The August bank holiday is fast approaching and that can mean only one thing – The BMFA British National Championships. This year the event will take place on the 29th, 30th and 31st of August at Barkston Heath, Near Grantham. There will be a model air show on Saturday and Sunday and on Sunday there will be a giant trade fair featuring buyers and sellers of RC helicopters and planes. The event is classed as a swapmeet so if you need to upgrade your machine or are thinking about changing to a new machine this is the place to be.

The BMFA is the national governing body for the flying of all model aircraft. There are around 780 affiliated clubs around the UK and it has over 36000 members. The club does not just host events; it actively promotes model flying in the UK and speaks to the Civil aviation Authority on a regular basis and also maintains links with the CIAM and FAI.

Being a BMFA member has many benefits including, £5million third party insurance cover, members’ handbook, instructor Schemes, education programmes and all types of assistance and support to model flyers from every level of expertise.

If you and your electric helicopters have a few days spare late September, why not book a short break? Spaces are going fast, but there’s still time to book a camping spot at Croft Farm – home to the annual BMFA 3D Championships. It’s a Camping and Caravanning Club site, so take your cards if you’re members to get a discount.

Those not taking part still have plenty of room to fly their electric helicopters. The weekend kicks off with a fun fly event open to all-comers, so pack your Walkera and ESky. A lot of other RC helicopters will be there with the same idea, so we highly recommend you invest in a 2.4GHz transmitter/receiver, if you haven’t got one already.

The competition is divided into three rounds: freestyle with set manoeuvres; freestyle without music and freestyle with music. The two highest scores are combined to determine the final fly-off, with the lowest overall scores being eliminated.

RC helicopters are entered into various classes depending on their fuel type and size. Pilots are divided into intermediate and advanced fliers. The top five from each class are chosen for the fly-offs. There are trophies for the winners in each class, and one for the overall winner.

The set manoeuvres system is very fair – pilots create a display that includes just four set exercises from a list of several they download before the day. This allows them a lot of flexibility with their RC helicopters during the event itself with regard to weather conditions etc. The judges must know what manoeuvres they have chosen before the event starts, however.

The Freestyle (1) must be done without music. This is where pilots can show off all that they and their radio control Helicopters are capable of. Marks are given for content, structure, smoothness and style. Freestyle (2) is set to music of the pilot’s own choosing. Marks are given for synchronisation, appearance and technical merit. This is the part of the contest where RC Helicopters go mad with coloured smoke etc!

The entire competition is geared towards creativity and freestyle flight. Even the set manoeuvres section has marks for content design. There are some great radio control helicopters on display and a night flying competition for, and we stress, electric helicopters only. Remember to pack those LCD night flying lights.

This event has just been released. Full details, including entry forms, can be found via the link on Paul’s Helicopter Pages (http://www.rchelicopter.co.uk/events.htm) where you will find plenty of other stuff about RC helicopters as well.

Even if you don’t intend to go, here is a run-down of the schedule for the weekend. It’s a good template for you to build your own event around – maybe get you and your mates together for a “burn off” with your electric helicopters.

As is the norm with RC helicopters, all entrants must have a BMFA B certificate, or its equivalent (for people bringing their RC helicopters over from the US, it’s an AMA certificate) Entry is via online application ONLY (no just turning up on the day, unless you’re a spectator) and costs £20.

Everyone who takes part will get a nice medallion to take home, wherever their electric helicopters are placed. The final winner gets a cup.

There are two events, the freestyle and set manoeuvres. RC helicopters fly both, with the combined score deciding the final fly-off. RC helicopters are divided into three classes for both events. Electric helicopters (of all sizes); nitro 50 and nitro 90. There is also a junior and veteran class.

The freestyle event

Entrants have 31/2 minutes to put their electric helicopters through their paces, showing off the most complicated 3D manoeuvres they can think up in a choreographed display. Marks are given for content, smoothness of execution, structure of display and flying style.

Set manoeuvres event

A 3 minute schedule of set manoeuvres, judged on technical merit, execution and overall appearance.

Although the competition was planned to give pilots in the forthcoming UK Championships some experience, it differs from the formal BMFA competition in several respects, one of which is the set manoeuvres section.

Unlike the championship, where there is a predetermined schedule that all pilots must conform to, at Park Hall the pilots can decide their own manoeuvres. This allows for more flexibility in marking and also lets pilots iron out their weak spots (or show off their strong ones) before they take their RC helicopters off to the big event in September.

