It is always great to hear about inventiveness. Us modelers are a breed
apart when it comes to tinkering;
I have had the luxury of hearing some very special stories over the
years from fliers who either employed, or saw, some pretty unique (shall
we say) electrical setups.
I'm sure a few of the saged amongst us could share some funny stuff they
saw newbies or know-it-alls within the various facets of the our
hobby/sport show up with to the flying site (does not have to be
necessarily electrical).
I'll start (why not - great red should not be wasted when the
Glenmorangie pourer is telling you she doesn't drink the stuff);
A guy showed up on the slope with the RX antenna four times longer than
it should be on one of the first slopers that offered wingerons by a
recognizable manufacturer (guess which one). While he was technically
correct about the relationship between lambda (the dBm relationship
between wavelength and reciprocity in terms of the point in the VHF
bandwidth where multiples of, OK...I'll stop right here). Anyways, I (so
I thought) very eloquently (some of you know me) attempted to point out
the error of his ways.
I could elaborate on (and oh so precisely) what I said, but what I
thought was interesting is that he never stopped setting up the whole
time I was blathering on. Very methodical, not a crack in the armour.
Just prior to launch, he looked me in the eye and said really you
%^$?...watch this kid and learn somth'n.
So I watched and learned. Guess what, it flew. During the first moments
following the owner's vigorous attempt to admonish me in the error of my
ways, the aircraft started to waver. Have you ever seen flutter and the
end result?
Now one would think that once wingerons start j*king off that there is
precious little chance of things getting any better. I mean reallyif
he has employed a full length antenna who KNOW's what's under the hood.
They did just that. The guy pulled around onto the slope face with a
beam on his face that was almost blinding.
He dove down to do a loop, the antenna caught on one of the trees/bushes
that are indigenous to most of the foothills in our area, and promptly
yanked off the empannage.
Did anyone hear about the guy who used solid core wire throughout on his
Moebius, and used cyanoacrylate to secure the wires after he twisted
them together (cA as an incredibly efficient dialectric/insulator), then
launched from the 350-V8 used to tow up fullsize...and the throttle
stuck wide open (keep in mind he only put about 30ft of 005 twine on the
tow cable)?
Or how about the time it was gusting in excess of 100KmH and another
newbie against our suggestions of defering until anther day elected to
launch at a site he had never seen before, promptly lost his pride and
joy when it blew past us at warp nine only to land(?) aft in a farmer's
field full of barley.
The owner became aware of the whereabouts of his aerobat months later
when the farmer dutifully reported to the owner the discovery of his
aircraft...in the cow feeder when it poured itself (slightly re-born)
out of a huge cylindrical bale.
I will stop here...
Jeff Thompson wrote:
Although I definitely wouldn't recommend it, I bought a 10 year old
Sleger Spectrum F3B glider that had standard telephone jack connectors
in the wings, and have had no problems with it! I doubt they were ever
designed for the power load on a flap servo.
Jeff Thompson
Soaring wrote:
SoaringSat, 7 Jan 2006 Volume 1 :
Number 6929
In this issue:
Re: [RCSE] Aircraft Designers - Completing the Design
Lachowski Pod
Your kidding.. ?
RE: [RCSE] Lachowski Pod
Re: [RCSE] Lachowski Pod (pic)
Re: [RCSE] Sold DLG + servos Batt F/S
Pike Superior for sale
--
Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 18:08:09 -0800
From: Simon Van Leeuwen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Martin Usher [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: soaring@airage.com
Subject: Re: [RCSE] Aircraft Designers - Completing the Design
Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Not all DB series connectors are created equal Martin. Typical Radio
Shack units are crap to say the least, and have cyclic lifespans (the
number of times you can plug/unplug mating connectors before the level
of resistance increases to unacceptable levels) similar to what you
suggest.
The DB-15HD's that I build into customer's harnesses are rated for
400+ cycles, this due directly the design of the pin/spring contact
assemblies. Although they cost more, their (electrical) performance
decrease over the first 200 cycles is negligeable. Sideways movement
in any of this style of connectors is a non-issue given the
male/female shrouding, so you can cease worrying about this.
The average 0.100 3pin connector that folks are accustom to are not
rated for multiple cycling, some of the units I have seen
