Radio Control: Sport and Aerobatics
SOMETIMES I get complaints that I have too great an emphasis on Pattern subjects. I'm probably guilty, but the reason I write about them so much is because Pattern involves competition and I love competition. Someone asked me recently how much longer I plan to compete in Pattern, and I told him that I didn't plan to stop. A lot of people get burned out and quit, but these people are usually one of two types. The first type treats Pattern as an obsession. He must own the very best airplane, engine, radio, etc., and he practices all the time. No matter how dedicated this person appears, sooner or later he will burn out and often drops completely out of the RC hobby. The second type cannot stand to lose. He may not practice a lot but usually has a lot of natural talent which will take him a long way. Finally this type reaches the point when he's not winning all the time, and he just quits.
Radio Control: Sport and Aerobatics
BOY! What a month it has been for me! Lots of RC flying? No. Just work. However, it's been an interesting job to make sure that external stores (bombs, missiles, fuel tanks, and the like) don't strike U.S. airplanes when they are released during flight tests. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. No, Virginia, those external stores don't just fall off or fly away from the airplane which releases them. Sometimes we have a devil of a time getting them off some airplanes, and that is what makes my job so interesting. During the last month I was conducting wind tunnel tests on external stores separations from a new USAF air-to-surface attack fighter airplane that we will be flight testing during 1987. The tests were conducted at Arnold Engineering Development Center near Tullahoma, TN-the largest wind tunnel testing facility in the free world. My team of three lieutenants and I spent a month of 24 hours a day/seven days a week testing. So, getting down to writing this column has been kind of difficult.
Radio Control: Sport and Aerobatics
VICTIMIZED? Apparently the United States team which competed in the FAI RC Aerobatics (F3A) World Championships was the victim of bad "intelligence." Frank Broach was the sole U.S. judge at the World Championships, and he reported his experiences in Points (newsletter of the United Scale and Pattern Judging Association). Here's a part of his report. "When the flying began, it was obvious that the U.S.A. team was at the wrong contest. Two members of the U.S.A. team had journeyed to Europe last year for the express purpose of seeing firsthand how the Europeans were flying. Last year it was `out' and `fast.'
Radio Control: Sport and Aerobatics
DO YOU LIKE to trim out a new airplane? I don't. Rather than have the kind of airplane about which the designer reports, "It flew right off the drawing board," I mostly seem to have the other kind. As I sat trying to puzzle out what to do to sort out all the idiosyncrasies of my newest airplane, I decided to make all the hassles partly pay for themselves by writing about them in this column. This will not be a complete "how to trim your new airplane" article, but rather an explanation of some things to try in order to get out of your miseries a bit easier. The first thing I noticed about this airplane was that it was nose-heavy. I had to use enormous elevator deflections to loop it, so I was ready when I landed it. Sure enough, I ran out of Up elevator just before touchdown. This is typical of a nose-heavy airplane. Fortunately the small amount of vertical sink didn't hurt anything.
Radio Control: Sport and Aerobatics
SERVO TESTER strikes again! Ten years ago when I offered to send a schematic of a nice servo tester to anyone who sent me a SASE, I got several hundred responses. When I made the same offer twice during the past few months, I didn't expect to receive more than a couple of hundred requests. However, my daily mail has been including 10 to 15 letters (with a SASE) asking for the schematic! That's great. It is a good piece of equipment that is inexpensive and easy to build. A couple of the early requesters have asked how to calibrate the dial. Most servos use a 1.5 millisecond centering pulse, and tester-builders can use a good (new or lightly used) servo to calibrate the dial pointer to 1.5 milliseconds. Most radio systems will vary the pulse by 0.5 milliseconds for full throw (normally 45º of servo rotation) in either direction.
