Depressing

I'm sure they'll deal with it.

I don't give a flying **** what ANYONE thinks of me, so you're not alone.

You're not. I hate shite grammar and shite spelling, but I don't claim to
know everything about the rights and wrongs of the English language. A feral
apostrophe, or a missed apostrophe aren't something to get bent out of shape
about, nor is not realising that "fewer" or "less" aren't automagically
interchangeable.

My opinion of someone is lowered if they don't know that you only need 3
degrees of negative pitch in order to autorotate a 10lb RC helicopter to a
soft landing, or those who think that a 3bhp engine will drive more than 13
degrees of positive pitch on a 63" rotor simply because the rotor system
includes a governor that controls the engine power but I don't lose sleep
over it.

--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 23:10:50 +0100, "Beav"

;-)

I watched with interest a guy getting his new Jetranger (model)
checked out by one the club gurus.

All seemed to be going well with plenty of starts and stops to get the
trim reasonable but just when it looked to be pretty stable, sitting
in a low hover it suddenly went rocketing upwards. The pilot shouted
"I've lost it" and I've not seen a field clear so fast in a long time!

He then said to the owner that he's only lost the throttle and decided
to just fly big circuits till it ran out of fuel and hoped he could
bring it down safely.

Unfortunately as it ran out it leaned up, the increased revs threw the
tail rotor and it came down less than gently. :-(

The owner took it fairly well (considering) and even laughed as he was
putting all the bits in a bin bag when he found the model pilot had
come out through the windscreen and was a few meters up the field. ;-)

 

Ooof, I bet that was an expensive accident...

I lost the throttle control on an RC car once in the winter on the seafront,
but as I had steering control stilll I planned just to keep it pinned left
so the car (RallyX Hyper 7 Pro buggy - completely inappropriate place to
play heh, but there was a crazy golf course...) doing a major donut.
Thankfully it didn't have that much fuel in it, but it did the same as that
chopper, leaned out, power upped and the donut got about 14ft wide and
despite my mate bravely trying to get a foot in its way (It just hit his
foot and hopped over, he said it was pretty painful and he had an impressive
bruise) it still drove straight off the sea wall (told you it was an
inappropriate place...) and into the sea, which was going from out, to about
half a foot deep when a wave came in. My mate's Mrs' little brother bravely
charged down the steps to grab it, somehow timing it between a wave despite
not slowing down and the car been 10ft or so from the steps. It has
unfortunately landed when a wave was in, but at least that stalled the
engine out (took a few seconds mind as it was revving that hard it couldn't
fill the exhaust chamber heh) as the car had landed on it's wheels pointing
out just as a wave came. If it had kept running... well... who knows how
far he'd have been wading hehe ;-)

The throttle servo had just gone mad and locked on full power and snapped
the single delrin plastic gear in there which managed to somehow have a
chunk spit off and jam the other metal gears so they couldn't move, fail
safe and throttle servo return spring be dammed - as the failsafe couldn't
make it return to neutral and the spring couldn't physically pull the carb
shut.

I've never known, or even read about online, a servo failure of that nature
ever happening to anyone else! But it was alright in the end, new throttle
servo and the rest was pretty well wrapped so I whipped it all out asap and
none of the other electrics got that wet, so they were all fine after 36
hours or so in the airing cupboard

Never did get as far as helicopters though... Left the R/C hobby a couple
of years ago, then a few months back I tried a 1/5th Petrol HPi Baja 5B, but
it just wasn't for me. Too big, too slow and jumped like a brick - a
brittle brick at that.

We all looked at helicopters loads of times but no one could bring
themselves to sink the cash and take the plunge first. Knowing the whole
thing could be pretty much destroyed with one crash, which could very well
happen on the first flight heh!

 

You're not. I hate shite grammar and shite spelling, but I don't claim to
know everything about the rights and wrongs of the English language. A feral
apostrophe, or a missed apostrophe aren't something to get bent out of shape
about, nor is not realising that "fewer" or "less" aren't automagically
interchangeable.

My opinion of someone is lowered if they don't know that you only need 3
degrees of negative pitch in order to autorotate a 10lb RC helicopter to a
soft landing, or those who think that a 3bhp engine will drive more than 13
degrees of positive pitch on a 63" rotor simply because the rotor system
includes a governor that controls the engine power but I don't lose sleep
over it.[/QUOTE]

Well, quite. Except your analogy fails because the domain you quote is
a minority one, and most people here will never bother tinkering with
helicopters. Language, though, is necessary in a medium such as this,
and rightly or wrongly, we are judged by the ease and skill with which
we manipulate language. Reading someone who writes 'alright' instead
of 'all right', or 'it's' instead of 'its' (and _vice versa_), or
'photo's' instead of 'photos', etc., causes me to form an instant and
not very flattering opinion of that person's educational standards.

D.

 

It guess was expensive but not a write off. The skids had come up
through the cockpit floor, engine ripped off it's mounts and the
fuselage (one piece fiberglass) had broken off across the tail boom. I
dare say he would have to give all the rotor gear a good going over
(and new blades of course) but I think most of the rest of the gear
was ok.

