Aeronutz News letter No 6 Sept. 2003
You are invited to the next Aeronutz Fun Fly on Saturday 11 th October 2003. 5pm until 11pm. Parklands Centre, Wigston Rd. Oadby. £8 per flier, Bring a warm jumper as the heating will be off, tables and chairs are provided. All fliers with models over 10g must be insured. Remote control machines must have semi scale appearance - on sticky looking things please! If your are unsure please check before travelling. Max. Weight for any model will be 80g. This would have been lower but we are pleased to see the super scale Falcon kit's balsa machines from Chris at RCS Technik.Latest News ........
Once again there are lots of new ideas about and new development work continues so we will have lots of interesting toys for Christamas.
At the end of last season we had some 7.5g planes flying well using Flexinol APPA actuators. Ray, Peter and Graham have been fiddling about with these through the latter part of the summer so we should see something from them. Mark went to the NEAT electric model fair in the US and met up with the American indoor aces which rusulted in giving the old pot a good stir, we will see what comes to the top - something small and light for sure!
Outdoor Flier! Nice photo by Bob Aberle of Matt's most excellent P38 Racer as seen at the successful NEAT Fair in the US, no he doesn't have big hands. It did rolls and tight turns, handled the breeze Ok, flies at about 35 mph, three channels, balsa. Mark sold it THREE times in seven minutes!
Health Warning - DVT. Readers are advised to wear thermal socks while reading this news letter. It goes on and on and on. If you start to feel drowsey stop and drink some coffee, take the dog for a walk.If you dont have a dog, take the coffee for a walk. If you see some weird bloke walking towards you will a coffee - say hello.
A hight tech. - a low tech?- Marks new 10", 7.5g, Jigget has been to the States and back without a dent and is ready for some beam skiming. It didn't fly at NEAT beacause we coudl not the the battry charged up? This was either because the charger only did 40mA, which the cell did not like or Mark connected the wires to the wrong terminals .... doh!
Caution - May contain Nutz
Once again we are expecting this season will be full of new innovations. John Mack has some new super small ornithopters, Ray has recruited a new chap and they are making some interesting new planes. Bernard has a couple of new F/F planes with capacitor power, Mark is working on a new high power ducted fan jet model. Mark will be teaching his new infrared control 10" Jigglet and Corsair models to fly. We are about to get a new size 80mA Hr lithium battery which being between the 40 and 140 mA sizes which will allow us to make a range of 10g R/C planes. The new Foam 2 Foam glue (from Flitehook) is very good as a replacement for Bison
Parklands are putting up the cost of hiring the hall after Christmas. Underwriters are invited to spread the financial load should we loose money on the door receipts. Interested parties will contribute £50 to the Aeronutz Hall fund. If we loose money over the season we split the loss among Mark and the underwriters. If we don't loose money you get all £50 back.
Bernard has a new electric typewriter so he has volunteered to produce this and future newsletters, so no more speling mistakes.#
Flitehook will be coming up to our first fun fly on Oct 11th , so bring lots of money, preferably someone else's.
Busy Bernard™ has made "a few" new Depron F/F planes for the start of the season. Top of the pile is his Sikorsky P39 which is a super looking model. Features include single geared pager powered by two 5 Farad super capacitors, Depron wing, balsa fuselage pod, carbon reinforced cabaine struts and boom. How about that for materials technology! Not bad for an 87 year old??
Art. Bernard used some very nice red (scarlet Ed) acrylic paint on his P39. Made by Tamya but lots of places now sell acrylic paints. Try and get very dense paint so the colour it is still strong when it is water down a little. The War Game shops sell a nice range of paints too.
Mark has done some tests on direct drive pager motors to see if we can use them for the next generation of micro R/C planes. The Didel Dia 7mm, 10 Ohm looks promissing but it is a tad too heavy. Maybe a Dia 7mm short case woudl be just the job? Anyway Mark too it to Bernard's nest to show him and while he was having a pee Bernard made a plane and fitted the motor ! So we shoudl see if it is any godo for a big free flight plane (" 10 span) before we fit it to a little R/C plane (6" span) I think one of Ray's, twin motor steering, flying wings uses direct drive pagers?
