An AMA Gold Leader Club
October, 2006
No. 473
NOTICE
General Membership Meeting
October 10 - 6:30 PM
at the
Valley Forge National Park
Visitors Center
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THE RETURN OF THE DINOSAURS
by Warren Barrick
Nothing scientific in that title - just to note that
5 old coots did get
back from their "expedition to Buck."
The trip was noteworthy. Sated with fried chicken, our
little goodie bags of
R/C stuff in our greasy hands, we piled into Dolan's
mini-van once again
with Al Campana as pilot and Joe Pasquini as navigator,
Barrick and Dolan in
the middle seats and Carl Sutton on the rear bench.
Al pointed the van
toward home and off we went.
We were relatively quiet, probably all except Al trying
to grab a few
post-banquet winks, when it was suggested that we should
stop in Quarryville
at Good's Department Store to purchase Amish straw hats
to wear to the
field. We had tried previously on another trip but they
had been "sold out."
It was probably the dead of winter and the clerk thought
us crazy to be
seeking straw hats in February.
Al found a parking space, and practically every head
in the lot gazed at us
as if we had descended from Mars. I was afraid someone
would say, "Hello,
nice Day" or some simple greeting to Joe Pasquini
and he would immediately
ask him or her if they "knew about his operation."
It didn't happen, and we
entered the store and headed for the hat department.
Dolan got there first and coincidentally, I'm not placing
any blame, there
was a huge flatulent explosion. Carl and I ran for cover,
I ended up in the
ladies shoe area while Carl made it all the way to the
men's clothing
department.
When calm returned we found Dolan trying on straw hats
that were all too
large. Imagine if you will a hat on Dolan's head so
big that it was resting
on his ears. We all roared at the sight and were grateful
that all the
normal sized hats had been sold.
Joe found some over-sized Velcro, suitable for R/C,
in the fabric department
and we all purchased some and checked out. As we approached
the front of the
store Joe let us know that he had left his cane in the
Buck R/C fliers
pavilion.
We all made a ruckus about returning to Buck in the
parking lot and the
"natives" began to look at us as though we
were refugees from Pluto. We were
ready to give Joe an "operation" but we climbed
into the van, resigned that
we had to return to Buck.
Then a miracle occurred as Joe found his cane next to
the front seat. By the
time we had finished ranking Joe, we were many miles
down the road. Someone
noticed a roadside produce stand and we once again pulled
over and Joe and I
jumped out to price the stuff. A middle- aged lady was
at the stand and she
looked surprised to see Joe and me. I don't think we
are the usual sight at
produce stands in Lancaster County and she seemed overly
curious. Joe
purchased a watermelon and some corn and as we neared
the van, which had
both doors open, she could see the other dinosaurs inside.
Her curiosity
got the better of her and she remarked that here were
"Five grown men out
riding through Amish country." We advised her not
to get "too near the van"
and she quickly retreated to her car. I think we upset
her in he sense that
she couldn't figure out what five old coots were doing
out in the middle of
nowhere. We all had a good laugh and continued on our
way.
We made one more stop in Parkesburg when Dolan began
braying for soft ice
cream. We had our dessert and the dinosaurs returned
home.
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USING THE RAM2 RECORDING ALTIMETER
by John Powell
As an RC soaring pilot I was always curious about the
peak height reached by
a glider and what rates of climb were possible. Judging
this by eyeball is
hopeless - you really have no basis for making the call.
I had plans to
have my wife help me make eye-ball calibrations by having
her hold a plane
up on a wingtip while I drove the car away on a straight
road until the
plane looked the same size as when it was "specked
out"; then I could read
the distance on the car's odometer. I never got around
to doing this.
Finally now there are good electronic altimeter and
telemetry systems
available. I purchased a RAM2 recording altimeter from
Soaring Circuits
(www.soaringcircuits.com) last December. This is a
tiny, low-power,
low-weight device that plugs into a spare receiver socket.
It currently
costs about $100. It has an onboard pressure sensor,
microprocessor, and
memory. Whenever the receiver is turned on, it records
elapsed time and
atmospheric pressure changes that the processor converts
to height AGL
(above ground level) values. It samples pressure at
a rate you select from
1 to 10 times per second and has enough memory for a
day's flying. I have
been using a sample rate of 2Hz. Each time it's turned
on, it starts a new
"flight" section in the data, although you
might actually launch the plane
several times during one logged "flight."
For instance, a hand-launch flyer
might keep the receiver on continuously while making
many launches, and
these would all be displayed as part of one "flight,"
whereas I would
usually turn the receiver on & off for each flight,
creating separate data
sections.
The unit can also be used on its own, with a small battery
pack, for non-RC
applications like Free-flight.or mountain-climbing or
cycling.
*You can't (easily) interrogate the RAM2 in the field
because you need to
remove the unit from the plane and download the data
to a PC. Of course,
with a laptop or Pocket PC you could do this at the
field, but I just wait
until I get home. The download connection is via serial
port, but the maker
gives information about using a serial-to-USB adapter,
if needed. During
download you can choose to keep data in the RAM2's memory
or delete it after
saving to PC.
