SCAT Electronic news 13 August 1998

Details: Category: Archive 1998; Hits: 1606

SCAT Electronic news 13 August 1998

Table Of Contents
-----------------

Editorial Announcment
Poitou - Martyin Gregorie
Anselmo Zeri remembers
Junior World Champs

Editorial Announcement
-----------------------
Firstly an applogy for not editing out some internet junk
from Joe Mekina's message. Getting too late at night and I still
had to make a bunch of motors.

Second applogy to Terry K and some others who are getting two copies..
We will work on that problem in the next day or so.

Some of you have sent mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. This is the old address
and it should be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Eventhough we can
still get at the mmb.com for a while we do not do
it on a regular basis.

We are going to change the way that we are connected to the internet.
The way we are currently using is associtaed with my MMB business,
which we are selling. I could keep using that kind of
connection ... but seeing it costs about $1500 a month we will not
do that. We have put in motion the steps to switch over to another
form of connection at the end of this month. It is possible
that there may be a break in service at that time .. if so don't dispair
as we will get going as soon as we can.

Poitou'98
---------

Author : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Report by Martin Gregorie

This was a good trip as always, with excellent well-run
competitions on big open fields. For those who haven't
been there, the mini contest and the FAI events are run
by separate organizations though the prize giving is
combined on Sunday morning after flying is all over.
Both organizations are well practised and run very smooth
operations. And so they should - this was the 21st
consecutive Journees du Vol Libre en Poitou (F1A/B/C)
and the 14th consecutive Concours International Deux
Minutes de Moncontour (F1G/H/J) event. I've been to all
the mini contests and every F1A event from the 3rd on.

As usual the social side was good, with old friends
coming from all over Europe (or California in the case of
Bill Hartill). Though the F1B and F1C entries were very low
(11 flew in F1C and 41 in F1B), the F1A turnout was about
normal - 96 flew.

It was very hot - maybe 35 C on mini and power/wake day
and it hit 40 C in round 6 of glider. Chris Edge, my
flying buddy, and I drank 15 liters of water between us
during the three days plus a quantity of Orangina and
beer. There were no clouds on any day we were there,
calling for care with sunburn, but this also meant that
night-times were cool and moonlit.

Mini day, Thursday, was quite calm - 2-4 m/sec. We flew
from the Moncontour side of the main road, though in the
usual shallow valley, and the drift was across the road.
As usual the long rounds and lunch break made this a
pleasant, relaxed day's flying. Minis followed the example
of their larger brothers and flew to a 150 second max for
the first round. Entries were down this year in F1G/H but,
sadly, about normal for F1J.

F1G (19 flew, 1 maxout)
1 Edna Flynn GBR 630
2 Marcel Desvignes FRA 618
3 Chris Chapman GBR 607

F1H (21 flew, 3 in the flyoff)
1 Brian Lavis GBR 630+240+137
2 John Cuthbert GBR 630+240+119
3 Joseph Piquer FRA 630+191

F1J (5 flew, 1 maxout)
1 Stafford Screen GBR 630
2 Peter Watson GBR 618
3 Peter Harris GBR 593

Friday (F1B/C) was very calm for the first 3 rounds before
picking up to 5 m/sec for the 6th round and dropping a bit
for the last round. The afternoon thermals were huge.
John Cuthbert had a d/t failure and picked the model out of
the river that runs through St. Generoux, where it came down
after 25 mins. He found it easily thanks to a good line,
a tracker, a GPS unit and a fisherman who saw it land in the
water and drift under some willows. The fisherman also had a
small boat! Gerd Aringer had one go up on d/t for a while.
Reinhardt Truppe d/t ed a nice carbon winged F1C on a power
line outside Taize which set his model on fire. It landed
blazing and started a grass fire... no more model, of course,
though the engine and prop assembly looked to be undamaged.

Results:

F1B (42 flew, 10 in flyoff)

1 Pim Ruyter NED +454
2 Anselmo Zeri NED +432
3 Jan Somers NED +335

F1C (11 flew, 5 in flyoff)
1 Stafford Screen GBR +332
2 Peter Watson GBR +326 +540
3 Reinhardt Truppe AUT +326 +236

Glider day was too calm - most of the day was 0 - 0.8 m/sec
with wind direction depending on the nearest thermal. The
thermals were very big in the last four rounds. In round 6
Glynn Turnbull had a VERY high flight from my pole. We
watched it for 2-3 mins, Gerry LeVey flew a more normal max
and then Glynn's model landed after Gerry's was safely down.
High flights were getting to 1500 ft or so and going rather
less than this in distance, while the really large thermals
were at going at least twice as high.

F1A (96 flew, 9 in flyoff, all made 5 mins!)

1 Manfred Grueneis AUT +300 +369
2 Peter Aanen NED +300 +356
3 Christoph Bachmann SUI +300 +320

In summary, this is one of the very best of the European
Internationals. If you're coming to Europe with models make
sure your trip includes Poitou.

Anselmo remembers - Electronic thermal sensitive A/2
-----------------------------------------------------

Author : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

It has been interesting to read about that model, a jump back to my youth.
I remember very well that glider, Gianstefano Cattaneo was the builder of
the model, he was an F1A flyer, later moved to F1B, Bruno Murari was the
electronic expert, always been a very good F1B modeller.
The model had sensors in the wing tips (the same kind we have in our thermal
detectors) and the differences in signal were used to drive a simple servo
(rubber powered) to operate the rudder.
The two copper lines going to each tip were used as turbulators.
The model did show a "strange" behavior, going apparently to search thermals
but then flying immediately away as soon as the temperature on both wing
tips was going to equalize.
The flying path was very unpredictable and the maxing ability poor.
The model quickly ended his life stripped of the electronic and the servo,
but keeping the copper turbulators, used as a "dumb" model (is that what
all our models are, waiting for the real "intelligent" models ?).
Regards.
Anselmo

Anselmo Zeri
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Junior World Champs
-------------------

As we write this the juniors are collecting in Sibu Roumania for
the Junior World Champs .. while we must exersize a little chauvinism
for the US juniors and Steven from our club in particular. We wish everyone
all the best and like us senior sportsmen may you make friendships
that will last your lifetime.

Report from Bucharest
...............

I got a call from Craig [travelling with Jnr team] last night. It was about
5am..noonThurs. over there. They are all fine. He was calling from
someone's cell phone..it was
$2.50 a minute. We only talked a few minutes needless to say. They are
fine...having trouble finding drinking water. The only bottled water
they can find is mineral water. There was a problem with the passenger
vans also. They were still in Bucarest when he called. The heat
wave over there has broken
evidently. I checked the internet and it is in the 80's with clear skies.
Sounds great for flying. Sat. and Sun. will be in the 90's and Monday it is
supposed to give showers and thunderstorms. That's about it. Sounds like
things are pretty hectic and crazy at the moment trying to get to Sibiu.

...........
Roger Morrell