Mark has a new colour wheel. You can see how to mix paints to get the colour you want.
Hummer Bummer - just what is a hummer? Got wheels or legs?
What is it that makes the clicking noise in the trees in New York? Got legs or wings?
Good news for APPA Flexinol actuator builders
Building 0.2g proportional actuator is, by definition, fiddly and therefore character building (Stressful Ed) Help is at hand in the form of a nice cup of tea and some Foxe's Crumble Crunch Creams. FCCC's are now available is std. Ginger and NEW caramel ! If the FCCC's don't help relax the tortured spit you can always offer them to the neigh boroughs to compensate for the stream of cursing come from next door! Also new for this winter are Foxes Cruble Crunch Creams, the building snack for champions. Now also available with Caramel centre (not too good for the fillings) and Treackle (makes your eyes water)
Mesh Head Use hard balsa spacers on your micro gears. If you have a little too much slack in the meshing of the teeth you can gently squash the bearing down into the wood a couple of thou.
The French chap in the Shires is selling micro cars on 35 MHz, so be careful when you buy these cars and make sure you get one on 27 Mhz. You might liek to mention this issue to the vendor so he does not import 35 Mhz cars in future
Safety Notice
Do not stand on tables and chairs, do not lift heavy objects like tables. Don't risk electrocuting yourself. Be careful not to touch anything electrical with the carbon fibre pole, as it is conductive. Make sure you do not hit someone in the face with Tx aerials the fishing pole etc. If we ever have an "accident" Aeronutz will stop flying at Leicester. There is no reason to have an "accident" make sure it does not happen.Mark will bring along Matt's rubber powered, helicopter/rocket toy "SkyBalde" too
Off to a good start this winter ..... Don's Tiger Moth, was built from the Chris O'Riley plans and weighs in at 26 grams -- a recent change from KP00 geared to Kenway direct to a U80 has much improved it!
Nothing on TV this winter?
Here are some new projects for indoor fliers ..A) Super small ultra micro not very big at all Corsair.
Use rudder only proportional control. Electric flight motor will have a simple off switch on the underside to kill the motor on landing. SMT fuse ? If we keep the plane really light we shoudl be able to make the wing from 2mm wall foam without any structural stiffening. Prop will need to be quiet strong as it will take the weight of the model on landing. If we can fly at 5g flying weight we only need 3 to 4 grams of thrust. We should be able to use a total of about 150mA load on the battery. 6.5" span Corsair? Maybe use Depron tail plane to keep it stiff? " Tightly" Rolled up 40mA cell (dont laugh! Ed) Magnet / Coil actuaror or maybe Flexinol wire. Grey plastic prop or DIY yoghurt pot prop.? Pager geared 3:1 like Nick's or a direct drive pager? The control system will be Infra red usign a very small clear sensor which powers a transistor to pulse current to the actuator. We need a special Tx which just sends out a pluse to the sensor, moving the rudder pot on the Tx varies the pulse.B) Ducted fan jet using two polymer cells. Maybe use the new 80mA size cells?
C) Direct drive pagers in a multi engine plane - silent flight. Use the new 80mA hr cell? Its gotta be light weight though.
Optimise, Optimse, Optimse .........
Brian has a new Z Tron IR receiver so we hope to see somethign new and intersting from him.
Geoff. Made a few balsa R/C planes last season using the micro car Rx unit on 27 Mhz so by now I assume he has made several hundred .....
Mrs Jones of Lutterworth writes ........ " I was having tea and *FCCC's with Mr Jones on Tuesday and we thought how nice it woudl be to fly ducted fan jets with two of the new Polymer cells. Trouble is the voltage would be a little too high for most electronic micro processor chips. Then it struck me we coudl use a voltage regulator to drop the voltage down to the chips and drive the D/F direct from the two cells. After I had peel the potatoes for Jack's dinner I set too and made a Rx for APPA Flexinol actuators with a SOT 23 regulator to keep the weight down. Just the one IR sensor so we can cut up the inside of any MIGs before performing Maj. Jefferson's "Mig alley" inside bunt manouver from the latter half of 1967 "
Above - new Z Tron three channels Rx for two poly cells. Very nice photo Mrs Jones - which bit is the Rx exactly?
