MattyB

January 17

@Rich Griff, to tag someone you have to type the@ symbol, then immediately the first letters of their username, and a drop down will appear - either select their ID with your pointing device, or keep typing their username until it appears as the only item on the list:

They will then get a notification via the forum in line with however they have set up their notifications to be delivered (either via email, or just via the web interface). If their name doesn't appear in the blue box with rounded ends when you post, you haven't tagged them and they won't be notified.

PS - Looks like he hasn't logged in since Dec 10th...

January 16

57 minutes ago, Rich Griff said:

Hi Andy,

I have printed off the new article 16 for my bmfa flying folder ( yes I reckon it would fly off cilan headland given enough wind ) and studied.

The bmfa handbook was updated in August2023 but may I ask please is it due an up date shortly ?

If not, I will print it off next time I am in the library in town, so that i have an up to date hard copy and supporting paperwork ( art 16, bmfa membership/insurance ) to show if challenged by a uniform/suit.

Thanks....

They have said more than once that the online one gets updated incrementally as and when these days - they do not do annual updates, one reason why they do not provide printed copies any more. Just keep a link on your phone for reference at the field, no need to print it off.

January 16

Better than that, there's a whole forum...

https://forums.modelflying.co.uk/index.php?/forum/57-electric-flight-for-beginners/

Specific battery thread:

January 12

17 hours ago, Cuban8 said:

I couldn't care less about RID being implemented outside of hobby users like model aircraft flyers and drone (multi rotor) operators, where we'll be flying our machines within line of sight and of necessity in close proximity to the pilot or operator - what's the point of RID when you can see who is flying and where they are? Who is going to bother standing at the gates of a busy model flying site with their phone app running, in order to get a bit more info on a perfectly legal activity that they can see before their very eyes?

The vast majority of model aircraft and some drones will be operated from organised and known club sites, and those that do operate alone or have a more loose group arrangement, will know their responsibilities and in the vast majority of cases, will abide by the rules and the law. What benefit will RID be there?

If anyone like the idiot that I saw a few years ago flying his drone out over the River Blackwater way beyond line of sight towards Bradwell nuclear plant, fancies a similar foolish and illegal escapade, then RID and rules and regs are going to be the least of their concerns and they'll definitely not be broadcasting RID, or rather like having cloned number plates - disguising their ID.

We need to oppose the imposition of RID on our hobby as much as we can and as in your last sentence above, have the right thing done for us. I think we agree on that.

OK, understood - you weren't suggesting RID would not happen at all, merely that you don't believe it will be applied to LOS model flyers, at least not those operating under a national association authorisation at an officially approved RID exempt location. I agree that may well be the case, but the devil will be in the detail - who reviews and authorises the sites, how much does it all cost on an annual basis, what about the slope soaring and other public access sites, country members who do not use private field, etc. etc. My biggest worry is that this is just the latest incremental erosion of our rights, and is unlikely to be the last - this constant chipping away and adding additional barriers to entry (and continuation) can't help participation in the long run.

January 11

2 hours ago, Martin Dance 1 said:

I watched the CAA broadcast introducing the 'sandbox' which is a space aimed to give developers of BVLOS UAS systems a way of interacting with the CAA to gain permissions to operate in the airspace. Much of this is about integration of BVLOS UAS into the airspace used by LOS UAS and manned (crewed)aircraft. I take from this that this will include our conventional model aircraft, recreational drones and light aircraft, those that operate up to about 3,000 ft. Much of the discussion centred around how to apply and the way in which applicants will be chosen. The time scale for this original trial selection is some three months. The time frame for the trials seemed to about a year. So at the earliest that commercial operations could happen will be early 2026. There was mention of see and avoid systems being needed, the use of ADSB was mentioned in this context. Notably no mention of RID. Could it be that the group driving this bit of the CAA know nothing of the bit driving our bit oif the CAA?

As I'm on their mailing list I shall watch and see.

RID is not the same as electronic conspicuity. That is yet another stage that uses different tech and would follow a RID rollout. Give it 5 years and they will probably start a similar consultation exercise for how we need that onboard too...