Indeed, and a lucky escape all round by the sound of it.

Our daughter was sponsored by Radio Race Car mag to race 12th scale
electrics and whilst doing pretty well in a final had her car trodden
on. :-( A 'father' of one of the other racers decided to do a bit or
marshaling for his own son and we all paid the price for is
inabilities. She lost some good points and he paid with a sore ankle
and the repair bill [1] (the club officials saw it all and he got a
good telling off to boot).

Nor have I yet. I bought a second hand IC one years ago but then all
the gyros and 'Heli stuff was much more expensive than it is now. I
have flown an electric one (in a hall) and did ok and even have one of
my own (single rotor) but not gotroundto flying it yet.

They look and sound impressive though?

True enough and partly why we moved from RC electric cars to RC
Yachts. On a car race day and running 3 cars (daughter would run in
the open and 'Tamiya' classes) we would get through the best part of
£100 in consumables (mainly tyres).

I was also sponsored to race cars and boats and whilst I've had some
IC / electric planes and bungee / electric gliders I'm not really a
plane person. I think part of this is the same as motor biking for me
in that I get much of my enjoyment from the means [2] rather than the
end and I can't enjoy a plane when it's just a tiny spec in the sky!

[1] Carbon parts aren't cheap.

[2] At the RC car clubs I generally ended up the resident mechanic,
fixing (or helping fix) cars for the younger racers whose parents
either hadn't shown them how to do such (as they didn't know
themselves) or used such events as a sort of creche, dumping them off
with some money for spares but no tools or skills to use them. Rather
than seeing there sitting bored or making matters worse by trying to
fix things unassisted, I'd give em a hand or loan them tools etc (on
the strict understanding they had back to them) ;-)

 

Hmmm... pretty realistic, then. The blades really should have chopped
him in half as he exited.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

"It's a moron working with power tools.
How much more suspenseful can you get?"
- House

 

I've never quite understood passive sentences.

 

Oh, _c-l-e-v-e-r_ .....

D.

 

Ewww.

Once we (the bystanders) reaslised *we* weren't going to get chopped
up by the blades we came our from under the trees and enjoyed the very
impressive flying and the machines performance. He was flying long
ovals (full throttle) and the sound of the rotors on the turn at our
end of the cct was very realistic.

 

There are plenty of sims out there that you can plug your controller
into. I use the Reflex sim, which is quite nice.

 

Oh bugger. I've seen far too many "guru's" who couldn't set up a machine if
their lives depended on it.

Hehe, that cry is usually followed by "I hate Multiplex/Futaba/JR/Sanwa?take
yer pick".

Loser. When it leaned out and threw the tail rotor, he should've just sat it
out and enjoyed the spin 'til the donky quit. Then he could've auto'd it
without incident. but this is what setting up a heli is all about. Not only
making sure tings move by the right amount, but also making sure things that
shouldn't move, don't. That's things like tail rotor blade holders/hubs.

He should've known better. It's a HAMSTER that he should've glued inside,
not a fucking doll

--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

Not the same though. It's like riding a bike in SBK08 then nipping down to
Cadwell and expecting to mash the lap record.

No "bottle factor" and even the best sim still has pretty poor physics after
the heli has left the hover.

I've yet to see a sim that realistically simulates translational lift,
ground effect, translating tendency, torque reaction, tail rotor-main rotor
pitch compensation, mismatched power-drag curves or any number of other
things. Fun they are (for 10 minutes) and good for learning the timing
needed for manoeuvres like pirouetting loops or backwards rolling figure
eights, but not much use for learning what to do in an emergency.

--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

Well, quite. Except your analogy fails because the domain you quote is
a minority one, and most people here will never bother tinkering with
helicopters.[/QUOTE]

A little like most people in France won't bother tinkering with the Eglish
language, you mean?

No, no, no.. Only "SOME" are judged by "SOME". The vast majority really
couldn't give a **** as, evidenced by the drop in numbers of people who
can't spell.

You must spend a lot of time in the "not flattered" corner then. Me, well
I've got better things to get pissed off about.


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

I've never understood sentences.


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

True, but for a newbie that doesn't want to trash their heli first go,
it's a nice starter tool. Which was my point, really.

 

I've seen sims put more people off buying a model than teach them anything
worthwhile. After 10 minutes on a sim and getting nowhere, they decide that
heli flying isn't for them.


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

I assumed he did that deliberately.

 

i'm pretty sure you didn't mean to say that.

 

yea. i was awash in self-loathing there for a bit but i got a shrink and
medication and a new bike so things are looking up a little.

 

I've never been close to being "awash in self-loathing". It doesn't
sound like much fun.

Well, he's not perfect. He still has a signed copy of a Michael
Marshall book of mine that he's had for years. I'd like it back, 'cos
I fancy re-reading the trilogy, but it rankles to have to buy another
copy of a book that I - in theory - already own.