Dave's NEW flying wing thing,
Z Tron infra red,
wall foam
Gravity and Taxes .........
First Fun fly of the year then ........ Sat. Oct 11th. New stuff. Mark hopes to have at least one 7.5g Jigglet flying with an APPA actuator and we can try and teach the new 9g three chanles Corsair to fly. The Corsair has a little tab elevator to see if a large movement from a small surface would work better than a large surface moving a small distance?? Unfortunatly the actuator is a little stiff and tends to "ping" to full deflection so it might be quiet a short flight! Bring a plastic bag and a shovel.
New ! Graham has made a 10g model to test his new Flexinol V tail design on. No the tail unit is no doubt destined for one of his flying wings or maybe a ducted fan jet? Anyway, model also has some carbon fibre 2 x 1mm strip set into the wing to make a spar - Geoff and Ray have been trying this too, coudl be handy for the new generation of Micro Reno racers as they will need stiffer wings me thinks. At 10g weight it looks like it will fly real slow ........ The Flexinol actuators are developemtns of the APPA type, mainly findign easier ways to work with the Flexinol, looks like on of Gordon's carbon props on the front.
Aviation Modeller international magazine have a nice article by David Deadman on Richard Crossley's planes. Super pictures.
Latest R/C equipment. There are some new 2g servos about to come on the market. These could be used to drive the retracts on our future 25g, multi channel, R/C planes? Falcon models has has a new one that is really light. Matt had a prototype one and I think Didel have one too.
Falcon also have some new flight motors using pager motors with a gear head
If you are considering having-a-go at remote control planes you now have quiet a good choice of systems to use. The new French JMP receiver looks to be very good. It is 35Mhz and uses crystals so we can fly several planes at once. It has special software to filter out glitches making it possible to use several planes at once. Nick Leichty's Rx's are on 27 Mhz so we cant use more than one plane at a time but it is super light and so small you can hardly see it!! Mark is working on a simple transmitter design for the Z Tron infrared system. The new Tx should be a little crude but very cheap and easy to work on making it ideal for DIY fiddlers. DIY builders will supply a box of their own to house the Tx parts in. I though maybe something in Maple or Mahogany would be nice? The smell of Bees wax in front of a blazing log fire on a frosty night whiel your Tx cells are charging ....... or maybe a Denise the Menace Tx?
APPA Flexinol muscle wire actuators are being investigated/refined/broken by a couple of indoor fliers so maybe we will see some variations on the theme. Mark has a deal with a magazine to publish the APPA design along with a the details of the 10" span Jigglet so you have something to try it in
Cats whiskers. Big John Mack's latest micro flappers are using cat's whiskers as the structural spars. Seems they flexible but tough makign them ideal for a little flapper (or a big flapper if the cat is a Puma)
Super photo
Aeronutz Over Amercia
Mark flew into New York for the International Fashion Show during September. Seems like next years colour will be orange - you heard it here first. The show was not the best Mark has been to but the fine warm weather brought out the beatuiful local Latino girls, all of whom where much better looking than the skinny things marching up and down the cat walk.
The show organisers where looking for top English deisgners and they accidently got the aeronutz email address when a trainee searched the web. After several confusing emails in which Mark and the organisers talked on parrallel tracks mark was given a vip pass and a big shiny badge to wear. On balance Mark knows more about fasion than they did about flight at low Reynolds numbers (just! Ed)
Mark saw one of these Segway things in NYC, Very nice. Maybe get Bernard
one so we dont have to walk 300 miles
to get this F/F outdoor planes back
This thing uses a gyroscope to
stabalise it. I wonder if we coudl
programme it? Maybe we really
coudl get one for Bernard (evil grin)
Mark arrived a few days before the Fashion Show so he coudl stop off at the all electric model flying fair "NEAT 2003" as guest of the Bergen County Electric Fliers club. The fair is in the beautifull Catskill Mountains about 100 miles NW of New York. The outdoor planes where very interesting as Mark has never seen an outdoor electric plane before. The 3' span R/C, electric, ornithopters where very nice. One flew up and down the steep sided valley at high altitude attracting the attention of the many local buzzards and eagles.