January 11

3 hours ago, Rich Griff said:

I am not a club member due to transport difficulties ( nearest club 60 mile round trip, powered, few extra miles extra to NT / club soaring site, hell's mouth ) and increasing mobility problems.

I've flown the sites around Cilan Head including Hell's Mouth many times over the years, though not in the last 10. Despite offering some of the best soaring anywhere, fellow flyers and even passers by aren't exactly common (unless you count the sheep), so I'd say the chances of RID enforcement (or even any Karen's checking up and reporting you) are essentially zero!

January 11

2 hours ago, RedBaron said:

It is not at all clear why the little blue thing is needed at all.

These sort of preferences are usually hidden away in ones account details and not stuffed in ones face all the time.

Anyone without an account gets what they gets.

Exactly. There is absolutely no need for this to be permanently displayed. Imagine what would happen if the BBC did this on their website, or Google, or Facebook, Instagram, X et al... It just needs to be disappeared and moved to a settings/profile page. I understand that this will almost certainly be a property of the forum template rather than how it is configured, but if that's the case then feedback needs to go to the forum team that this decision needs to be revisited.

I am going to bet the Admins a whole Mars bar 😉 that is already going on for other forums that use this software - let's see...

January 11

1 hour ago, Cuban8 said:

Just because others have gone down what is a blind alley at this time, doesn't mean that we should follow them too. I think we've seen enough of that sort of corporate hysteria and self importance reported on our TV screens lately and look at where that has got us.

Whether we believe this is a blind alley or not is unfortunately pretty much irrelevant. The CAA and UK Gov have been preparing for this for a long time, spending money with consultancies (and another example) and talking with countries across the world to ensure they are globally aligned. They know what their target outcome is - if there is even a slight chance of money and jobs to be had from legislation that fosters investment in the UK, they are going to legislate to support it, and (whether we agree or disagree) RID is seen as a key element of that.

I am 100% certain that RID will be implemented; the only question is what (if any) exemptions or exceptions will be made to accomodate recreational model flyers.

January 11

55 minutes ago, PDB said:

If you press Done/Minimise then reopen the keyboard it goes to the bottom not obscuring the reply box anymore.

Good tip, but (whilst this is a minor inconvenience in the short term) I still think the root cause that leaves the blue blob displayed should be addressed 1 this is the only site I use that permanently displays cookie options with no option to fully remove.

January 10

3 hours ago, Cuban8 said:

Like you, I've returned my reply with various personal thoughts along with the BMFA's position. As to the worth of all this effort, who knows? The whole RID thing is such a crazy notion when applied to our hobby, I still think good sense will prevail and it'll be kicked out.

Can I ask why you think that, when RID has been implemented in Switzerland, France and Japan, and is well underway in the US? RID also became law for the Specific category across the EU on Jan 1st this year. Why would the UK authorities push back on it when countries all around the world are going down this route, and they are being told by lobbyists and big business that there are jobs and tax £££s to be had?

January 10

3 hours ago, GrumpyGnome said:

I do feel it's unfair to infer you've been paying more attention than the BMFA - we have (well I have) no idea what meetings/correspondence the BMFA and CAA may have been involved in.

Also, the BMFA also support our multi-rotor colleagues who may already have geo awareness/fencing and forms of remote id in their machines...

I don't think Steve was inferring the BMFA have not been paying attention. He is simply pointing out that the BMFA response to the (entirely predictable and much anticipated) questions about RID and geo-fencing in the August 23 request for response were a) delivered quite late in that consultation process which won't have helped with response rates, and b) not reflective of the majority of views of their members.

Even so, when 60% of respondents disagreed with these proposals/"opportunities", the CAA totally ignored that feedback created the more formal proposals in CAP2610 where hybrid RID and geo-awareness/fencing are both front and centre. The only "concessions" were a few hazy promises that model flying will be protected thrown in, none of which are worth much until we see the final proposed rules. Given that, why should we believe the result will be suddenly be different this time around?

