SEN 2888
- An approach
- Link to FFTSC White paper
- Cool it
An approach
From:Carl Bogart
Dear Roger,
As an ex F1C flyer I’ve been following the discussions of what to do about performance .I think I have a solution but it’s probably not cheap. Basically the idea is to fit a transmitter/receiver to the model. The timer also has a transmitter/receiver that is preset to send a signal to the model to shut down the engine at whatever the rule is. The onboard timer/receiver also has a GPS receiver on board and it transmits the GPS coordinates to the timers transmitter/receiver for display. The Timers TX/RX can also be preprogrammed to send a DT signal at what ever the time to be made is or this can be controlled by the onboard timer. To take care of the out of sight situation if the received GPS location is not moving for say 5 seconds then the flight time is recorded less the five seconds. This would seem to get Free Flight back into a duration contest as it was always intended to be.
I realize that this would be a costly solution but as most models are purchased these days it should not be out of reach.
Could you please float this idea in SEN and see what the community thinks.
Thanks,
Carl Bogart 46087
Editor’s Comment
I’m not sure if we have met but I’ve certainly seen your name in publications and the results. Great to know you are still keeping in touch.
You are on the right track, we are probably closer than you think, the solution is also probably cheaper
Where we are.
Most F1 ABCOQE models have electronic timers and trackers and lots have one or more of GPS, Radio D/T, altimeter, logging , real time reporting
Many of the of RDT, GPS and instrumentation systems use an off the shelf radio in the ISM band that is two way.
Detecting when model lands is a little tricky, especially for a F1 model that might land in a tree but good work has been done on that.
The challenge is what is the best way to fit all this together in a way that is best for all stakeholders as quick as we can.
So guys what do you think?
Link to FFTSC White paper
When the FFTSC started working with EDIC a white paper outlining various approaches was written. This has a lot of useful information it is on the FAI web site .
https://www.fai.org/sites/default/files/ff_edic_1.2.pdf
and the CIAM Documents section at https://www.fai.org/ciam-documents you can scroll down towards the bottom of the page and see the section on the EDIC Working Group. By expanding this you can see the approval for the All-Tee and other devices in the R/C classes to get an idea of what s involved
Cool it
We got some complaints about the tone, accuracy and generalizations in some recent articles. SEN is an edited publication and the indication from the readership is that the editor should be tougher. Remember we fly our models to get away from some of the more unpleasant things we get bombarded with in our daily life.