The "outdoor set" provided a nice wide range of models: multi engined, scale, sports, vintage, gliders, WW2 fighters and pylon racers. However, Aerovironment's Matt stole the show with his is amazing 9" span high speed planes. Matt's little red 9" span P38J lightning ripped the sky appart with super slow rolls. It was pretty amazing for folks used to little indoor planes - but left the outdoor guys gob smacked! Both the P38 and the Thunderbolt are spin off developments of the Aerovironment micro spy planes. They both use direct drive motors and highly optimised fast reving props. They have a high wing loading which allows them to zip along at about 30 mph. The high wing loading means they are not affected too much by the bumpy outdoor air. Matt also flew his P51 R/C conversion of the F/F rubber foamie. This model used commercially available components such as Bob Selman actuators and the new JPM Rx
Comedy Items: Mark and Sergio entertain Manhattan by trying to fold up Mark's NYC pop out map. Worse still - it comes in two halves so we could just copy the half that was OK!
Outdoor planes at NEAT
Matt flew his super 9", P47 as seen in Aviation Modeller International magazine Nov 2002 Flies very well considering it uses olde worlde NiMH cells. Check out the following spec. It does rolls and tight turns, handled the wind no problem. It flew silently - an indication the prop. was perfectly designed for the 35 mph model.
Mae West - Hello to the sales asisitant in the gift shop where they sold a die cast P47 static models about the same size as Matt's and almost as beautiful. She was not too bad looking herself benifiting from some chest scaffolding and a range of minor cosmetic upgrades.
Made especially for the NEAT fair ........ Matts incredible P38 stole eveyones hearts as it scortched about the valley at 30mph doing rolls and high speed racing turns, Scrole your screen right to see the tight turn in the three pics below.
The P38 and P47 use expensive micro stepper motors and his own specially designed R/C system. Not so the P51d which used JPM's new "glitch free" 2g reciever. The plane is a simple rubber power foamie, the rudder and elevator use std, large size coil / magnet acuators
Appologies from Mark to the speakers at the Bergen County Silent Flyers seminars on Friday. The weather was purfect for outdoor flying so Mark kept dashing off to see the outdoor planes - aeronutz never see any outdoor electrics! Mark subseuqntly missed Gary Jones' a talk about injection moulding the plastic parts used in the Bob Selman actuators. Another guy was doign DIY plastic moulding too, I think it was Dave Burry? He gave mark some of his DIY gears, terrific stuff, see them at our next fun fly on 11th Oct. I think Graham Stabler and Dr Chris where talkign about DIY injection moulding? A nice plastic prop woudl certainly be sellable.
Other interesting outdoor planes where the super fast electric pylon racers that are only 25" span but zoom along at 140mph. At the other end of the scale the R/C ornithopters flapped up and down the beautifull wooded valley using the new high power lithoum cells.
A big thanks to the Bergen County Silent Flyers for thier hospitality at the NEAT Fair. Tom Hunt and the NEAT organisers did an excellent job too, it's a fine event in a super location.
Not quiet sunny enough for Matt's free flight electric solar powered plane, but it flew horizontal a couple of times
Matt is too modest to point out that he has a flying toy to his credit but he did do some nice vertical flights with his rocket like rubber powered "Skyblade" Mark says he will bring it along to the next fun fly. Bernard will have to fly it as it says on the box "suitable for ages 80 and over"
NEAT quote " I feel at home here, I normally feel out of place with regular aeromodellers"
Back at the indoor seminars Henry Pasquet gave us a nice talk about the developemnt of his mini planes over the years. Petter Murren came over from Norway to show us his contra rotating gymbal less, gyro less helicopter. His own design, made mainly from carbon fibre. Designed for creeping slowly around indoors, seemed to work Ok. Mark misssed most of Bob Selman's talk on micro equipment and Gordon's talk on making C/F props and actuators.
