Peter Jenkins
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Everything posted by Peter Jenkins
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You are right that F3A throws are lower Adrian. My starting points are Ail and Elev 10 degs each wsy with rudder 30 degs each way. I then fly it and adjust accordingly - usually msking them a bit smaller e.g. elev 8 deg each way and occasionally less. Of course, you want max throw on the elev, say 30 deg or so and max rudder, say 40 deg, for spinning. Snap, or flick rolls I fiddle with adding quite a lit of aileron but adjust to get the speed of the snap so I can stop it at the right point with a high degree of confidence - usually misplaced I have to say 🤣.
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I've worked with both and there are good and bad ones. Obviously, you have your opinion but have you ever worked with a good treasury man?
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If the promise hadn't been made there wouldn't be any NFC. Simples. There is a diffference between being a politician in the Treasury and somekne who has spent their lifetime assessing financial issues for both the Government and the private sector. They are far better qualified in assessing financial viability, value for money and risks than almost all of the commenters on this thread. It is politicians who muddy the water by taking decisions based on a political basis where hope and not financial facts are the currency.
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Snuck out again this afternoon and got in 1 1/2 hrs at the patch. It looked like the cloud base would be too low but as I was pondering this I saw a slightly lighter patch of cloud coming along. Launched with the brighter patch overhead and was delighted to discover that the cloud base was well above the 1,050 ft high that I had on the first flight. I'd taken my laptop along again to look at the Flight Coach trace and having absorbed the gross errors I could see, and remember, I then launched into 3 more flights of the schedule I'm flying. Left the field at 4.10 as it was getting even gloomier feeling that the effort had been well worth it. What was very useful was the almost dead calm so that all the positioning errors were solely my fault! On my return home, I reviewed the flight traces from all 4 flights and was pleased to find that some of the time I had corrected my faults! More correction needed with the additional need for consistency! As ever, I was the only one there
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I don't know if you listened to the original discussion about the NFC but it was made plain then that there would be no subsidy from the membership fee. There was a subsidy provided by our then insurers and not having looked at the Finances this year I don't know what that figure is. However, if you take into account the fact that the cost of running the Leicester HQ, now that we have moved the BMFA HQ to Buckminster, is a perfectly legitimate cost for "Buckminster" to charge the BMFA membership. You keep bringing up stuff that has been long dealt with. Do you even remember what was said during the period the the NFC was being discussed? You may not know this but the BMFA Finance Member is an ex HM Treasury guy who is very well versed in financial matters. Indeed, it was he who spotted the error made in the presentation at Council during the run up to the NFC decision that Insurance Broker's sponsorship had been used twice! No one else spotted it! That caused a frantic rejigging of figures so that eventually the books balanced. That resulted in cuts to various projects. You keep going on about the NFC being of benefit to only a minority of members. You do not think about the work that is done by having senior people come to the Centre and have their eyes opened to what the BMFA is about. This includes Government officials and politicians. That work is for the benefit of all members not just a few. Finally, folk go on about the competition minded folk running the BMFA for their own purposes. Let me just point out, that were it not for these people there would be no BMFA as no one else would be bothered to put in the effort since there would be nothing in it for them. Just think of how Clubs are run and how it comes down to a small cadre of folk without whose efforts there would be no Club and, evenutally, no BMFA.
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Thanks Adrian. Ease of spin entry is certainly an issue for me as well, although I tend to focus on reducing the amount of down elevator for inverted flying. I still prefer some down when inverted as I find neutral trim is a bit confusing for my old brain to remember which way up the aircraft is! It was interesting to find that with a double taper wing (taper increased at about 2/3 wing span going towards the tip - intended to improve snap performance) the spin requires some small amount of aileron to ensure the spin develops instead of waffling around.
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Well said Leccy.
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The majority of Club members don't give a hoot about the BMFA. Why would they even consider reading stuff sent out to them to inform them of the vote they are being encouraged to make? As for Country Members, most are members of at least one Club. The number who are truly flying on their own is quite small therefore. The original reason that Clubs are the members of the BMFA, or SMAE as still is, is that in 1922 most folk didn't even have telephones. That was why Areas were introduced so that the administration was decentralised. In my Area we were lucky to get more than 5 attendees who were not Area Committee Members. That's how much interest there was from the Area Clubs. If you want at least 80% of the block casting a vote then nothing will get passed and the BMFA as we know it will die. Why? Would you volunteer to be a BMFA Council member when you have no power to make anything happen?
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Didn't have time to post this yesterday so here goes. I waited till almost 1 pm before the Sun broke through in Suffolk. Got to the patch at 2.45 pm to find I was the only one there. Conditions were almost perfect with a light breeze at about 20 deg to the runway and blue skies. I had taken my laptop with me so that I could "debrief" after flight using the Flight Coach data that was saved to a micro SD card. I did that for the first two flights but after that decided to just fly trying to apply corrections to the errors I'd seen and then look at the final two flights at home. Sunset was 4.30 pm and from around 4 pm onwards the wind dropped completely. So, my last flight, taking off at 4.15 and landing at 4.22 was conducted in this strange calm. Can't say that it seemed to help much! As I landed, the Sun was half way below the horizon and by the time I'd got back to the pits, disarmed the aircraft and removed the batteries I thought I'd take a photo right after the Sun had disappeared. What a session!
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It all depends on what you are used to flying and the level of precision flying that you have reached. It is certainly a complaint levelled at the Olympus by a couple of pilots who are regular competition attendees. Would an average club pilot notice - maybe not.
