Martin Dilly 1
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Everything posted by Martin Dilly 1
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Where to get wood from
Martin Dilly 1 replied to Mark Cooper 6's topic in Building from Traditional Kits and Plans
Flitehook. Nice people to deal with, and you can specify what grain and density you need. Usual disclaimer. -
What are your three favourite war movies?
Martin Dilly 1 replied to Peter Miller's topic in Chit-chat
12 O'Clock High. (Did you know there was a TV series based on the film that ran for three years in the 1960s in the United States? Available on YouTube; lots of B&W B-17 footage, some of which looks as if it was shot in Britain. Scripts sometimes a bit naff.) The Burmese Harp. Kon Ichikawa's film of a sole Japanese soldier at the end of the war who stays on, dressed as a monk, to bury forgotten soldiers. The Victors by Carl Foreman. It follows a US platoon across Europe and avoids the usual US blood-and-glory line. Culmination is the execution for desertion of a US soldier (based on the real-life one of Eddie Slovik), set in a vast snow-covered field in France, with Frank Sinatra 's Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas playing over. The film probably didn't go down too well with the US right. The original Memphis Belle by William Wyler, a documentary mostly shot at Bassingbourn in 1943. The much later fictionalised film was based on this. -
Model flying photos you're proud of
Martin Dilly 1 replied to David Ashby - Moderator's topic in Photography
No Photoshop involved, just a strong thermal, a calm day amd a lucky finger during a Coupe Europa contest at Middle Wallop a couple of years ago. Both models still in the climb; the propellers will fold in a few seconds. -
New build rubber powered balsa
Martin Dilly 1 replied to David Haynes 1's topic in Building from Traditional Kits and Plans
Strongly recommend a Senator, originally by KeilKraft, but now kitted by others or available as a plan on Outerzone here: https://outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=472. Has the big advantage of being eligible for BMFA Mini Vintage contests and often wins them, so your daughter can get the enjoyment of competing with something she built herself. -
In the Commons Science and Technology Committee Enquiry on Drones thread there were very explicit details by Jeremy Wilkins on 04/08/19 of how to submit written evidence to the Select Committee. This is how I submitted mine, which ended up as item 121 in the list of 175 submissions. Having speed-read the lot, there appear to be four others from model flyers and the Louth club, apart from the three from the national organisations.
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What I do find surprising and rather indicative of the apathy of model flyers when it comes to actually doing something useful, rather than posting on forums like this, is the almost total lack of written evidence from model flyers among the 175 submissions at the end of the S&TC report here: **LINK** There are well over 150 submissions from drone users but scarcely any from us; were we not interested enough to put words together that might preserve our own sport in the face of massive inputs from the very activity that may be threatening it? Leaving it all the the BMFA and the other associations is all very well but some written support would surely have been worthwhile.
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Jason, do you have any idea of the cost to the BMFA of "..mounting several separate legal cases"? Have you ever considered how much work the BMFA, and recently its CEO, Dave Phipps, in particular has put in on behalf not only of its members but of the whole model flying community, some of whom can't even be bothered to join? Let me try to help you get a grip on reality Years ago, around 1977, a prominent TV personality objected to model flying in his local park, the local council proposed byelaws banning it and the BMFA (or SMAE as it was then known) decided to fight this at a public enquiry. I was heavily involved in this myself, we briefed a barrister and the enquiry ran for three days. The barrister's fee alone then was well over £3,000, which today would be around £19,000. BMFA fees are only £38, allowing the Association to just about break even annually, yet some people grudge this while happily paying more for a doll to stick in the cockpit of their expensive scale RC model. How much more would you be happy to pay as a BMFA member so we can mount all those legal cases, or even one?
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Posted by Wingman on 30/08/2019 15:32:11: At the very least they should have insisted that UK modellers should be charged the minimum European standard payment - INSIST???? Wingman, do you have any idea of how a negotiation is conducted? Do you have any conception of the amount of time and work that Dave Phipps has put in on behalf of British model flyers (including those who don't bother to support their national body with either a subscription or with help) or the number of meetings here and abroad he has been to in order to protect our sport? Did you, as I did, watch the oral evidence sessions of the House of Commons Science & Technology Committee or read the 200+ pieces of written evidence? I'm sure we'd all be interested to hear from you what points you raised in your own evidence or what the response was when you wrote to your MP. There is no "European standard payment", though the European Aviation Safety Agency does recommend that membership of a country's sports governing body for model flying may well suffice in place of separate registration, one of several points totally ignored by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport in her evidence. "We insist that UK modellers be charged the minimum European payment" Or what??? What do you suggest the BMFA should threaten if that does not happen? You may have the very answer we've all been waiting for.
