F3B rules says in paragraph 5.3.2.2. Launching, figure f) The battery must not be charged on the launching line. The motor must not be cooled, and the battery must not be heated.
At F3B Kirchheim I had interesting talk to Michael Wohlfahrt and Thomas Shorb. I was claiming that they are charging batteries on winch line i.e. in space where is all that bloody F3B stuff placed (all boxes, spare lines, tripods etc.) Please note that I try to distinguish two different things; launching line and winchline. Bellow I will explain why.
First let’s define what is launching line. When trying understand the rule it’s narrow space where all winches are placed or fixed to ground. Here you can NOT charge your winch batteries, while you could use it as additional source of power during launch-and this is core meaning of paragraph 5.3.2.2. f)!
Rule says nothing about charging batteries in safety area. Winch line is safety area and therefore you CAN charge there your batteries. Maybe it will be a bit more comfortable to transport one battery (as master source battery) forth and back than all of five, six batteries(?) On the other hand I can imagine one day when people are jumping over sparkling chargers on winch line not even talking about running generators (I know a bit absurd idea).
Hello, Agree to say “cannot be charge inside the winch area”, it means inside the safety area between the 2 winch lines.
Denis
Hi Denis,
agree with you, but today such expression “winch area” is not in the rules and therefore you can charge there batteries. Talking today about this matter with Tomas Bartovsky and after some discussion he admitted that charging batteries inside winch area (call it however you want) is not forbidden.
Hi Roman,
So it is NOT forbidden to have electric generator or battery charger on the white carpet area as the one in Laiwu China?
Johnson
Hi Johnson,
you are correct. It’s NOT forbidden. So far it’s statement of FAI authorities. To be CD, I would ask pilots not to use generators at winch area, it’s smelly, noisy and can be dangerous (220V/110V). I would even recommend to keep master and slave batteries in some kind of box to protect it from direct contact with people. You know that mess at winch area if there are 120 pilots, everybody with 4 helpers…