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  1. Q Fly Away
  2. Magic On Q and RDT
  3. One more thing

Q Fly Away

From: Dieter Paff

Hello Roger,
you may remember of the lost of my F1Q modell in the 7. round of the Max Men contest. I could find the reason for that when I back home and informed Massimo immediately. Please below my statement and his answer. This may be of interest for other F1Q flyer too.
Best Regards Dieter

Editors Comment . Dieter was on track for doing the same as he did last year and Per Findahl did this year ā€“ winning all 3 events in his class, when on the 7 th round in the MaxMen the motor did not stop when it should and the model flew away.

Email from Dieter to Massimo atĀ  FFElectronics Sidus

Hello Massimo,
regarding the malfunction of my F1Q modell and the lost of it, I was able to find the error now. It was not the timer, the start button produce the failure as it remains in down position. In this configuration modell starts with the motor in idle running. But the climb performance was enough to get a regular and very high climb up to the end of the Lipo capacity.
When the timer operates under this setting, no DT is possible and the flasher works not too !!!
I could simulate this on test very clearly.
The experience gained from this malfunction : It is very, very important that the DT always works, no matter in which present settings the model flies !!!
I hope you can solve this quickly with an update.
My Best Regards
Dieter

Reply from Massimo to Dieter

Thanks Dieter,

Honestly I was still puzzling over the possible cause of the problem.

A firmware that enables RDT after the timer has been armed (start button pressed, buzzer beeping and red LED flashing) already exists for F1C to overcome the problem of the start switch sticking after release. There is no problem porting the behavior to the timer for Q and I plan to do that soon.

But having the RDT always enabled (as recently requested in a German rule change proposal for F1C), in the event of a flyoff would present the problem that also model #2 (placed on the ground but ready to fly in the event of a problem with the model #1) would be dethermalized.

Thanks
Massimo

This is the proposal that Massimo is talking about.

F1C RDT
Add to F1C definition in 3.3.2:
“The full functionality of radio control must be available from the moment the model aircraft is ready to be refuelled and must be available till the activation of DT by the timer or by radio control” This was a controversial proposal following on from the Austrian/German proposal last year. It was finally supported by 7 of the Subcommittee and opposed by 4. Since it requires a change to the Sidus timers which are used by many people, it is specified that if accepted by Plenary it would not come into effect before January 2025.

Magic On Q and RDT

The RDT on Magic Timers work from when the timer is turned on, including while the start button is held down..Ā  It is possible that on a very early one, prior to 2000 that has 2mm connector it may not, no one is using these.Ā  This is close to equivalent to the bunt timeout on F1A model which says if the model has started bunting but not completed the action (because a sensor stuck for example) within a predetermined time go to specified timer step which would typically D/T the model.Ā  It would be possible to modify the timer firmware on timers for powered (i.c. engine, electric motor or rubber) modelsĀ  ThatĀ  said ā€“ if the timer is armed butĀ  the flight not started with a sportsman specified delay go to a specified step which would stop the motor/engine (hard on a rubber model) and D/T the model.

As Massimo points out it is very common for people to use an RDT system where they have a transmitter that sends “their code” and several receivers one in each model. Clearly before the start of the flyoff the sportsman would fuel up his main and backup aircraft.Ā  There is maybe more to the rule proposal in that it is specified. Because there are other RDT/GPS systems that have a separate code for each model, and the model is specified in the transmitter.Ā  In this case the RDT would be turned on in the back up modelĀ  but if the sportsman came to fly it he would need to either reconfig the transmitter or have another transmitter.Ā  One can see how this could lead to a multitude other stuff e.g. ā€“ the Transmitter must be turned on, transmittedĀ  must be within a certain distance of the sportsman, could he held by a helper , must be a transmitter for each model (next to the model?)Ā  Clear a can of worms that the FFTSC needs to look at carefully.

 

One more thing

In the summary of Fab Feb besides getting Daniel’s name wrong there is another item that was brought up by Dieter prior to theĀ  event . that is the verification of the Q energy limiter, especially in fly offs. I think this is partly because it is “hard to do”Ā  especially for a Contest Director who does not understand this “Q stuff”.Ā  We do need to do this better.

There is one point that is a saving grace. I was explaining about Q and the EL to a modeler to had been away from flying for a long time. I think about 30 years. I said how the reduced energy allocation was great for fly-offs and keeping the model on the filed and insight of the time keepers. He said well what happens if a person fails to reset his EL to 2 joules. I said it would be obvious. Sure enough only a short time afterwards a huge cry of “you did not set your EL to 2 joules) as a very well known sportsman, launched his model and it got too high.Ā  He D/Ted it immediately, checked his back up model and flew that. Now was his RDT turned before … etc. …