Indoor Pattern Flying: F3P

Photo of unidentified F3P plane by gareth.ky*

My next project will be an F3P plane. I'm thinking about building the Sim Sym Sam, a design only months old which uses peeled dollar tree foam and no carbon fiber. Check it out on RC Groups.

F3P is indoor precision aerobatics flying. I love the slow, relaxed pace of F3P planes, and I really love the idea that a guy can fly aerobatics indoors during winter months, and outdoor aerobatics in front of his garage, because these things are slow enough that they won't get away from you.

F3P is big in Europe, but hasn't taken off here. I read in Model Airplane News, however, that somebody in the Ohio/West Virginia district actually put on an F3P competition. They hope to qualify a US team and send it to the nationals in Europe.

I work at a high school with three large gyms, and F3P is cool, so there might be something here for the kids to get into.

Here's a link to the Sim Sym Sam. It's a prototype but the designers offer full size plans which you can tile and print.

Here's a link to youtube footage of the European F3P Championship. The pilot is a Chinese kid and he does amazing things.

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Image: Approved for commercial use by gareth.ky on a creative commons license...

*I don't know what kind of home brew F3P plane this is, but it seems to be a hybrid flat foam/full fuselage design. They split 2 layers of depron with a spacer up front and stick the electronics in there, rather than hang them off the side of the plane.