Indoor Fashon . Matt was wearing a casual west coats tee shirts and jeans look appropriate for his younger years while Mark and Nick had smart casual short sleved shirts in cotton pastels more appropriate for the older man ....... Nick, being a Florida boy didn't bring a coat. Mark didn't bring a coat because his case was full of toy planes. Bob Selman wore a very stylish English style hat which made him look like John Peel !?!? Maybe this was a cunning ploy to make Mark feel at home?
In foam we trust .....
Matt talked on the subject of lithium batteries and Nick told us how he refined the Albin Rx by minaturising it down to silly sizes. Nick had a display board with all this Rx's, actuators and Ecs on. Having heared all this high tech stuff Mark's talk on 2mm wall foam was pretty boring. There where lots of folks in attendance but it was noted there wasn't any other venue with chairs. After just a few minutes folks started to look drowsey so Mark just made up some nonsense and threw in a few jokes to pass the time - it seemed to work. Oh, and he gave out sample items for folks to look at so by the end it was caouse: super caps, actuators, magazines and gears and planes all over the place. We all played with the Aeronutz gliders and P51 too. It was like The Magnificent Seven meets he Marks Brothers.
Mark's NEAT 2003 Seminar
on Aeronutz foam planes
"Listern up at the back there, this is a peice of 2mm, white, wall foam. It's white, eh, 2mm thick and eh, made of foam - am I going to fast for you?"
NEAT indoor
The indoor fun fly was much better than expected. Star of the show form and Aeronutz point of view was Nick Leichty's 5g, 5" span aerobatic R/C plane. The impoprtant thing about this was that it uses a small prop and low gearing so we could develope this plane into all sorts of semi scale models. The wing was a balsa / film construction with symetrical airfoil, designed for invertd flight ! It was going pretty fast so ailerons where used instead of the rudder but it had enough power to be able to do "high speed" turns - ideal for Schieder Trophy racing. It was a bit wild sometimes but it did not have any dihedral so he did well to get it home in one peice. The turning circle was pretty good as you woudl expect from a small plane. The R/C was his own development based on the Albin system. Nick has reduced the size and weight to an amazing extent. His sports plane uses three proportional channels on 27 Mhz. He can also do 35 Mhz so it woudl be possible to race two planes at once but of course knowone else coudl use a 35 Mhz Tx. Another nice thing here was that both this plane and the Pitts Special bipe both featured semi scale built up contruction. The controls used powerfull coil/magnet actutaors of Nick's own design.
Anything to declare sir?
Aeronutz go Transcontinental
There is a Lanc
under all this lot
yes they did get
mashed up
Oh well! ¿
Big John Mack loaned two of his mini ornithopters to take to show folks at NEAT. They where very well received. Mark let Cindy (Joe's wife) pick one up as she seemed very interesed. I think this little vid clip might be one of the ones seen at NEAT? It normally flies better than this but of course as soon as you point a camera at a functioning model .... Mark showed them to a miliner at the Fashon Show and he was very impressed with the standard of sewing - just shows how we all look at things differently.
Fashion tip: If you every go to New York in the summer take a jacket - just incase you have to go indoors! A little in joke for folks ahve been there, I got on a bus that was so cold the windows had steamed up on the outside, no thats not a joke.
Here is a picture of Nick's latest Receiver design ....
can you see it?
