Martin Dilly 1

I've just ploughed for the second time through the Baroness's evidence here:https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/1a8ec4dc-78a8-4b76-9dce-ff663ad71067 The parts that specially touch on model flying are at the roughly following times into the session: 10:44 (electronic conspicuity), 10:57 (again), 11:19 (electronic i.d. mandatory, retro-fitting?), 11:22 (clubs registering for many pilots), 11:26 (beeping drone in wrong place easy to ID, nothing about non-beeping one!), 11:28 (geo-fencing now mandatory), 11:33 (is the offence owning or flying?), 11:34 (why is our safety record ignored?), 11:35 (the idiot flying near LHR). The fact that she keeps referring to what we do as a 'hobby' rather than a sport, which it is, can't be helping us either.

A lot of us flying competition free-flight use this: http://www.leobodnar.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=95_113&products_id=217 £50 and weighs 3gm. including battery. No connection with the firm, apart from as a satisfied customer using another of their products.

Posted by SR 71 on 12/06/2019 17:01:20: Well I would sooner pay for our old people to watch tv Than I would pay for all the foreigners that are here getting free treatment on the NHS, helping overcrowd our hospitals At the risk of assisting the drift of this thread a bit, could I perhaps mention "all the foreigners" that actually make the NHS work. A personal observation here; a year or so ago I had to have a canula put into a vein, and mine are apparently hard to locate. It took eight tries, two in each arm and two into the back of each hand before finally a passing Greek cardiologist managed to find a vein. Prior to that I'd been jabbed by a Pole, a German, an Irish girl, a Spaniard, two Phillipinas and one English nurse. I'm personally delighted that foreigners are crowding the NHS, as it looks as if the British aren't prepared to do the work. Reverting to the thread topic a bit, I too used to work for the BBC and as a camerman saw no signs of high salaries amng my colleagues, more's the pity.

Posted by Martin Harris on 03/05/2019 16:37:49: I can assure him that a good number of my fellow club members have responded to my, and the BMFA's requests to participate in the consultation and emails. It was a major topic of conversation at the field yesterday. Glad to hear it. The more the merrier. A question that some may think worth including in their letters to the CAA and ministers. The government often emphasises their policy of 'the user pays'. Exactly what is the user paying for with the proposed £16.50 registration fee? Air? Having his name put on a database??

I do hope that all the people who have made 521 posts on this topic have already taken the time to a) respond to the drone consultation **LINK**b) written to their MP, c) written to the Minister for Aviation [email protected], and, d) written to the CAA [email protected] . The link here (UK Model Flyers - Call to action) covers the points to make. That’s a lot more important than preaching to the more or less converted on this forum. I do hope that all the people who have made 521 posts on this topic have already taken the time to a) respond to the drone consultation **LINK** b) written to their MP, c) written to the Minister for Aviation [email protected], and, d) written to the CAA [email protected] . The link here (UK Model Flyers - Call to action) covers the points to make. That’s a lot more important than preaching to the more or less converted on this forum.

Even if you can't be bothered to read BMFA News, then for heaven's sake read this, on the BMFA website this morning, and act on it. **LINK** :

This might be of interest: https://www.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/digital-outcomes-and-specialists/opportunities/7463 Contract for the registration scheme awarded in November, despite the fact that discussions were continuing with the BMFA. A case of left hand/right hand, a cock up or political skulduggery. You choose. It's only £87,000 of your money, so that's alright...

You could try contacting the Light Aircraft Association. Some home builders might have small amounts they could sell you.

