SEN 2533

1. Fab Feb Field Food Update
2. Marion William “Bill” Gieskieng
3. Motor Run – No slight intended

Fab Feb Food Update
Gabby’s food truck will be on the field

Sat 9th
Sun 10th
Wed 13th
Fri 15th
Sat 16th
Sun 17th

Gabby’s Social Evening
Tue 12

Thursday 14,  International Pot luck dinner with Dumplings from the Chinese team on the field but don’t forget that we are all  also providing  a dish to share.  If you are traveling maybe fast food at the restaurants, garlic bread, chicken wings, cheese, crackers, pickles, olives, Lost Hills market also has food that can be boxed like rice, salad and beans.  If the  food needs to be refrigerated any of the on field RV’ers will be glad to accommodate them.

Marion William “Bill” Gieskieng
From: themaxout

I wish to belatedly announce the death of Mr. Marion William (Bill) Gieskieng, a true Free Flight power and F1C pioneer.
March 27, 1931 – January 14, 2019
Bill has been living in assisted memory care in Denver Colorado and died of complications from pneumonia.  He died approximately 8:47 AM January 14, 2019 in his sleep and very peacefully. He was preceded in death by his flying partner, Annie Gieskieng.

Rick Pangell – NFFS Central VP
Editor of “The Max-Out” Newsletter of
The Magnificent Mountain Men FF Club of Colorado

Motor Run – No slight intended
From:William East

Motor Run
By William East
There was no insult intended the term “Electronics People” was intended as a generic title for a group of us modellers who have an interest in electronics.

The timing would need to be an arbitrary figure such as 4 seconds, this figure would be the Legal cut-off time irrespective of distance noise travel etc. because it would be the “true” engine stop figure. This of course would probably give a few more tenths of a second engine run but all competitors would be on an equal footing.

Regards

William East

Magic Response – more agile development required
Bill
As an Electronics person (or rather an IT person) no slight or insult was taken.

I’ll try and explain myself a little more clearly.

With F1C we have reached a point where the class has evolved to point where the current manual methods of timing it are not adequate.  The engine run is so short that even a small  error in human reaction time can significantly affect the results. It is compounded by the difficulty of distinguishing one engine noise from another when several are running. Some timekeepers claim to be able to see the flood off operate but all that does is increase the variance based on individuals.  On top of that the overall performance of the model event in still air is such that some timekeepers have difficulty in seeing the model for the entire flight. These human errors are compounded by the aging of the participants so that deteriorating eye sight and  slowing reaction time make it worse.  The “error” caused by the speed of sound is a bit of a red herring because if a way was found to remove the issue all it would do is increase the altitude gain which would bring about a further reduction of engine run time to compensate. In an earlier SEN  one timer used the “fact” that the flasher on the airplane signaled when the motor stopped.  Don’t think that is in the sporting code? And does it signal when the motor actually stops ? or when the on board timer tells the motor to stop ?

So we either need to make a drastic change to the rules so it can be timed with current manual methods or introduce an improved way of the timing the models, perhaps both.  All modern technical sporting  activies where accurate timing is needed use some form of automated electronic timing. It is obvious most if not all “electronic people” who make the electronic timers that we use that some for electronic timing is needed.

What is not so obvious is how we go about it.  The manufacturing cost of such an item is not all that great, especially when compared with other costs such the cost of the model or cost of traveling to even a local event and staying over night in a motel.  The big cost is the development cost.  For most of us who make those devices the biggest “cost” is our time in designing it and in providing after sales customer service.  Our time is the most precious  thing we have and we don’t want to waste it.  We don’t ‘just make one of these’ because we already have many outstanding requests for other goodies that we are struggling to satisfy.

These are some of the issues

* There is no guarantee that that if developed such a device would be acceptable to the F1C community or  approved by the CIAM
* The CIAM rule making process is antiquated and not agile enough to keep up with evolving technology (for example it probably should have banned geared motors and variable area models right at the beginning before many had invested in them). It proposed the F1P rules without testing them a major no-no in the “Agile” development process. In this case how could we be assured that a development effort was not wasted?
* The CIAM does not have a process to encourage and support innovation that would evolve into official rules
* This is clearly an important and emotional issue for F1C sportsmen and some electronics people just don’t want to get involved
* Some F1C sportsmen require significant education to bring them up to speed, for example a few years ago a F1C sportsman asked me about using one of my timers in his F1C model. He said “oh fine adjustment is not needed, I can just bend the timer levers to do that”
* There are key requirements on the design of the timing device and this case assumes that the device would time the flight as well as the engine run. Here are some of them.

1. Could the timing device record the time and the sportsman bring it back to the timekeeper after the flight to verify the engine run and record the flight time?
2. Could/should the device have an optical indication visible from the ground e.g. a red or green LED saying the engine run was bad or good?
3. Should the timing device send the engine run and flight times back by radio?
4. Should the organizer supply the device? and/or it be available for purchase ?
5. How does the onboard part of the system have to be attached to the model? any way ? velcroed on? Visible to the timekeeper?
6. How is the device powered? self-powered? from the airplanes ‘power supply” ? who is responsible for making sure there is enough power ?
7. Does the timing system need to record the time of day to ensure the flight was made within the constraints of the round ?
8. Environmental and security requirements
9. Weight and size?
10. Antenna position and radio frequency?
11. Even if the model is timed electronically how else must the flight be observed to ensure it conformed to all the rules?

This list is by no means complete so I’m not saying that all of these need to be spelled out at the start and understand some will only become apparent once the process starts but the process needs to invoke key stakeholders and be agile enough to adapt quickly.  If it’s not it won’t matter because there won’t be any F1C flyers left.

Finally in general many of these comments could apply just as well other F1 World Champs classes but here we specifically refer to F1C because Bill and others raised it and F1C does have a special need with timing engine runs.