This also makes it an excellent starting point for anyone thinking of entering their RC electric helicopters for competitions.

The show is for everyone, of all standards – there are no classes based on skill criteria. The winner may not necessarily be the best flier, but the best improved. That might just be you.

A lot of clubs running fly in events for radio control helicopters seem to have lost their web presence. Several UK clubs have handed back their domain names, while others have had no new updates for months. The clubs themselves are still thriving, so maybe the owners are just too busy flying electric helicopters to bother with their web pages.

Park Hall, as usual, never lets us down. As well as an excellently maintained website (at http://www.parkhallheli.org.uk) they are constantly coming up with new ideas to keep the world of radio control helicopters thriving.

Hot off the press is a new 3D event for August. It ties in nicely with the UK 3D Championships being held in September (for more on this, see separate article) The Park Hall 3D Cup event takes place on the 8th and 9th August at the club field in historic West Hallam Village, Derbyshire. Details of the event can be found on the club website, together with an entry form.

As usual it’s a friendly event, open to all-comers. Camping is provided on site and if you get tired of watching RC helicopters, there is always the historic village to explore.

This is an excellent occasion for those of you who have been flying RC electric helicopters for a while to get a taste of what competitive flying is all about. Park Hall have devised it with championship newcomers in mind, allowing pilots to practice in a championship environment before the event itself. However, the format has been adapted to allow as many as possible to take part, including newbies to the sport of flying RC helicopters.

The Park Hall 3D Cup has two rounds: set manoeuvres and freestyle flying. The two scores added together will determine the fly-off. All electric helicopters are judged as one group, with prizes for each category (electric, 50 nitro and 90 nitro RC helicopters) with an overall winner selected from the three groups.

More details on the competitive classes and other events will follow in the next article. If you’re anywhere near Ilkeston in August, we’d say this is one RC event you can’t turn down.

Radio control helicopters have at last hit the world’s headlines. The RC helicopters concerned are not your average 450 pod-and-boomer, of course. We’re talking about the Lockheed Martin/Kaman aerospace K-MAX unmanned RC helicopters, full-sized versions of the single seater heavy lifting choppers they already supply.

The reason KMAX have hit the headlines is because the US Marines are to deploy them for use as supply craft in Afghanistan. You can’t fail to have been moved by recent news events involving our own troop casualties. Well, several of those were manning overland road convoys – the MOD’s preferred method of ferrying supplies through hostile enemy territory. The US, meanwhile, uses mainly helicopters – and suffers far fewer fatalities as a result.

The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (don’t you just love the name?) is constantly advancing military helicopter technology. Any RC enthusiast would love a job here; the researchers are always building scale model RC Helicopters to try out their latest ideas (a crashed T-Rex is one thing, a crashed test pilot quite another).

The Warfighting Lab were working on a prototype for a cheap, reliable helicopter that could fly high, carry heavy loads of 5000lb or more and operate effectively in the hottest weather. Until they discovered the K-MAX UAV, they could never have imagined RC helicopters had already gone full-size. What’s more, they looked a damn sight more like conventional aircraft than the rotational prototypes in their own labs.

Kaman have developed a revolutionary new system of tandem rotor, similar to the principle of co-axial electric helicopters. However, the contra-rotating blades are placed side by side, rather than above each other. The only other full-size contra-rotational craft in regular use are tandems like Chinooks, although prototype co-axial passenger helicopters have been developed.

KMAX RC helicopters can lift loads of up to 6000lb. They have already been tested in non-combat situations like high altitude logging, pylon transport, and fighting forest fires. They are expected to have their first military use in February, 2010.

One of the Chinook helicopters used in the Falklands is today being used by the RAF in Afghanistan – and her pilots wouldn’t change her for the world.

Chinook RC helicopters have long been popular with enthusiasts of scale model helicopters. The unique tandem rotor design and impressive military livery certainly make them stand out from the crowd. It is relatively easy to personalise Chinook electric helicopters with model paints and decals, with many pilots copying a specific aircraft.

Bravo November is already a firm favourite in the nation’s hearts – now, she can be recreated in miniature. It’s worth remembering that judges at scale model shows mark hand finished electric helicopters far higher than those purchased “off the shelf.” The prize winners always have immaculate attention to detail.