(Maybe he forgot to
post it? Ed)
The indoor fun fly was surprisingly good too. Once again Matt wowed the spectators with his flying wing model of the high altitude NASA Helios and aerobatic SE5 which also featured machine gun noises and LED red light in the gun! Pistachio R/C Top honours went to Nick Leichty's 5" span R/C aerobatic monoplane. Weighs just 5g and uses his own 27 MHz R/C system. It flew fast and could do tight turns using ailerons not rudder. This little plane could be used as a bench mark for future Schneider Trophy micro racers. It uses a small diameter prop which would allow room for the floats. Mark is corresponding with Nick (who is a very nice bloke) and giving advice on 2mm foam construction techniques. Other hot indoor models included a 2.6g R/C stick plane with electric power and 3" span R/C fly wing discs. Mark's planes could not be persuaded to fly but this did not detract from the event
Nick's super little sports R/C plane. 27 Mhz
5g, uses ailerons, zipps along
This pic. makes it look much
bigger than it actually is
Cauotic scenes much like an Aeronutz
Fun fly. Nick's planes
are at the front
Gordon Johnson and his team organised the indoor fun fly at a local school. And a very nice school it was too. They had a very advanced pop drinks machine which carfully lifted the can up to the vending point rather than just chucking it out the bottom liek they do over here. Gordon's web site has some nice pics, check 'em out. Here are a couple: Matt's Helios like wing And Nick with Pitts. Mark just played with the aeronutz SB13, Minimoa, Zipper flying wing and T tail gliders as the Jigglet would not charge up properly and we only had a mechanical winder for the five inch free flight Corsair. Mark and his ground crew broke the rubber in the Corsair and Mark put the wrong size rubber in so it went balistic for just a few seconds - doh! Maybe next time
Nice picure of Mark's new three channels Corsair with Mark in the background tinkering with the SB13 glider. I assume the right hand woudl be Joe Malichaks, his left hand holding the camera. At the back there is a guy in a white coat .......... shiny floor is good for little planes as they can slide a bit on landing.
A box full of micro planes, such are the benefits of makign small planes.These are Henry Pasquet's. One of the little stick planes is less than 3g and R/C electric powered! Pic Joe.
Joe's nice picture of Nick's super Pitts bipe. Uses a 40mA ploymer cell, pager motor and two coil / maganet actuators. Propportional three channels, 27 Mhz R/C made by Nick. I did not see it fly but it seems it is a little beauty. The prop is a wooden Gasparin from the little Co2 motors. All balsa, Mark posted some 2mm foam over to Nick who wants to make a 6" Corsair same as Mark free flight one.
Matt flew his super slow flying wing based on the Aerovironment high altitude solar powered "Heliuos". He also flew the excellent SE5 with machine gun noise and LED light in the barrel. It has lots of power and turns very well making it ideal for a bit of indoor dog fighting.
Henry writes ....... "The disc was a 3.9 inch maximum demension Micro Air vehicle that weighs 5.9 gms. It uses a 6 mm motor geared 4 to 1 with a 2inch blilmp prop. It has a Leichty reciever and 45MAH Li-Poly battery. I also have flown a 2.9 inch MAV with G 1.3 CO2 motor and one channel radio. It weighs 2.1 gms."
Mark also missed Joe Malichak's talk on making scale R/C micro models. Here is his award winning built up balsa Cub ... he seems to have got the hang of it! Runway looks a little bumpy though
So here we are near the end the news letter ............
Bob Aberle sent us a super CD disc with loads of pics of NEAT on. Thanks to him for that, here are few of his photos ......... I only include a few of the outdoor planes 'cos your phone wires will start getting hot down loading all this lot.
Nick shows his little R/C Pitts to Bob Selman, very funny Nick, what ever next?
Nick's bipe and three channels aerobatic sport plane. They both use little Co2 props from Gasparin, 3:1 gears. Mark awarded the Pitts 4 out of 10 - well next year it might have flaps, landing lights and brakes?
One of these flew very well outdoors in calm air. I think this one is Gordon Johnson's? Is this the one that caught fire? Be carefull with those Polymer cells
Big and floaty ! Alas the box was real big too ...... Is this one Art's? He went aroudn asking folsk to hold his Tx .... only to find this whoppa on the other end of the line! Even Mark could fly it so it must have been slow
Matt's pure flying wing, nothing else just a wing. Very slow, steers using the motors but also has elevator, I think the other chap is Don Scrul?