As I've stated before, I have friends who have operated within civil service who tell me that central Government is often pretty directive (off he record) in "consultations" like this, tasking the agency in question (in this case the CAA) with a target output. They have confirmed cynical tactics are often used, such as:

proposing extreme solutions they can water down to their (always intended) final version, so that they can show they "listened" to the consultation
wording questions to make them harder to understand and more time consuming to respond to
iming the release for periods where response rates are likely to be lower (e,.g. over xmas or summer holiday periods) are regularly used.

I will be very happy to be proved wrong, but I do believe UK Gov (not the CAA; they are just operating under their direction) have already decided what is going to happen here, and are going to implement it whatever the feedback says. Ultimately though we do have to play along and respond, even if that is ultimately futile - the time for legal challenges etc. is not yet here.

January 10

Only 12 hrs to respond if you have put it off until now... Link below:

https://consultations.caa.co.uk/rpas/review-of-uk-uas-regulations-consultation/

Remember the example BMFA/LMA responses are in your email if you are a member - I personally do not agree with all of them, but they are a decent starting point when authoring your own responses. Remember that even if you don't write anything in a comments field, your response will still influence the stats associated with each question, and increasing the overall number of responses from model aircraft pilots can only be a good thing.

January 10

10 hours ago, Denis Watkins said:

The Pop Up has gone

But a small blue sticker remains with choices

Yes, whilst that’s no major issue on a PC or tablet device with a largish screen, it’s very annoying on a mobile. The blue blob takes up quite a lot of real estate, especially when creating or editing a post - this screenshot was taken whilst writing this one…

January 9

5 minutes ago, Mike Chantler said:

I went down a real rabbit hole with the 3D modelling.

But I now have a full solid model of the tail section and feathers - took ages - there's not a single curvature or even bi-linear surface anywhere on a spitfire 😞

So all of the lofting etc takes ages. Result is a quite scale body with NACA 0010 fin and tailplane sections:

Would I do it again --- hmmmm... maybe not! But one of my goals was to come up the learning curve in the modeller.

Isn't printing the tail likely to put a lot of weight back there that will require extra noseweight to balance? Your skills are undeniable, but I'm not sure in this case a printed tail will be the best idea... What is the projected weight?

January 9

Finally got round to submitting mine today after leaving it sitting in draft over xmas... Amused to see they issue a 13-digit response ID for all surveys, by my maths that allows for ~36^13 potential submissions. If we get that many even UK Gov may think again! 😉

January 9

3 hours ago, Dodo said:

It’s such a shame that this has arisen the way it has, although, as the positive voices here have said, there’s always hope that it won’t be as totalitarian as it could be.

Look at what the BMFA have found themselves with on their plate to now negotiate - common decency amongst us as a group of fellow enthusiasts should dictate that we respect their efforts as they try to back our corner against what is absolutely and clearly a HM Government money raising venture being pushed through via one of their agencies, the CAA.

Do we envy the BMFA’s lot or wish ourselves in their place ?

Whether or not they are “taking a knife to a gunfight” remains to be seen but who cannot applaud them for trying for all of us ?

(One thing I am certain of however is that the CAA / HM Govmt realises just who has the gun and who has the knife..)

What follows are purely my thoughts, which are in no way any more relevant, (or then again for that matter) of any lesser value perhaps than that of the wiser or more assertive head’s amongst us. Just my take, no more, no less.

I’ll try to be comprehensive, but entertaining.

For what it may be worth, I believe that there is a background to how our specific problem has developed within a wider context.

Just as the Global Warming is melting the icecap, the little, well-loved berg of our hobby is now starting to crack and creak for, I believe, a variety of domestic reasons.

(Picture a solitary polar bear, stood alone and bewildered with a WOT4 under its arm).

Not perhaps a global catastrophe in the making, but a real shame for us feeling the squeeze due to external circumstances not of our making.

My personal position in this is that I have just retired, having just, fortunately, managed to navigate by the skin of my teeth another set of “now you see it, now you don’t” type shenanigans - the personal pension scheme.

Managed to do a lot of full sized gliding when younger, was in a few glider syndicates and picked up a PPL on the way too, all done over time and as cheaply as I could budget for, but it scratched the itch whilst I awaited the great day when I could really indulge my first love no, not the wife, the model aeroplanes.

