Free Flight: Indoor
AN IMPORTANT PROPOSAL: Erv Rodemsky, current World Champion and CD of the recent Team Selection Finals, noted that most of the top fliers at the finals lost between one and six models during the meet. Although the flying conditions were not really good, he felt that the weather in the Santa Ana hanger wasn't a factor in the destruction derby, since the air wasn't turbulent, just cool.
Free Flight: Indoor
PROPOSAL FOLLOW-UP. In the last column, a report was made on Erv Rodemsky's rules proposal for FA1 Indoor models. Since that report, Erv built such a model and tested it in a ceiling just over 100 ft. high. After preliminary tests, the rubber weight was increased from 1/2-gram to 3/4-gram. The model made a flight just over 21 minutes, dead-sticking near the ceiling. Obviously, subsequent flights with slightly different rubber should approach 25 minutes. This is positive indication that the proposal should work, and Erv plans to incorporate the new rubber weight limitation in the proposal.
Free Flight: Indoor
BOSTONIAN IS ALIVE AND WELL! The picture shows the lineup of models entered in a special West Coast Bostonian event sponsored by the Scale Staffel club and CDed by Walt Mooney. Some readers will remember that Bostonian is a semi-Scale event originated by Ed Whitten, who has been writing a Junior-oriented column in this magazine. The intent of the class is to encourage models which fit more closely the original Indoor Cabin models being flown when the Indoor Cabin class was created years ago-Indoor models which resemble actual man-carrying aircraft. Consequently, the class incorporates a "box" of specified dimensions as part of the fuselage, plus requiring simulated "windows" and specifying a minimum weight, among other rules. The contest reported by the photo used almost the same rules, except that the models had to weigh 14 grams minimum.
Free Flight: Indoor
PROP PITCH DESIGN. Last time, we began a design discussion of prop pitch that defined the pitch of a blade elements as "Pitch = 3.1416 × tangent of blade angle × diameter of prop at that blade element." Let's examine that in a different light. To begin with, assume that we are examining a blade element at 5-in. radius (10-in. diameter). In addition, we must consider prop rpm and model flight velocity. A fairly typical combination could be 50 rpm and 2 ft./sec. velocity. Working with 50 rpm and 24 in./sec. velocity, we can construct a triangle like that shown in Figure 1.
Free Flight: Indoor
QUESTIONS! QUESTIONS! Any model construction article such as Walt Van Gorder's Easy B article (Pieces, January 1982 MA) answers many questions, but it is also likely to raise new questions as well. In particular, someone with just a little experience will be able to get a lot of good from the article, but invariably the lack of specific experience will cause a hangup in communications. This did happen with Walt's article, and the following questions came from trying to clear up points he made there: 1. What advantage is an assortment of props for one model? How do you know when to use a different one? 2. What is meant by "changing flying conditions?" 3. Of course, lighter models should fly longer, but how do you learn to build lighter models? 4. What are some different ways to wind a motor? 5. Explain what washin and washout are, and when to use them. 6. How do you make thrust angle adjustments, and when are they needed?
