Mark, and gang, This is not a new problem. Line breaks at contests due to ships getting larger and winches more powerful have been a worsening problem for the past few years. (Insert redneck twang here) "This is America. We love horsepower!!!!" It's nice to see some clubs and individuals being proactive and searching out a real solution as opposed to the "you break it, you fly it mentality." (I've been breaking lines while tapping and about 50 to 75 lbs of tension - educated guess) Reducing line size creates a weak link of its own. Stronger line, and the model becomes the weak link. Anyone see Joe blow up his "unbreakable" model at the Masters?
As a budding manufacturer, coming out with a rather large model, it'll be very nice if winch strength could become to be more standardized, so I'll know how strong I have to build these things, without just throwing all sorts of unnecessary weight at them. I'm not naive enough to believe that all clubs will follow a standard, but as I travel across the states to compete, I'd like to know there is some form of generally accepted standard to build and practice to. I shouldn't have to build a model twice as strong to compete in Muncie, as opposed to Visalia. One other note that hasn't really been addressed. As a competitor who's fairly skilled at this launch thing, less power creates more of an advantage. Horsepower is the great equalizer, allowing guys with less skill, less finesse, and more poorly set up models to get close to the same launch height. Again - no-one is talking about radically reducing winch strength, just some form of acceptable standard, and matching the winch to the line strength. Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good flight!!! Darylperkins.com LLC. 1600 McCulloch Blvd. 5B Lake Havasu City, AZ 86403 www.darylperkins.com > -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: [RCSE] Re: line tension governor > From: Mark Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Mon, December 24, 2007 7:44 am > To: Tony Estep <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Allen Priest > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Cc: soaring@airage.com > I'd like to wait and see what the real fall out is going to be. So far what I > see is a lot of folks discussing doomsday without any real proof. It makes no > sense to me to change all of the launch systems we have in the USA when none > of these big planes (Icon 2, DP's new TD) are in existence yet. I can see > being prepared and all but this is a major undertaking. Plus why invest in > these fixes before any of these Uber planes are in existence to use as > examples or proof of concept? So far we have a few proposed solutions > looking for a problem. > What's the deal? 2 American designed Uber planes are on the horizon and folks > are all quaking in their boots. Will the extra pull of these planes on the > winch when added to the pull of gravity of the moon cause sea levels to rise > and all of our ocean front homes will fall into the sea? > It seems folks do not want to invest in winch technology to launch these > Uber planes to their potential for fear they will put the dinky planes they > already have at a disadvantage. They will rather invest in limiting the > winches so that the big planes will not get the advantage on launch and folks > can keep flying the dinky planes they have. That is until they see the > efficiencies in flight of the big planes then everyone will join the > bandwagon. Then they will all complain about weak winches. Round and round it > goes. In the end no matter which way you go the good fliers will make it work. > In 30 years one of us will be in the same discussion and we will be able to > keep Chuck's memory alive by saying "I did that 30 years ago and it didn't > work". > Mark Miller > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Looking for last minute shopping deals? > Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. > http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
