Summer Update

Not a lot of news to pass on at this time as we are all meeting on a fairly regular basis so this is really to help those of you who have not been able to come along for whatever reason.

After what seemed to be the wettest and windiest spring for years, at last we seem to have moved ahead into some decent flying weather. This of course disregards the last Bank holiday weekend which saw Saturday blown out and Sunday and Monday rained out! One consolation was that watching the F1 Grand Prix on the Sunday it was also raining in Monte Carlo .

In spite of the weather the strip remained in good condition. The wet ground prevented us from cutting it as often as we would have liked but it has remained flyable and fortunately there was not a lot of growth.  Now that the ground has hardened we can get back to preparing it to the level we enjoyed last summer. Using the hard standing by the caravan and keeping cars out of the grass area has improved the car park area for our summer use. We are still looking to increase the hard standing when we get hold of some more hardcore and with the road repair season approaching we would ask all members to keep their eyes open for a possible free source of this, .so if you see an opportunity to obtain some, let us know

Get Togethers

The Thursday evening club and improvers night has proven to be very popular. With another 3 months of light evenings to look forward to it has become the social event of the week.

Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings are the other popular times when most people turn up, so if you are looking for some instruction or helpful advice they are the times to come. However this doesn’t mean that if these times are not suitable to you, you won’t be able to get any assistance. By prior arrangement with Clive he can usually help on most days and if he is not available he can find someone else who can, so if you can’t make the regular days give him a call.

Trade News

Sadly Stix has closed its doors which will be missed by us all. However other good sources remain for cheap electric modelling goods, all of them providing a fast mail order service. Try Giant Cod, Budget R/C, BRC Hobbies and Robotbirds. There are many others but from personal experience these can be recommended. Incidentally, Budget R/C  has taken over Electrolite and the previous discount arrangement we had with them has been dropped. However their prices have been reduced so there is no difference to our old discounted price. Electrolite, Loong, Tornado pro and Kokam remain the batteries of choice depending on capacity although Wayne is using a pack of Lemon cells which are reputedly the same as Tornado Pro and they seem to perform equally as well. Wayne is also using a very cheap esc from Giant Cod which may be worth a shout.  

The trainer of choice has become the Tutor/Mentor32 from CML. It is a delightful aircraft to fly being stable yet responsive and is mildly aerobatic. However 3 of the first 4 in the club all had the same fault, namely the speed controller shutting the motor down at odd times which gave the instructors some useful dead stick practice.

The power train is a one piece package with the esc hard wired to the motor. The esc is rated at 28 amps. Our tests have shown that at static full power this combination produces 270 watts at 25 amps. This is operating within the esc limits and on landing the esc is cool so the reason for shut down remains a mystery. It is a little inconvenient having the motor and esc as a single unit as if you want to return it you have to return the whole power train. One owner did this and the unit was returned to him with no fault found.

The others did as we recommended, separated the two, fitted in line connectors and replaced the esc with one of a higher rating. Problem solved.

If you have a Tutor/Mentor this is what we would recommend. You may also consider reinforcing the nosewheel/motor mount area with triangular section balsa to increase the rigidity.

That apart it remains a great little trainer.

The fifth Mentor in the club flew last Saturday. No problems at all with the esc. It ran perfectly. Here is an interesting fact and I’m sure it’s coincidence. All the a/c with esc problems were blue and white. The yellow and black ones so far are ok!

Safety

These items have been covered on the Thursday briefings but are repeated here for the benefit of members who missed them.

First of all frequency control. During the winter we have not bothered too much with this as there have been so few people flying. In addition the advent of 2.4 has made us all a bit complacent with regard to switching on transmitters. However some people have both 2.4 and 35 so it can be easy to slip up and inadvertently turn on a transmitter on a live frequency. To prevent this happening therefore no transmitter is to be turned on until that frequency has been booked. That means a peg on the board and in a similar manner once you have completed your flight remove the peg and don’t become a channel hog. If you are operating on 2.4, put your peg on the 2.4 space on the board. In normal use there should only be the same number of pegs on the board as flyers in the pilot box. Remember to take your peg home as when the pegboard is put away all offending pegs will be removed.      

The second item concerns the no fly zone. You all should have a diagram of our flying area on which the no fly zone is clearly marked and in addition you should have been briefed on this when you joined the club. There is also a diagram of this in the caravan. It exists to ensure that no models operate in the airspace above where we park our cars, models and generally socialise. Without stating the obvious, it extends from ground level upwards, and apart from being a no fly zone it is also a no landing zone. The only time it is permissible for a model to land in this area is when it is out of control in an emergency and if this is the case you should shout a loud warning to inform people of the situation.

An exception to this will be granted in light winds when the area between the runways and the cars may be used to fly the Kyosho Cessna type models

Spektrum

The following incident occurred in the caravan during the winter and as far as we know can only happen with Spektrum radios.

Control surfaces were being set up with the fuselage of a model on the table in the caravan. As it involved two separate servos driving independent elevator halves there was a lot of talk about servo travel mixes and trim responses. The model was fitted with a bec type esc and the main power battery was being used to drive the servos, ensuring that the throttle remained closed all the time.

On the completion of the set up more conversation ensued and during this conversation the transmitter was switched off without thinking to switch the receiver off first. Approximately 2 seconds after this the motor ran up to full power. Fortunately it was being restrained at the time and the person holding it had the presence of mind to disconnect the battery. We can all learn from the lack of observance of safety precautions here as obviously nothing like this should have been attempted without disconnecting the motor from the esc or at least removing the prop.

However it is not this we wish you to note. To get a Spektrum receiver to operate it is necessary to bond the receiver to the transmitter. During this process it memorises the position of the transmitter controls and uses these as datums for its provisional failsafe positions. Normally these would all be at neutral for the main flying surfaces.

When a loss of signal occurs on a Spektrum radio all channels are held at the positions they were at when the loss of signal occurs. The exception to this is the throttle which is moved to its failsafe position which it recognises as the position it was in when it was bonded to the transmitter. In this case here it was a new radio and it must be assumed that when it was bonded the position of the throttle on the transmitter was open. It states in the Spektrum manual that rebonding must be done at the completion of the set up and this had not been done. It is not known why the esc didn’t shut the motor down on the loss of signal. Perhaps it may have done given more time. With extreme good fortune no serious accident occurred. However the lesson to be learned here is always to follow the manual and treat electric props as live at all times.

Social

On Sunday 22^nd June the electric flyers from Warwick model club have accepted an invitation to come and fly with us for the day. It is just flying for fun as usual with no competitions, and it will provide us with an opportunity to see what other people are flying, but more to the point to show them what we are doing on our super site by pushing electric flight forward as the leading club in that field in the Midland area.

To that end we would like as good a turnout as possible with as many models as possible. This could be a good opportunity to fly that model you always said you were saving for that special occasion. As it is just a normal flying day instruction will be carried out as normal so beginners needn’t feel they will be left out. We plan to have light refreshments available using the facilities of our caravan so do please come to swell out the numbers. All we need is good weather to make it a day to remember and show our visitors what a great club we’ve got.

See you on the field

John.