(Hope she doesn’t read this, but I think I’m safe as it’s far too long & rambling for her to have the patience..)

Over many years of saving and looking forward to retirement, I’ve grabbed some model plans here, some mouldings there and all the bits & bobs that excitingly will come in for later.

With workshop all prepared, I have gone from stood, mug of tea in hand, surveying my happy large stockpile of future projects to following this debate and thinking:

“Oh great, I’m on the verge of being under great scrutiny now for my unobtrusive little hobby, where I may cause a raised eyebrow for perhaps being considered “a dronist” as sensationalised and stoked up in the Daily Mail.  Perhaps I should jack it all in, buy a natty little red jacket and join the local hunt, so i can enjoy smashing my way through fields, hedgerows and gardens with a pack of wound-up dogs so that I won’t cause public offence with my two meter, plan built slope glider that I fly in the middle of nowhere..”

But of course, it isn’t about that, it’s about the money.

However, back to the back story as I see it:

Firstly, we are in a definite minority because “airmindedness” and a fascination with all that flies has been steadily going out of fashion and public perception since it’s heyday in the fifties or sixties when flying was the exciting new thing. For those that don’t get the aeroplane thing I would imagine that we are lumped in with the trainspotters and those that giggle at fire engines.

Yes, we love it (as do many of our hobbys newcomers fortunately), but, the sheer wonder of flight IS fading amongst the populace and we are a minority group that there is no societal need to support.

In fact, not being large enough to be of worthwhile consideration is an absolute boon in terms of the government / CAA’s move into selling the lower airspace from above our heads as before now it has had no commercial value to exploit.

Financially, there’s no doubt that the UK is very much in the doo-dah.

Prior to COVID & Brexit, we had “Austerity” and there was a great deal of hand-wringing & heartache over trying to make cuts to public services and freeze salaried pay etc.

I saw a programme on TV at the time where an eminent maths professor said “the UK national debt is a very large number indeed and a sum of money that is hard to visualise. Let me provide a visual..”

He then turned to an old-fashioned, Victorian style roll top bath that was filled to the brim with water.

He said “imagine the volume of water in this bath is the national debt”

He then produced an egg cup out of his jacket pocket and dipped it into the bath to fill it and said “the volume of water in this egg cup bears comparison to the extent of the savings being made by the unpopular cuts being currently made in the name of Austerity”

I remember thinking that if that was my credit card under those circumstances, then I would be concerned, (and hopefully unless someone was going to come round and knee cap me for money before tea-time, then I wouldn’t have let it get that high in the first place).

I also remember mentioning this to dear old dad who is in his 90’s now and rightly or wrongly he replied “we’ve been very lucky during our lifetime to have lived through an unprecedented period of peace without a world war which in turn has given the successive politicians an unprecedented period of time as never before to have got it all around their necks without something more pressing and nationally unifying to have come along..”

So based on that reply, at least here is something to be eternally grateful for in that the majority of us have never had to nervously pick up a rifle  as our forefathers have.

If course, Brexit & COVID 19 have come along afterwards to place further strain on the UK treasury.

For whatever reason, the UK is skint and raising cash here and there by whatever innovative means will be of acute interest to the government and a junior minister sprinting to his or her boss with a bright idea to literally make money out of fresh air stands to be amply rewarded (and of course unaffected, renumerated and long gone before any direct fall out affecting them occurs)

So, what for them to do ?

Raise taxes ?

Unpopular, and may reflect unfavourably at the ballot box.

Possibly bite the bullet over a notion that has been mooted over the last few years to remove the tax relief from the pension lump sum / commutation that you have worked hard for for decades and have looked forward to ? (and quite rightly expected as it was most likely part of the terms & conditions that were signed & agreed to with your employer as part of your contract when you commenced employment).

Again, very unpopular at the ballot box (although one party in particular might just do it to demonstrate appeasement to the perceived have-nots to enhance popularity should there be a vote or two in it).

