SEN 97-10 - 10 Sep 1997

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Category: Archive 1997

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SCAT Electronic News 10 Sept 1997 and Meeting reminder .. Issue 97-10

 The Scat meeting is this Friday at Bob Wiehle's, the flyer is in the mail..

For those who could not make it Craig and Julie's  'retirement' party was a
big sucess. Juan Livotto found a resturant that served good food promptly.
We has SCAT allumni turn up as well as current members. Lots of good
stories and fellowship. We gave Craig some 10 X 50 Binoculars .. [and a
request from the Sierra Eagles for timekeepers for the Sierra Cup] as we
need all the help we can when we go to Waegel Field. Appropriately the
formal part of the evening finished up with a Cusick joke. [.. never hide in
a refrigerator ..]

Electronic Timer news.

For those whose airplanes are 'wired' .. people are progressing with
on-board electonics. Amomgst others the Finnish team bought some CST
Smart System electronic timers. Ken  Bauer has made a personal timer
with not plans to sell it at the momemt ..[I suspect that his new business is
keeping him busy] .. and found as we all have that there are some many
more adjustments one can make.

Jim Parker was seen playing with a Basic Stamp, trying to remember the
computer programming he learnt in college.

While in Europe I saw Cenny Breeman's F1As with a Danish F1A timer. It
had a neat programmer box, but otherwise was not as good as what we are
doing here. Cenny had used the Danish mechanics which were not as good
as what I have seen here on F1As. He plans to modify these over the
winter and come to the MaxMen/Winter Classic for testing. he reports that
in that week he can do better trimming and testing than the whole rest of
the year.

I did fly my electronic airplane RoboWake but not in any contest. Lindy
and coach Norm would not let me. The timer is working fine with the new
light FMA Direct Servos. These weigh about 9 grams and cost only $25.
Matt Gewain reports that the R/C people have found a number DOA but is
seems if they work when you get them they are OK. Matt made a servo
tester to verify them before use.  Now that I have got past this World
Champs thing I hope to get some timers out to those I promised them to.
[But you know .. its not all that far to the finals  for the 1999 Champs and I
do have some ideas how to better than last time....?!?!]


1999 World Champs

Much as been said about the choice of the site for 1999. This is the Negev
dessert in Israel. All the publicity about problems between the Israelis and
their neigbours and the US State Department warning does make one
nervous. There was some talk about the flyer's petitioning for another site.

The Israeli flyers are some indignant at the suggestion that their country
might be more dangerous than say New York. .. I think the point here is
that if flying in the US [or some other country]  we would not be flying in
New York [or a major center], and that while  crime is a problem in the
US [and other countries] no one is likely to target an International Event
such as the World Champs to make a political statement here in the US [or
most other countries].

Apparantly one of the key reasons for the choice of Israel was the
excellent presentation made by the Israeli delegate at the CIAM meeting.
A lesson from that for us is that we need to do a proffesional quality
formal presentation if we want to have it again at Lost Hills and  explicitly
address some of the issues that concern the flyers.

I was interested to read Aram Schlosberg's report in the NFS FF Digest.
Two key items I saw was the need to protect the mechanics from the dust,
it appears to be significantly worse than Lost Hills. Electronic timers will
help here. The second was the fact that given the 'normal' weather
conditions it does not appear possible to have 7 rounds plus fly offs in a
one day with out having to fly the early afternoon when it is very windy
[and the Israelis apparantly do not fly at this time of the day].

Roger Morrell