Posted by gangster on 28/04/2019 11:00:45: ... lets face it in spite of the majority flying RC for half a centurry the BFMA is still a free flight organisation. What on earth are you talking about? Some of your points have had some basis of sense, but this comment casts doubt on your contact with reality. Do you perhaps resent the fact that free-flight even exists? I doubt if a few facts will help, but here goes. I've been involved for the past 59 years with the BMFA, including in it's earlier incarnation as the SMAE, on Area committees and on Council . While I dabbled with RC in the 1960s, competition free-flight had far more appeal for me, so I moved on and concentrated on that since then. However, by far the majority of the work I've done and time I've spent (unpaid, of course), has been on RC flying, its effects and its problems. A few examples? 1) The 1977 public enquiry in Bromley, where complaints of RC flying in a local park had threatened all model flying in the borough. I was involved both as PRO then and as a local flyer; it took several days unpaid leave. 2) PR for several Nationals. 3) The Chobham public enquiry. 4) The Croydon Airport negotiations. 5) 23 years spent working towards CCPR and Sports Council (now Sport England) recognition for model flying. It was the competition aspect of our sport, and the man and machine versus the elements part that did it, to the benefit of all flyers. Try being considered for funding without it. 6) Four or five Council meetings each year, 120 miles from my home. 7) Area committee meetings every month or so, when half a dozen clubs in my Area bother to send delegates, and the other 27 seem happy to leave the nuts and bolts of model flying to someone else. 8) Two inquests into RC-caused fatalities. 9) Producing an Area newsletter for a few years. 10) Ah, forget it. I'll just sit back and wait for poor old Percy V. to sling some more mud at Britain's biggest airsports organistion instead. .

Now, read on STEM. We need to encourage young people to get involved in activities like model flying that develop an interest in science, technology, engineering and maths, rather than deterring them. If someone of 10 or 12 has the skill and initiative to build a model aircraft (as many of us did umpteen years ago) and it weighs over 250gm, then we need fewer reasons to deter him from flying it, rather than more. Charging for registration will mean a 40% increase in costs for a responsible BMFA member, to no good end. The irresponsible drone user will not have joined the sport’s national body and nor will he pay a registration fee. BMFA has almost a century of expertise; it’s in their interest to ensure safe flying, hence the Achievement Scheme for RC flyers, designed by the people who are actually active in the sport, rather than by a civil servant at a desk. Registration won’t prevent dangerous flying. ANOs already exist to legislate for this and are ignored by dangerous flyers. Regarding the “user pays” principle, exactly what commodity or service is it that the user here is being charged for? Air?? Why is the same principle not applied to those riding bicycles on the road or pushing prams on the pavement? In France registration is both free and valid for five years. If the DfT or CAA have already placed a contract with an i.t. company to run a registration scheme before evidence showing any benefit, then why should the country’s model flyers be expected now to pay for their mistake? It has been suggested that the reports of drone incursions at Gatwick were instigated by BALPA in order to obtain the drone-free zone on landing and take-off paths of active runways. The alleged drone sightings seemed to have come from people very familiar with the Gatwick internal communications system.

The estimate of 170,000 UK “drone operators” came from looking at the estimated numbers in the United States and Ireland compared to those countries’ populations and then extrapolating the figure on the basis of the UK’s population. A few points to consider when sending in objections, though it’s vital to paraphrase and use your own words. What are seen to be the benefits to safety of registration of those flying ‘orthodox’ model aircraft, or even multi-rotor drones, weighing less than 7kg? 36,000 are already members of the sport’s national body, the BMFA, which has almost a century’s experience in maintaining safety standards, and more are members of other organisations. The BMFA membership list could be used in lieu of paid registration, and this has been offered. The perceived problem is caused by radio-controlled multi-rotor aircraft, not by ‘orthodox’ model aircraft, whether free-flight or radio-controlled. Part 2 follows.

Can't find a still but how about this all-carbon turbo-prop successor to the venerable Antonov AN-2? It's the AN-2 MC. The words are Russian but the video tells the story;  Edited By Chris Bott - Moderator on 23/04/2019 15:26:26

E. No, the skills to get free flight machines to auto do what you want is a black art. Not a black art at all. It's called trimming, and that doesn't mean what you do with the little knobs on your RC transmitter. If I can do it, then so can you, but it's certainly a good plan to get in touch with a club that specialises in free flight, so you can learn the principles of flight without damaging your model in the process. Where do you fly, David? If you call the BMFA office they put you in touch with some help. 0116 2440028.

