Great video. Looks like a lovely flying site and club. Wish my local club was so well appointed, here in the UK. Just getting into F3RES, waiting the purchase and build of my first kit for it. Returning to flying after a long break. Great to see younger flyers. Here in the UK we seem to have sadly seen a big decline now. But hopefully that will change.
I agree, great video. This is such a nice class of glider, of similar span and weight to F1A (A/2) free flight. The built-up wood construction, combined with the effective but moderate Histart launch, achieves what was meant to be achieved with F3J in the early 1980's. Firstly, in the late 1970's the Austrians, Swiss and Germans devised small F3B gliders of composite construction which could fly very fast and take a strong 12 volt winch launch. Then, in 1981, the Canadian team from BC (and an American... I used to fly my Paragon on the field where they practised) showed up at the F3B Worlds in California with Kevlar ships and 36 volt winches. Although they didn't win, they so terrified everyone that the FAI promptly made restrictive rules about F3B winches, and created an F3J class for thermal gliders launched by hand-towing, no doubt expecting that traditional slower gliders would dominate. Of course, we know how THAT turned out!
