Hear Ye!

The Official Newsletter of the :
Valley Forge Signal Seekers
Radio Controlled Model Airplane Club

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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