Keith Simmons

No ! I do hope the police helicopter in the air and chasing that drone. Edited By Keith Simmons on 21/12/2018 17:43:57

I do hope the person or persons responsible for this do get caught as if they get away then there will be an aftermath. If the drone or drones were preset in waypoints and GPS and not by radio control as it has been suggested, then what good will additional control be imposed on radio control use and the future drones won't broadcast user id or transponder over the wavelengths when queried by relevant authorities as User ID and/or transponder technology could be removed or switched off in the drone by that person. To have and continue our hobby, I would welcome such technology as I don't have anything to hide. Thank you.

I am sorry for the tens of thousands of passengers affected by the deliberate disruption of using drones over a major airport such as Gatwick. The Christmas spirit is ruined for many families.

Now the Army is called in to help. Hopefully it includes the SAS whom will soon catch the perpetrators and said specialist equipment is being deployed. I am surprised that it is still going on and in my view, it's not the average joe doing this but bigger with deeper pockets? I have my suspicions but it's speculating and no place to be on here.

Interesting, I have seen videos of near misses of military and light aircraft, so a camera exists, but not for modern airliners? There is a black box each for cockpit recordings and flight data. I would have thought an another black box for external views of the aircraft looking forward plus engines and flying surfaces (wings & tailplane etc)? In the BBC report, the drone was at 20 times the legal limit so that's 20 x 400ft = 8000ft. (Unless the ground is at 2000ft above sea level? Which I doubt it.)

Sadly the developers are known to buy land and sit on it knowing that the value will go up. The less land available for development, the more expensive it will be. It's all for PROFIT.

I was talking to a guy in a electric hardware shop about electric cars and in his view this will not happen as you will need larger dia electric cables and many roads will need to be dug up just to lay them. Each house will need a charging point and what if your car is parked on the other side of the street, or you live in a block of flats? Health and safety issues with electric cables across everywhere. Businesses will need charging points and as far as I am aware you can only fast charge once then the next charge will have to be a slow charge. I have read that there will be smart chargers so to smooth out the demand and even some cars will have to give some charge back so to keep the supply stable. What if the whole town or city has started to charge at about the same time as well as cooking as when we come home from work and need a quick top up for going out later at the end of the week? All this costs money and do we have enough power stations to cope? We need far more power supply then we currently have.

This is not good enough and wrenpowersystems should put their house in order. Is wren USA a big market ? If yes then I expect the Americans will do something about it as the turbines are not cheap. Have you tried the American forums and did they offer you any good advice? Well done in getting the turbine to work and I am sure you can rig something so to get the turbine starting and then running with the starter disengaging to your satisfaction. 🤓 Edited By Keith Simmons on 19/06/2017 18:42:52

Many thanks Jon for the reply & how you got the Wren turbine. LOL about asking us not to crush our models, unfortunately we don't learn if we don't make mistakes and it's how quickly we recover and do the correct way to minimise takes time and practice as you know well. 😎 Oh dear that there may be other issues regarding the Wren 54 turbine and not just the bendix starter and I do hope you will solve all the problems in the end and enjoy running the Wren

I don't have a jet turbine so can't help, but did look up the Internet about Wren turbines to get some idea what's behind the scenes. Does not look good. I understand your efforts to try to get this sorted Have you got the wren 54 for long and did it give good service up to now? I am sure there are servicing issues for existing owners and they do need to be maintained. I do hope you can sort it out and is there a business opportunity market for Laser Engines to help out or would that be pouring water into the sand so to speak? Good luck with your efforts

I have two single outdoor sockets connected to two switches in the house by a electrician. (so I can switch either of them on or off remotely). I had a look inside the sockets as I wanted to see if I can extend the cables from one existing socket to add another new external socket. I was surprised to see that the cable going into the two sockets is a normal 3 wired (armoured cable) and I understand that they are normally live, neutral and earth. Is that existing setup using 2 live wires and an neutral? Is that dangerous? and should there be an earth as a safety wire and exactly what's it for? The earth is connected to the socket and also to the reinforcing armoured surround of the cable, otherwise the sockets is screwed to the wooden fence and wood is not a good conductor.