If you're going to use a 10 swg wing joiner I'd suggest running it into 10 swg ali. tubing. Flitehook certainly have that, or its metric equivalent, as well as balsa supplied with the right grain for the job, - quarter grain for ribs, straight for longerons and spars. No connection, other than as a satisfied customer, I'd be a bit wary of using a carbon rod or tube as a joiner; it's certainly very stiff, but when it's over-stressed on an over-enthusiastic launch it won't bend as a wire will, but just snap. Competitive F1A gliders, as flown in international free-flight contests, are now taking well over 40G on launch; one flyer used a 5mm steel injector pin as a joiner. That turned out to be a bad move; injector pins are very hard, but as he found out, not of a material intended for bending, as his first serious launch snapped the joiner.

A couple of points here. The fuse norrmally used for dethermalisers is cotton lampwick, which usually has a red spiral thread running round it, which makes setting the time you need simple. However, it must be used with the non-burning end in a snuffer tube attached to the model. This both helps to locate the fuse so it doesn't wave about and act as a random trim tab, but also ensures that it can't drop off and also extinguishes it after it's burnt rhough the rubber band holding the stab in the flying position. I think Flitehook has DT fuse, and he also carries a lot of specialist free flight materials and other items that you won't find in the few surviving high street model shops, some of which have no idea there's any other sort of model flying than RC. An auto-rudder is a device that holds the rudder of a glider straight for towing, but goes to the glide setting after the towline drops off the towhook. A free flight model will be trimmed to circle in order to keep it in the thermal that, hopefully, you have released it into, since the object in contest flying is duration.

Nurse, some more pills for Sonny please...

In case people are a bit confused by earlier references to Quisling, Judas and traitor, it might help to mention that Vidkun Quisling was a fascist collaborator in Norway who took over the country's government after the Nazi invasion in 1940. After the liberation of Norway and the end of the War he was put on trial for treason and war crimes and shot in late 1945. As someone remarked, an odd name for a glider!

Can I have three decades please, all consecutive? I’d go for 1950 till 1980. This was a time when I was first a member of the Croydon club (not the Croydon Airport one, which flies RC and didn’t exist till around 1970), which was an enthusiastically competitive free-flight club with seven consecutive annual wins of the Plugge Cup at a time when a hundred or so other clubs were competing for it. There were four model shops within five miles of home, and half a dozen model flyers living less than a mile away. If you wanted diesel fuel you went along to Boots and, at the age of fourteen, bought a pint of ether, four ounces of amyl nitrate, went into the garden shed and mixed it with some paraffin and Castrol R. Nobody died. We managed to cross roads when there was a gap in the traffic too, instead of pressing some button and then waiting while the gaps went past till a beeper went and stopped cars that weren’t in sight when we arrived. But I digress. What made it such an enjoyable period for the sport was that there were several free-flight venues within easy reach of London at various times - Epsom, Fairlop, Chobham and Bassingbourn, with a contest almost every weekend at one or another. The big appeal of free-flight was, and still is, that the sole aim of competitions is duration; a stopwatch shows how successful you are, so it's pureely objective. It’s man versus the elements, rather than the opinions of a panel of judges. We competed against ourselves as much as with others, and making subtle adjustments to the trim or the structure (which of course we had built and probably designed ourselves) would improve the performance for the next contest. I suspect that the stamina of a younger body helped too; I’d certainly think twice now about a 400 mile round trip drive to a contest in Yorkshire, but we seemed to take it in our stride then.

Aquila, where are you located? Your best bet is to talk to a local free-flight club and get advice from the people who compete in a free-flight rubber duration class. As people have implied, simply getting a longer motor run can depend on prop pitch and diameter, rubber weight, cross section and length, all, of course, constrained by model weight or, in some cases, contest rules. Pirelli and Dunlop rubber ceased production many years ago; try here: http://www.flitehook.net/ for Tan Super Sport, which is the rubber of choice today. Do you want to fly indoor or out? People who fly F1D, the World Championship indoor class, routinely get a power run of around 30 minutes from 0.4 grams of rubber in an aircraft with an airframe weight of 1.4 grams, flying at about half walking speed and with the prop turning at around 40 r.p.m.