The one finger Greek landing technique ™ Sergio catches a huge indoor planes as it goes by. Sergio gave an interesting talk on the Z Tron control system and how he was over qualified to go to University. Sergio organised the mini seminars at the fair and he laughted at Mark's jokes, what a nice man
A common scene at the indoor marque, it's really small and very light. Probably didn't cost much to make either, but what is it? Dave shows 'em his novel servo design: wind up a cord to make it shorter ....... eh, interesting.
It's that man again, Matt checks the tyre pressure on the P38, why has he written his name on the top of his Tx? He made itself so he must recognise it?
Nice range of planes here. The B25 was a very nice flyer. I think most of the others are Czech Flying Styo kits. When I was a lad we had a stick with a nail in it for a toy .......
Saw a couple of GWS Warthogs stooging about. They look just liek the real ones, did you ever see the real ones over in south Leicester? Nice paint on this one
The Herky bird flew very nicely
This cannard business jet is a kit? Flew well, looked nice too
AND ABOVE ALL WE NEED TO THANK SERGIO'S EFFERVESCENT WIFE BARBARA
who came out to the airport at 2:30am to resuce Mark who had been dumped there by Virgin Atlantic - a staggering 8 hours late! She was very good about it and continued smiling despite he son being delayed too and having a house full of weirdo aeromodellers and having a chinese meal with an Italian tenor ....... (I wounder if she has any single sisters Ed)
What did the neigboroughs think? coming back home in the middle of the night will tall handsom chaps?
..... anyway thats enough typing for one night, think I will have a nice cup of tea and go to work
INTERNATIONAL
Generally Speaking
England is a small country, we still use Pounds not Euros. The weather is generally cool and damp. We dont get much snow, if we get some it is useually between Christmas and the end of January. One inch of snow is alot for us and creates reams of newspaper comment!Leicester is in the middle of England so it is relativly easy to get here and easy to get to everywhere else!
Leicester is about 160miles by road from the ports on the east coat (Harwich).
Leicester is about 35 miles from Warwick Castle and 120 miles north of London.
Because we are in the middle of the country we have good rail and road connections. If you fly into the Uk you can get a trian from Birmigham or London. The London train is an express that shoudl take 1 hour and 15 minutes to get here. Leicester railway station is in central southern area of the city on the A6 road."Aeronutz land" is about five miles south of the city in the pleasant "white collar" suberbs of Oadby and Knighton. If you have a road map we are near the Horse Race track on the outer ring road.
Both Parkalnds Leisure Centre and Mark's house are on roads that branch off the A6 main road (London Rd)
If you fly into Heathrow airport London get the subway (tube) to St Pancras railway station, which is on the north side of central London. The tube line is the purple one called Picadilly Line, go down stairs in Heathrow. Do not confuse the tube train with the Express train. The tude costs about £4 one way to St Pancras. Keep you tube ticket as you need it to get out of the tube as well as into the tube (unlike the NYC sub way) The tube to St Pancras takes about 45 minutes. You coudl get the Piccadily tube to central london, like Covent Garden or Leicester Square before going into St Pancras.Cambridge and Duxford are about 70 miles away. Old Warden is about 60 miles away.
Food
Generally speaking if you want to sit down and eat hot food you woudl go to a pub. Meals vary widely. Most pubs have non smoking areas now. Most pubs city andnsuberban pubs are part of national chains like Weatherspoons, Firkin Pubs. In the countryside pubs are more likey to be family run.Fast food outlets are plentryfull, Subway, KFC, Pizza etc. English fast food woudl be chip shops and Greek Kebab outlets. The larger supermarks often have cafes in the that are cheap to get customers. Low value palces to eat woudl be motor way and ariport outlets,
Backed potatoes with a variety of fillings are popular.
Leicester has a large Indian population so we have lots of Indian resteraunts.
Vegetarian. Leiceter has a couple of Veg. Cafes and resturants. Indian food is often vegatarinsReligion
As far as I am aware very few English folks are religous. Leicester has a wide ethnic diversity so I assume you shoudl be able to find a place to worship shoudl you wish toIf you want to go to chuch you may be able to contact someone via your own contacts or I might be able to find a local contact for you.
