance.  This rig has over 300 miles on it without a malfunction. 

I'll get with Brad on the rules.  We have always been limited to the black Master Airscrew 8/6.  There are two or three models that fit that description and we don't care which you chose.  

I'm sure Brad will chime in with a link to the Balsa Beavers site.  Here's the quick & dirty:

Stock LA 25 on suction
Outboard fuel tank, shutoff recommended by not required
24" prop nut to hinge
300 square inches of wing at least 1" thick.
59'-6" minimum line length .015' 7-strand lines.
House-provided 10/10/10 fuel bought from Ritch's Brew.

The man with the silver plane is Steve Stefanovic.  He's the fastest and he generally wins unless his stuff malfunctions.  He can do it in 1:28 when everything goes well.


You get a special award certificate for going all the way as a pilot or mechanic.  But you can use all the pilots and mechanics you need if somebody gets tired or you want to share the experience.

In the interest of having everybody finish you are allowed to use a spare plane if your the first one is damaged or just not running well.  But you can't just swap out planes repeatedly to exploit the system.

They scheduled us enough time to run two 3-up 100-mile races on Thursday morning.  This is good.

The schedule in total includes the usual Brodak Foxberg (sportsman & expert) on Tuesday afternoon and Brodak Clown (sportsman & expert) on Wednesday afternoon.

So a racer can attend The Brodak and race three days in a row.  Hopefully this will bring out some more participation.

In Foxberg and Clown, Experts are defined by having achieved certain times in past Brodak Fly Ins.   As I recall it's 125 laps in 7.5 minutes for Clown.  I'll have to look up the Foxberg time for 100 laps.