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So how would any proposed legislation on UASs have prevented this? It seems to me that all the legislation will do is prevent sensible model flyers from flying model aircraft and drones sensibly, while charging some of them £16.50 for doing so.
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Again from umpteen years competition free flight experience, about the only use for any buzzer putting out less than about 95db is as ballast weight. We found that ambient noise, rustling leaves, obstruction by grass or sunflowers or maize makes them pretty useless. Add in the fact that the inverse square law applies, in other words if you double the distance away you are then you hear only 25% of the sound, and you'd be better off with a radio beacon. We use a Yagi array to get a much more directional reception.
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Free-flight contest flyers, who know a thing or two about locating models a fair way downwind, mostly use a radio beacon. This is one of them: http://www.leobodnar.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=95_113&products_id=217 3 grams including battery. No connection with the firm, apart from as a satisfied user of their radio D/T system.
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James May's program tonight
Martin Dilly 1 replied to Mike Etheridge 1's topic in All Things Model Flying
I think you'll find that the James May programme is on BBC4 rather than Channel 4. I suspect it's a repeat of the rather naff one already mentioned. -
It was, however, followed by a reasonably good programmee on the development of flight, presented by Jim Al-Kalili, who also does the Radio 4 series The Life Scientific just after the 9 a.m. news. The TV progamme had a refreshing lack of barmy-looking 'experts', and touched on Leonardo, Cayley, the Wrights, Sperry (for gyros), Wiley Post (high altititude flight) and Whittle, including a couple of shots of him with models he built it the RAF at Halton.Worth checking out on I-Player.
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Posted by Kim Taylor on 21/07/2019 17:47:17: Posted by Cuban8 on 20/07/2019 12:51:38: ITV's Peter Fairley was the better choice IIRC. It was Peter Fairley (poss. Farley) who spearheaded the anti model flying campaign in the 1970s that led to the Bromley Council's proposed byelaws to ban model flying in its parks. The SMAE (as it was then) fought this to the extent of briefing a barrister (far from cheap in those days, and doubtless far more today) to put our case at the public enquiry that the SMAE's objections led to; I know because I had documents and press cuttings going back to the late 1940s covering the sport in Bromley and gave evidence. The outcome was that at least silent flight, including electrics, was preserved, as well as control-line on certain days and sites, but i.c.flying was banned. TV science correspondent or not, Fairley, who had a house backing onto Norman Park where RC flying took place, was no friend of model flying.
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I worked as a cameraman on some of the BBC’s Apollo programmes, though not the moon landing one. What annoyed me was James Burke rabbiting on about what was happening, and putting it all in ultra-simple terms that he assumed were right for a British audience, while in the background over talkback we could hear the CBS feed, live in the USA, with the engineer who had actually worked on the bit of kit explaining it properly for the viewers there. Maybe an early example of dumbing down for the average TV viewer. Sadly, we never seem to have recovered from that in the UK when engineering is concerned on the media.
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Many thanks, Jonathan. That seems an improvement!
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Not sure if things have changed since I was last there, but as well as Oberschleissheim, the Deutsches Museum in Munich also has a large section on model flying and its development. The German gliding centre at Wasserkuppe has a huge and superb model flying museum, part-funded by the EU, as well as the main exhibits of historic gliders; one of the slopes there is regularly used by RC soarers. There’s another one in Helsinki, the AMA has one at their headquarters at Muncie and in France there’s one at Angers-Loire airport. If they can do it then surely British model flying needs something similar to recognise and preserve its heritage and to inspire newcomers. You probably know the BMFA intends to eventually have a similar museum at Buckminster, but funding is one of the problems; have you seen the cost of a glass case? Any generous sponsors out there? Another is that a lot of important items are just vanishing in house clearances. We've preserved some items already. Among them is the twin rubber motor A-frame model that Richard (later Sir Richard) Fairey flew to win an early K&MAA Cup in 1910, using the eventual proceeds to found Fairey Aviation; from more recent times we have a Gastove F1C model, built by Mike Gaster, the design he used to win the 1956 World Championships, and Pete Wright’s record-setting 2.5 cm3 CL speed model. There’s a vast range of books and complete runs of magazines, British and US, plus ephemera like posters, programmes and medals. Here are a few photos from Wasserkuppe and Angers. The uploading process seems to have scattered them around a bit.
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Could somebody direct me to anything on the site that explains how to attach several photos to a posting. I've managed to create an album, but cannot find how to, for example, attach all the images in it to a post, telepathy not being among my skills.
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