Health
I once went on a motorcycle tour with a bunch of guys. One of them was acting a bit wierd, no he did not tell us he was a diabetic no he did not tell is what symtoms to look for no he did not tell us how to resolve his problem when it inevitable occured! Let at least one person know if you have some form of medical problem.Animal House
I have organised several cycle tours and the first thing I get accross to new toursits is the fact you are an animal! Aeronutz shoudl not have as many issues as folks riding 60 miles a day but you will have to be fed, rested and kept warm and dry. You will be standing up and walking about more than usual so make sure you have VERY comfotable shoes. Wet feet are very demoralising so try and bring two pairs of shoes and lots of wooly socks.If you are sleeping in a comunal room let us know if you snore or have smelly feet! We can accomodate these things if we knwo about them in advance. Similary if you have to use the bathroom during the night etc ...
Jet lag
As you might not be here for more than a few days it is a good idea to try and train your stonach and brain to sleep and eat
Passports
Visas
Insurance
GlassesLuggage
Security
In Engalnd we take secruity issues serously. Do not use such words as Bomb or terrorits in Heathrow as you will be taken to one side for a very long chat. If you say somethign silly as a joke and repate the comment you will be arrested for further questioning. With this in mind I woudl not take any batteries or wires on a plane - so no R/C gear.Midland Mainline
Football
Police
Are friendly and can be spoken to. You may see them wearing body armour. I think this is mainly because their employer has to protect them so they do not sue in case of personal injury? You might hear lots of sirens while in Leicester. This is because we have lots of Paramedics ! One usually parks near the Horse Race course in south Leicester, so he zooms off pretty regulary. We have a police helicopter, which is stationed south of Leicester and makes regular trips to the northern not spots! Occasionaly it will hover over the local parks when someone is trying to hide in the woods - Ha!No Delis
We have delies in big super markets but not usualy in smaller stores. Stores are likly to sell pre made sanwhcihes and fruit juice, youghert etc you can have for lunch. Samosa's, pork pies, sausage rolls, wacky cheeses, sausages.The Kumas
The Indian enthic population mainly came from Africa during the 1970's, some even speak African languares and have African accents! They came to Leicester because we have small cheap houses and at that time, low skill employemnt opporunities. These days the Idian ethnic population are much wealthier and often live out in the suburbs. Most of them speak good English and also thier mother tong. Most are Hindi. Some are Seiks wear turbans and are large folks that orginate from the cooler northern area of India. They often fought for the British army, partuclary in WW2 in Burmah. Due to the supportive nature of the British comonweath Indian folks have been to collge are many are not professional such as doctors, accountants and lawyers. Indian's still have a strong family links and social discipline. Until recently it was unsual to see gilrs with short hair or smoking in public. These days Indian folks are more lickly to wear western fashions and mixed marraiages are more common, diviroce is still a major no, no ! Arranged marriages are still common but with the consent of all concenred. Muslims are of course quiet diffent. You may see women dressed in black with faces covered and men with beards and wearing traditional cothing. Most Muslems are reasonble folks are will not cause you any probelms. Generally speaking, just ignor them so do dont get into any misunderstandings.
Leicester people
Leicerter folks are fairly docile and consurvative. Most of the people in the south of the city are not locals
South Leicester has lots of University students, a lot of these are foriegn so you may well be in a que (line) next to French, Italian or Spanish chaps. A lot of the "chinese" folks you will see are probably University students too, from Hong Kong , Singapre or Malaysia. We dont have many "balck" people in Leicester. Those you see have probably been here for many years and originate from the British Caribean area during the 1950's. As far as I know we have two Latinos!
Local interest
Pumping museum, Tigers Rugby, Nationakl Space Ctr, Jane Centre, Loughbrough steam train mainteance sheds, New Walk, Steam train ride from North LeiecsterIn the summer we have some large national music events
Sweet meats, BangraRadio
Naional, local Sabras
