Australian F3J team for the 1998 World Championships

The Australian team to compete at the 1998 F3J World Championships are:

The "Tangent 3.1"
One model that the team members will be using is the "Tangent" designed by Alan Mayhew.  The design objective was to develop a broad range model for competition tasks, the aim being to permit the pilot to use the one model for 90% of the time in competitions.  This allows an intimate knowledge of the model to develop, and so the performance of the pilot/model combination improves.

Model details are as follows:


Rob Benton:
Rob is from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.  Since settling in Australia with his wife and two sons 25 years ago, he has become very involved in RC gliders.  He successfully worked his way through the LSF program and is one of only three Australians to have completed Level V.  He has won several of the major Australian gliding competitions including Jerilderie 4 times as well as the F3B & F3J National championships. He is also currently active in full size gliding, currently at about Silver C level.
Models: Tangent 3.2m span, Stork 3.4m span, Step-up+ 3.3m span.
Max Kroger:
Max is from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He started aeromodelling at 11 years of age.  He became involved in RC Soaring in 1979. Competition successes include winning the 1994 Jerilderie Competition and placing in National F3B & Thermal Competitions.  Max was the LSF Australian President.  He has been a RC glider columnist for Australian magazine
Models: Tangent 3.4m span, Stork 3.4m span (7037section), Tragi 700 3m span F3B (MH32 section).

Alan Mayhew:
Alan is from Melbourne, Australia. He started flying RC gliders in 1989 and quickly became involved with competition flying and model design.  His "Tangent" design that was developed over the past 4 years is also being used by the other team members.  With this model Alan won the annual LSF "Jerilderie" competition 1997.  This is the major Australian Gliding competition on the competition calendar.  Tangent 3.1m span, 3.2m span, 3.5m span (7032 section)

Bill Pettigrew: (TM)
Bill is from Perth, Western Australia.  He has been a modeller for 50 years and started building and flying RC gliders in 1976.  He holds LSF Level V, is a former National Canadian champion and has represented Canada at F3B World Championships.  He is an award winning film producer and enjoys scuba diving when not flying models.