You look at data from downloaded flights in a program
called FlightView 3.2
that you get from their web site. This displays the
data as an X-Y line
plot with time along the base and altitude on the vertical
axis. You can
zoom in or out and scroll on each axis separately.
To improve altitude accuracy you can enter values for
average air
temperature at ground level, and for height of the flying
field above sea
level. You can also re-set the plot zero altitude at
the start or end of a
flight to allow for barometric changes that occurred
during the flight.
This allows RAM2 to make a reasonably precise estimate
of height AGL during
flight time. Note that if nothing else, a RAM2 plot
confirms the number of
flights and the actual flight times very accurately!
The FlightView program has moveable vertical cursors
that you can place to
mark off any period of the flight. When marked, it
then displays altitude
change and rate of climb or descent in that period.
The Y-axis is
calibrated in feet (or meters) of height, but you can
click on any point on
the plot to have it indicate the associated altitude
numbers on the graph.
This program reminds me very much of when I used to
score sleep EEG
recordings at Penn - and the "wave forms"
of a typical glider flight look a
lot like slow wave sleep EEG. Hmm - no wonder I sometimes
get sleepy during
long flights!
There is no 'built-in' way to print these plots. To
get hard copy I have to
save a screen shot of the current display by pressing
ALT and "Print Screen"
keys, then paste the clipboard image to Photoshop, etc.
The FlightView
program will, however, write a .CSV file (comma-delimited
text) that can be
opened in Excel. This file appears in Excel as 2 columns
of data: elapsed
time in half-second intervals, and the corresponding
altitude. This would
allow you to do other analyses or print plots of selected
sections in Excel.
My impressions of soaring flight based on plots so far:
I get 450 to 600
feet on a winch launch. Rate of climb in a thermal
varies from about 130
ft/min to over 300 ft/min. Rate of SINK can be quite
impressive - faster
than the rate of climb sometimes! The overall pattern
seems to be to reach
a certain height in a thermal and then quickly lose
about half the altitude,
then gradually work up to another peak and quickly shed
half the height and
so on until you fail to find another thermal, and then
the plane is on the
ground very rapidly.
Summary: RAM2 recording altimeter. Very small &
light but rather
expensive. Works very reliably. Not intended to give
you data at the field
after every flight since data must be downloaded to
a PC. Will be of most
interest to glider & electric soaring flyers but
could be used in FF, park
flyers, or any other application - including hiking
or skydiving!
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CLUB CALENDAR
Tuesday, October 3 -
There will be no BOG meeting this month.
Tuesday October 10 -
General Membership Meeting - 6:30 PM at the Valley Forge
National Park
Visitors Center. Family members are encouraged to attend.
We will get to
meet the Park Superintendent and have an opportunity
to visit the Archives.
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VFSS BOG MEETING
by Steve Kolet, Secretary
September 5, 2006
Members present: 9, president, secretary
Meeting opened at 6:30 PM by President Sudermann.
OLD BUSINESS: Final planning for fun fly was accomplished.
NEW BUSINESS: Miles Bowman noted that the zig-zag access
lanes are well
established and are providing a barrier between the
runway and the pit area.
All business was concluded and the meeting adjourned at 8:00 PM.
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HINTS & TIPS FROM THE AMA INSIDER
Working With Carbon Fiber or Fiberglass
You may have noticed that your tools do not last very
long when sanding or
filing carbon fiber or fiberglass. Even the best hardened
tools will lose
their edges when working with these materials. One trick
I have found is to
use a metal cut-off bit in my high-speed motor tool,
but instead of using it
at high speeds, I use it at low speed. I do not want
to melt the resin as it
will just wreck the bit. High-speed tools are great
for many tasks, but when
it comes to carbon fiber or fiberglass, I prefer to
use these tools in the
slowest setting possible.
Carbon fiber and fiberglass are great lightweight products
used throughout
our hobby. Sometime we may not even realize that we
are working with these
products since many airplanes are made of balsa and
have a shrink-like
covering, such as MonoKote or UltraKote.
Many of the airplane's motor mounts are made of a plastic
material which in
many cases is carbon fiber. Carbon fiber and fiberglass
can be deadly if
inhaled. These materials cannot be dissolved by the
body and will remain in
your lungs. The body will try to rid itself of this
foreign material and can
cause respiratory problems and possible death.
When drilling, filing, or sanding anything that looks
as though it is made
of plastic, carbon fiber, or fiberglass, it is always
best to wear a good
mask that will filter out the very small particles you
will be producing.
The best mask you can buy and one that uses a carbon
filter and has a good,
tight fit is the one you should use.
You should also wear some sort of eye protection because
removing fiberglass
dust or particles from your eyes will not be a pleasant
or easy task.
- from the Batavia RC Flying Club Web site, Batavia NY
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