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This is true Bruce but you would be surprised at what can be bought for relatively little from the F3A community and in which one can have a much higher degree of faith in condition and performance. Generally speaking, you can buy a second hand 70 size model ready to go for around £300-£400. And yes, this may well be outside Steve's budget but I thought it worth flagging up. I agree that the Olympus is a very good precision aerobatic airframe but it suffers from having to be retrimmed almost every flight as it is prone to changing its shape by small amounts during a flying day. This is a great advantage in the Olympus' ability to absorb damage that a crunchie would not readily survive. It's just an alternative route to take and if Steve is interested he might choose to follow - or not as the case might be. I'm not trying to stuff my suggestion down his throat as he has stated he doesn't want to fly in competition so the need to retrim regularly may not be an issue.
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You could always try and make contact with him via his website and see if he can source a good example of a second hand 70 size model. Most F3A models have a long lifespan and even after 5 year's of use can look like new. You could find the equivalent of the UKF3A Association in Spain and see if they have a For Sale board.
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Probably a lot more than you wanted to pay but this BJ Craft Anthem 70 size airframe is a cracker. It's available in Spain and Juan Rombaut is currently the top Spanish F3A pilot. I fly the 2 m version of the Anthem.
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3 F3A pilots and their machines at our Club this afternoon. Although we had the occasional light shower we were only really stopped for about 10 mins. Some useful feedback to each other on areas to improve on. Was particularly useful having input from the UKF3A chief judge. More practice needed but we hope we're practicing the right thing!
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Just fallen over this thread. David Davis has provided the answer. I would just add that most modern F3A aerobatic aircraft have two piece wings that plug into a carbon fibre tube and abut the fuselage. The wings are retained by a 4 mm thumbscrew and that is perfectly sound setup. These aircraft are regularly flown with snap rolls on almost every flight and in the top schedule with 2 snaps in opposite directions with no pause between the two. The forces that would be required to fling the wings off are greatest in these snap rolls whereas I doubt that is a manoeuvre that you will be flying. In any event, the fixings referred to by David do not need further reinforcement. So, it's a shame that whoever assembled the airframe thought is a good idea to try and glue the two halves together. You might even think of cutting through the fibre glass tape carefully to set the 2 wings free and make transporting your Calmato easier.
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Hi Ernie I've not seen the boats with both foils out of the water I have to say. Without a keel if both foils were out of the water, the boat is likely to capsize quite easily so as they slow down to become a displacement vessel you normally see both foils down. The aerodynamics of the boat are limited to the sails and the forces they produce to generate the speed necessary for the foils to start lifting. There will be a minimum speed with both foils lifting at maximum lift to raise the boat from being a displacement vessel to a hydrofoil one. Once foiling, then the upwind foil can be raised and the force from the sail used both to drive the boat forward and to provide the force that the raised foil would have produced. Thus just one foil will be producing the force needed to keep the 7.5 tonnes of boat supported on the foil only. There seems to be a crew member whose job it is to maintain the foil's force by altering it's angle of attack underwater to generate the required force without causing the thing to "stall" - I think they call it cavitation from what I've heard. So, it's definitely the hydrodynamics that support the vessel on its foils and the aerodynamic forces generated by the sails that push the boat forwards while also providing the support force to allow the upwind foil to be removed from the water. I presume the reduction in drag by doing this is worth a lot more than the slight loss of available force for driving the boat forwards. At least, that's what I think is going on.
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I seem to remember that Ainslee was 8-0 down and then went on a 9 race spree winning the AC for the Americans the last time they won. I wonder if he has that in him this time? It does seem to me that Ineos Britannia seems to lose ground on almost every tack to the NZ boat. They also don't seem to accellerate as fast. At the end of the day, it's the old amalgamation of minor gains that makes the difference at this level plus a bit of luck. NZ falling off their foils to gift Britannia its first win was one bit of luck that I doubt will happen again. Let's hope the Mercedes boffins at Brackley came up with a tweak that will give Britannia a 1 to 1.5 kt speed increase. More would be better of course!
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6,250 kg/ sq m. Remember that water density is 1 Kg/cubic meter while air density.is 1.2 g/cu m. So water is 830 times more dense than air. So, since density is in the top line of Reynolds number and the Reynolds number is used in lift calculation the hydrodynamic forces will be around 830 times greater than for aerodynsmic force.- give or take.
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Only got to the field in the afternoon. As is almost usual these days, folks had flown up to lunch time so I was billy no mates. The weather was warm, slightly more breeze than yesterday, say 12 mph, and about 30 degrees cross. Managed to get in 1 training flight - just flying rectangles and trying to stay in the box .... and not succeeding - and then 4 schedule flights of varying quality. Still, it was all very useful as I can now review my flights using the Flight Coach plotter. Sadly, this shows that most manoeuvres need much more work to get them to the right shape, size and position! I've now clocked up 38 flights with the Anthem. Trimming is almost there but I'm still fiddling around with the spin to try and get a consistent spin entry and rotation. Needs a few more goes to get that spot on. Otherwise, it seems to be pretty much there.
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My understanding was that the smaller AC40s used in the Womens Americas Cup were battery powered but the AC75s are pure muscle power for everything that doesn't involve thinking. I could be wrong as Ineos had to change an overheating battery pack so it could be that what you say is right PDB.
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I believe it's a combination of cycling sailors, hence cyclors.