Just as our mainstream hobby is  mainly out of the awareness of the general public, the negative press reporting about various issues concerning “those pesky drones” (Gatwick, Prisons, youth ASB etc) has been put forward at seemingly every opportunity to present a generally negative perception to the public and over the last few years this will have constructively paved the way forward for throwing us aviation hobbyists, without friends or allies, under the bus to ease the lucrative transition into licensing the lower airspace.

HM Government is very much aware that big money can be made by effectively selling the lower-level fresh air above our heads and where big money is involved, the feeding frenzy and sharp elbowing will overcome any scruples beyond a bit of sugar coating.

This happens with big money business - you only have to look at the undignified scuffling and broken promises of the pensions industry in recent years where the large sums of money involved make such behaviours beyond temptation for those set to profit.

As with our issue, this industry enshrines it policies and guidance in unnecessarily impenetrable text to ensure all intentions are obscure and options open for their future benefit. This is how it is done as an operating method and the bonuses and commissions are just too large to let pass.

In terms of the lower airspace issue, have any other large organisations demonstrated that they wish to stand shoulder to shoulder with others such as us to provide a bolstered, unified representation ?

Have any been approached with this in mind ?

Not just the paragliders, kite flyers etc, etc, but what about less obvious ones such as the RSPB who seem to have acquired vast areas of remote rural land over the years - and if we’re talking about “airspace grabs / land grabs” then they must be the experts, having dozens of marvellous remote locations that would have made super flying sites the like of which would never have been made available to us.

Believe it or not, our local bird reserve shares it with a well established Wildfowling club - which on the face of it would seem a fairly unhealthy marriage of interests.

Once again, you have to ponder whether my aforementioned two metre wooden soarer is more concerning to the public and low flying aircraft than a line of wax jackets & shotguns and upwardly ascending lead pellets.

(Upon reflection, probably best not to highlight this as it may ultimately prove advantageous to us in the event of a gaggle of amazon drones traversing the saltmarshes)

But in all seriousness, and being such a large land owner, would not the RSPB be concerned that passing commercial drone deliveries would potentially be mincing their avians ?

I hope the Canada geese remember to fit their transponders, especially during massed migration season.

Given that the “R” in RSPB stands for Royal, they have patronage - perhaps time with this in mind for the patron to, well, patronise, err, represent or whatever the word is.

Do we as an air sport have a Royal patron ? (via the “Air Council” or something, forgive me, I thought we had such a patron somewhere in some umbrella aviation organisation)

Here’s a thought. If this really is going to be a total farce, could we not go the whole hog and appoint a Royal patron with an aviation background and with, ahem, a fairly open diary - Prince Andrew ?(as a former RN helicopter pilot at least he perhaps would be well positioned to explain to the CAA the difference between rotary and fixed wing..)

Once all the large corporations are fed their newly cleansed airspace, the UK/US special corporate relationship nurtured and the sought after UK finances are secured I can see the potential for the following scenario should “air taxi” ever become reality:

Enter modern, new-century Englishman resplendent in nike trainers, mis-matched socks and grubby joggers.

He enters his conveyance, doner kebab gripped in one tattooed hand, mobile phone in the other as he absentmindedly flips through successive 8 second video clips on TikTok.

As a freshening breeze gathers in the east, the craft lifts into the early evening sky and sails over field, village and countryside, (perhaps even over the crumbling pattern of a former airfield where great deeds were done, but in all likelihood, it won’t warrant a glance).

The short journey continues unimpeded by any glancing blow with someone’s plan-built Super Sixty (as there won’t be any) and the craft settles to earth nearby the occupants homestead.

Pausing briefly only to pass water and to stuff the remnants of the kebab (and it’s packaging) down the edge of the seat, it’s time to disembark.

As the sun sets in the West, on the short walk home our passenger wonders whether his air-delivered Amazon package has arrived and continues to skip through his TikTok.

A minor news story zips by unnoticed - “Model Flying now outlawed in UK..”

All very Orwellian, but thank goodness, we “ain’t there yet”.

Please be kind to the BMFA and lets’s hope we can all continue our shared hobby and camaraderie for years to come even if we are forced into some concessions.