The real Bravo November has a long and distinguished service career. She has won her pilots no fewer than three DFCs, and holds the world record for the largest number of troops carried in a single flight. Her official code is ZA718, but her tail letters are BN – which is how she got her name. A small brass plaque inside tells personnel that she is older than most of those boarding her – a fiddly little extra that won’t be necessary on scale replica electric helicopters.

The Mail describes her as a “great grey workhorse.” Look at some pics of the Corgi Chinook model to get an idea of how easy she is to replicate. The Walkera range of electric helicopters includes an excellently detailed Chinook that is just right for transformation. Remember the extras like night lights – Bravo November won one of her medals for rescuing wounded troops from hostile territory in pitch darkness. Then all you need are the appropriate decals and a few battle scars.

Oh yes, the battle scars. Bravo November has experienced everything from crashing at sea to sustained attack from Apache gunships, so if you are a pilot who tends to crash their RC helicopters – this is an ideal project for you.

Radio control helicopters are playing a bigger and bigger role in military work and they don’t come much bigger than K-MAX. These full-sized, unmanned, radio control helicopters have already been used for logging and to fight bush fires. Now they’ve been drafted into the US Marines – as supply craft in Afghanistan. They are uniquely equipped to carry heavy loads in hot desert regions, in places where humans can’t go.

K-Max RC helicopters (or K-MAX Unmanned Multi-Mission Helicopters, as their builders, Kaman Aerospace, call them) are actually modified versions of their single-seater K-MAX heavy-lift helicopters.

Like co-axial electric helicopters, they use a dual contra-rotating system that eliminates the need for a tail rotor. However, you are unlikely to see RC helicopters like these in the shops – Kaman have created a unique intermeshed rotor system with the blades placed side by side rather than one above the other. Like co-axial radio control helicopters, the blades rotate in opposite directions, placed at an angle so they don’t collide.

The unique rotor design means K-MAX RC helicopters have one of the greatest lifting capacities in the world - a staggering 6000lb, more than their own weight. The weight is carried by means of a tether, utilised once the aircraft is hovering.

The helicopters have an impressive 75 mile flight range and are operated by two pilots with transmitters, one at each end of the journey. According to the Kaman website, the K-MAX uses

“… a Lockheed Martin mission management system that translates the ground operator’s wishes into viable mission plans and provides any necessary guidance while the craft is in the air.”

In other words, they use a sophisticated version of the transmitters we use with our own RC helicopters.

This is one time when mere words definitely aren’t enough. You can catch K-MAX RC helicopters in flight on YouTube. Before you ask, model manufacturers are already working on K-MAX electric helicopters in time for Christmas.

People who remember TV shows of the 1980s will surely remember “Airwolf”, the spy action drama which became a cult among fans of electric helicopters. With a new movie in the offing, a whole load of new replica RC helicopters look set to emerge – alongside the ones that are already out there.

Briefly, the series was based around the adventures of a top-secret supersonic helicopter fitted with a whole array of props – sorry, military gadgetry – designed to make the chopper totally indestructible (as well as eminently nickable by the bad guys). The pilot - called, would you believe, Stringfellow Hawke - played very much second fiddle to the awesome heli hardware.

Lots of 3D action then – especially by the full-sized converted Bell 222 that carried the series through 5 seasons and 79 episodes The series created its stunts with full-size, rather than RC helicopters, and ever since then RC pilots have been playing Stringfellow Hawke across the globe.

People mistakenly think that scale model RC electric helicopters are limited to co-axial, but this isn’t true. While the majority of RTF electric helicopters are of this type, it isn’t a necessity. There are numerous scale fuselage kits that convert collective pod-and-boom RC helicopters into Airwolf lookalikes.

RC Mods has two high quality glass fibre kits that convert E-SKY Belt-CP electric helicopters into scale replicas of the Airwolf. They are available in red or blue and yes, we know the original was a black-and-white Bell conversion, but this way you can create either the “good guy” Airwolf or its “evil twin” Redwolf, using model paints to add the details.

The kits fit a whole load of other 450 RC Helicopters, although you may need to do a bit of tinkering to make them fit properly.

However, there is a growing trend to create scale fuselages from scratch, with owners cobbling together different radio control helicopters, and making props themselves, to create their replicas. They go to tremendous lengths to make their pod-and-boom RC helicopters look and fly just like the real thing, adding homemade weaponry and sound effects, and even putting Stringfellow Hawke in the driving seat!

Oh, alright then. For the benefit all of our lady pilots, Stringfellow was played by Jan-Michael Vincent and yes, he is as gorgeous as ever. Satisfied?.