South Leicester AeroNutz

NL 56
Sept 2000
 

Next Aeronutz Fun Fly is on Sat. 30 Sept 2000, 5pm until 11pm at Parklands Lesisure Centre Oadby, £7 per flier, bring a warm jumper, Flite Hook will be there so bring some money too ! Tables and fishing rod supplied, All R/C fliers must be insured,

Our furst electronic one !
Wow, 21st Centurary here we come ....

Our "trench foot" summer is over - so we dont need to pretend its summer anymore,
wet- grey- windy- but at least its actually winter now !!
Not much progress through the summer I am affraid, noone has made a 1" (25mm) diameter gas turbine and when, when, when, will I get my 9" long, scale, 8 blade Sea King chopper !

R/C Model Restrictions at Aeronutz Events,
All machines must be semi scale and weight less than 150g. All other machines are strickly banned, no excusses. Ask before you travel if in doubt. We are keen to help new folks get into indoor remote control but we are heading towards semi scale 25g models so its no good building 7 cell carbon stick machines.

Christmas Crackers . Year 2000 looks set to revolutionise indoor aeromodelling.
Last season we went from 7 cell R/C indoor fliers down to 3 cell infra red machines.
This year we have even lighter control systems - they are cheaper too.

2C 2C Project  - Two cells - two channels.
Our indoor project for autumn, how difficult can it be? Our marketing team are already working on what colour to paint it !
What we have always been striving for, cheap, mini planes in a big hall.
It is hoped we will be able to fly little semi scale 25g infra red, single motor, Muscle Wire controlled models by Christmas. These machines will use KP00 motors and will cost about £35 complete. This will be a tremendous achievement but there are new skills to be learnt.
We are keen to encourage new flyers/designers. Our web site has been updated with details of the IR control systems and there is a page on our experience with voltage boosters (not fully developed yet) - which will be needed to run the control systems on two cells. We are trying to help by selling some of the components needed to make these new machines. You will have to make the machines from 2mm sheet foam to keep the weight down but we can help by providing plans to help get you started. New folks are welcome to come and have a look around, see how sad we really are ! See our list of dates.

However, the Americans have been busy (well one of 'em).Z Tron have produced a fine new Rx for thier Infra red systems. Weighs less than a cubic foot of dried newt spittle and includes a 1 Amp speed controller, All three channles are proportional and you can make it yourself easy peasy. Just hook up one or two 200 Ohm neodium magnet/coil actuators and you are in business. You can use one or two IR sensors which can be located out on the wingtips. Three of us have them and we are very pleased with them, Mark has done a sketch of one, its called the IRRXFA (fast actuators).

Next month (Sat. 21st Oct. 2000) we will be please to welcome Rick Ruijsink at Oadby, he has designed an excellent R/C system that is light and runs down to 2.2 volts.  He currently uses tiny magnetic actuators but I would think they could be replaced by Muscle Wire driven direct from the flight battrey by using a bridge amplifier.   (you can do this with the IRRXFA too)

New to our web site  - the SALES page.
Now we are tinkering with hard-to-find goodies we must buy from specialist suppliers and a like. Restrictions on minimum order values and the expense converting £ into $ takes the fun out of cheap micro planes. So we have ordered larger quanities and are making those avaiable to you lot. We have added a little one to the costs to avoid loosing anymore money (Gold medal for that) but it's still a lot cheaper for you.

After all is said and done,
            more is said than done

The ban of R/C stick and non scale plans is still causing lots of correspondence, there is lots of pressure to allow such machines to fly at Oadby.  M&S had and extraordinary meeting to discuss this issue and it was decided that the current restrictions will continue and at some point in the future the weight limit will be reduce even further, maybe to 80 grams max.  This is because the latest infra red and R/C control systems are now very light indeed (well done SZ, JMP and RR) so there is no reason to fly big/fast/expensive/ugly things.

Sad to hear of the loss of QFI editor Dave Jones and our own Tom Kingston - don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

The "SpokesFest" human powered vehicles event went well. All the AeroNutz I spoke to  agreed that the man powered aircraft (Airglow) was most notable for it's very high build quality. Not a ripple in the covering, beautifully made, 100' wingspan. The spar was in three sections, home made from carbon fibre. Blue foam ribs, 2mm blue foam leading edge sheeting and covered with Mylar (cling film!) stuck on with double sided tape. Mark helped dismantle the beast and found the main wing surprisingly heavy - the king post was touching the ceiling !

Quote of the summer - when asked how high the Airglow flies, it's designer and builder replied
"as high as you are prepared to fall".
 

Once again Bernard has been arrested. Just a miss understanding really, he asked the chemist for some hydrogen peroxide so he could make a man carrying, steam powered helicopter. Nothing new there then (see the Intora Firebird H202 Tip Jet and GEN H-4 ( bottom of the page) but the chemist was worried and called the bomb squad.
All went well as the plucky ex-marine patiently explained that modified peroxide was not so volatile and the steam produced is piped down the blades to little jets - as a result there is little torque reaction, it's quiet and  smooth - but a little steamy. These bomb disposal chaps are not what they used to be, you would think they would know these things. Anyway, he said they were just leaving when he started telling them what happened last time he blew himself up …..

Project 56 - Mark's new F/F rubber powered design is aimed at new fliers and particularly schools and colleges - who have halls to fly 'em in. It uses the white Ikara prop from Flitehook and is made of 2mm wall paper insulation foam so it will be cheap to build. The design is geared towards high speed construction which considers product design/manufacture possibilities.
Attention to aesthetics and surface decoration  raises the question - what is it that makes a product beautiful?
The prototype was lost on it's third flight while testing on the local park, the second flight being 75 seconds without being fully wound up. The third flight loss was due to a change in wind direction - not pilot error !
Three others have since been lost and one was buzzed by a bat while trimming in the dark !

RC Scale are about to launch their DH2 indoor F/F or R/C machine, made of balsa and mylar covered with some nice plastic mouldings. Looks a really nice job, about 22" span.

Aeronutz news letters are now published on our web site and sent direct to those who give us their email address'. The web site version has more detail and links direct to sites which are mentioned in the text. If you don’t have your own computer you could ask the libraries or maybe a friend or relative., just give the our web site address http://www.aeronutz.free-online.co.uk  and click on "news letters" at the bottom of the page. Sending news letters by post is expensive, please send some second class stamps to help cover the costs.

The new technology batteries seem to be taking forever to filter through to us. Ultralife have just opened a new factory that will produce 200,00 cells per year. They are polymer based ones, one is 21g @ 725 mAh and the other is 26g @ 930 mAh. They are also doing a smaller one but each cell will produce about 2.2 volts, and they can't take a huge load yet so they are still not really usefully for indoor micro machines. Fuel cells are being developed for mobile phones, the fuel being stored in ink cartridge size disposable capsules.

Z Tron at the NEAT show, on the  Fred Marks (FMA) stand.

Anyway .....  pressing on.

ps we had this little notice board in the summer too .... click