I’ve been a bit tongue in cheek, but you get the idea.

And of course, we can’t live in the past, I can’t remember the author, but I can remember the quote:

“The past is a foreign country - they do things differently there”

All the best everyone 😊

Wow, that's quite a first post on the forum, and an interesting choice of handle given the topic under discussion...! 😉

January 4

38 minutes ago, kc said:

If it's not fixed it will destroy this forum ( for me ) - I won't bother to view it like this and probably most of the regulars will not use the forum so much either.

It's a minor technical blip probably caused by a backend update with a parameter incorrectly configured. Give them a few hours and I'm sure it will be fixed - remember, if it's annoying for you, it's also annoying for the forum owners, admins and advertisers too, so it's in their interest to get it fixed.

January 3

Be aware that big packs will take a long time to discharge on most chargers, as they generally only have 20-50W max discharge power. That may not be a problem short term, but it does put more wear and tea on your charger, particularly the fan. For this reason you may want to consider putting together a discharging rig...

...or simply run down those packs to 3.8V/cell in the model with the fuselage model safely secured.

January 3

This YouTube playlist may well have something that helps…

January 3

No ideas on the link I’m afraid (looks like that whole forum has gone), but setup on a paraglider is pretty simple - it’s essentially a flying wing setup, but with an offset of 100% via subtrim so with the arms fully raised (straight ahead) the servos are at the very end of their travel. After that set 100% aileron differential so that if (say) full right is inputted, the RH arm travels down as far as reqd (back to the servo centre point is generally plenty for full “aileron”), and the LH arm does not move.

Full “up” (really flare/brake on a paraglider) brings both arms down together to the desired position, but don’t go all the way as you still need some travel left to steer! Also remember down stock won’t do anything to the arms - the only way to go down is cut power, or turn tightly.

January 2

The short answer to this is no - you can’t recover damage to an over discharged lithium pack (Lipo or LiFe). However, it may still be usable in a lower current draw usage afterwards for a reduced number of cycles. Personally speaking though I don’t like to take any chances with a pack that could fail n charge or discharge as a result of previous mistreatment, so I tend to just discharge em to <1V/cell, cut off the leads, twist em together and dispose at the recycling centre. Life’s too short for endangering your family and house with sketchy packs!

January 2

This thread seems to come up about every 2-3 months! Anyway, here is my std recommendation - don’t use the discharge function on your charger (too slow and increases likelihood of a charger failure), but instead build a cheap discharge rig with 2-3 of these units wired in parallel…

December 29, 2023

On 27/12/2023 at 16:25, steve too said:

The Internet says that the human eye has an angular resolution of 28 arc seconds. I make that 450...

I understand your scepticism Steve - I would be the same if I hadn’t been there when this flight was completed. When the model was up there I could only see it myself if I lay on the floor and looked up (presumably because that enabled me to keep my head more still), but I still couldn’t see which way it was flying. The pilot must have had exceptional vision.

This pilot regularly flew at 1000ft+ with DLGs; he had lots of logged flights of this type around at that time, which may have been nearer to 15 years ago I think, when DLG was just getting bigger in the UK. It is a shame, as the altitude logger traces (I was incorrect saying telemetry; it was a logger that many DLG pilots used to fit back then to monitor their launch performance) used to be uploaded to the FlyQuiet forum, but that went offline a long time ago.

December 26, 2023

On 24/12/2023 at 17:00, Don Fry said:

Wots a proxy. I assume it’s inedible though.

https://www.varonis.com/blog/what-is-a-proxy-server#what

December 25, 2023

After a DLG comp ~10 years ago I saw one of the best pilots at the time hook a thermal at about 100ft altitude and ride it to a telemetry verified 2300ft. For most of the flight he lay down on the floor so he didn’t have to take his eye off the model or crane his neck. That was a 60” DLG with a plain Kevlar wing and a few black stripes for orientation. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes…. but it did happen, and shows what is possible for the best pilots. I certainly couldn’t have done it though, even though I was in my early 30s at the time with better eyesight.

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