I have a garden fish pond and use a submersible pump on a brick at the deepest part. I never had a problem for over 10 years and it pushes the water out to the water filter on the ground next to the pond then flows out as a waterfall back into the pond. For maintenance I just lift the hose and the pump comes out after it's switched off.

You can't have a good landing after a bad approach. So get each step right at a time and concentrate on that. Don't think of the end landing result yet but focus on entering the downwind leg at the right height and speed, turn, base leg, turn and finals or final leg and then land. Some do downwind leg and turn to finals and don't forget the wind gradient as you land as the wind tapers down to the ground.

But Sir, That's the only way I can throw it !!!

Perhaps the first step is to do the crabbing using the rudder & aileron so to get the feel of the handling going flattish then having achieved that, try lowering a wing a bit more and so on. But crabbing is a way to lose height without gaining speed so that may not be the best approach.

I am interested in EDF's and please show me the existing thread if it already exists. What's the best location for the Fan unit? At the front, Mid way or rear of the thrust tube? I understand that static thrust is poor & to improve, have the exit velocity nearer 100% of the fan swept area but that impacts dynamic thrust. I think EDF technology has recently improved with better C counts from the LiPo batteries. Many thanks. Keith

That's bad. I had moved to my present home over 10 years ago and the previous owners had the house rewired a few years before I moved in. I have had problems for years with circuit breakers tripping and had then found out (according to the electrician below) that the tradesman had done the rewiring in the house and got the electrician to connect it all to the fuse box. The rewinding was substandard and I had to pay the different electrician to check and replace some of the wiring. I hope you will be able to sort it out with the cooker circuit. Edited By Keith Simmons on 22/02/2017 11:06:32

Sadly FS is no longer updated with the last being FSX issued on 2006. The latest tweak being FSX:steam edition in Dec 2014. The other version X-Plane is still being upgraded, the latest is X-Plane 11 issued end of 2016, start of 2017. I only have FSX but I have an older version of X-Plane and will upgrade to the latest sometime in the future but am not in a rush. Sorry I am a year late for this. 😳 Edited By Keith Simmons on 21/02/2017 11:52:56

I agree it doesn't look good. Had a google look & also found out Pay Pal can get hacked & if it's linked to your bank account, you can get cleaned out. Just be careful guys & have different strong passwords to your accounts.

That's great. Looking forward to read your monthly articles and gain some insight.

I would like to see if it's possible to create a multi blade prop, say 5 or more blades for static display. I think of the Airbus A400M 8 bladed scimitar propeller as an extreme case and the pair turn in opposite directions.

Colin, no need to apologise, just thinking of the mods 🙄. Swansea tidal Lagoon is a prototype for larger Tidal Lagoons in the Severn Estuary and see if it's feasible as a affordable tidal energy for west Somerset. That helps as a non polluting source if it works. More reliable than wind turbines. Whoops, going off topic again. 😡

I agree that money has to come from somewhere, but this thread is likely to go off topic. It's a shame that VW has tried to cheat the system and so brought the Diesel pollution awareness to the public eye. It may be a good thing for this awareness, but as it's so rightly said, Diesel engines are everywhere from little diesel aero engines to massive engines that drive supertankers. (109,000 horsepower that weighs around 2,300 tons)

Even if we all have electric cars, we will still be taxed, why?? How is electricity created? From power stations and they are polluting.. In the old days, coal and now gas, don't know about diesel powered, maybe for peak times? but we don't generate enough so we buy electricity abroad, mostly from France.

I don't usually keep my cars long as well, but had to replace twice my cars engines due to long distance commute being seconded to a far away workplace for 3 long years. Those are petrol. I currently have a VW up! as a runabout and don't plan to keep it for years, but so far it is is reliable and I am happy and have my rear seats folded to have a largish space, but feel I will soon outgrow and need a bigger car.