Lee Burke

I think to a certain extent much the same is true of all battery types, with perhaps different techniques to maintain them.  A lead acid battery left to its own devices will certainly not be much use after a long period.  But then most batteries have a limited life and, paradoxically, that life becomes shorter the less you use them in the sense that usage maintains them.   I think you are right not to buy more than you need to use regularly. 

That's a real bummer to lose all four lipos like that.  When lipos are to be left unused for more than a brief period some authorities suggest they should be maintained at around 3.8v - 3.9 v per cell, or about 50% to 70% of capacity, in a moderate to cool temperature.  The balance should be checked once a month.  I doubt this guarantees they will be tip-top at the end of the period but they  probably won't be much use if precuations are not taken.

That is interesting, Jim, particularly about the Wright Flyer, Makes one curious as to why the did put the prop at the back, was it purely a structural necessity  I wonder.  I think when most people speak of propeller torque they probably know that they mean engine torque - its just a kind of shorthand, perhaps.  Even Alex Kimbell in his wonderful book "Think Like a Bird" An Army pilot's story; writes about the DH Beaver needing a "boot-full of rudder" to counteract "propeller torque."  He relates an amusing (?) incident when he gave controls of his Beaver to a jet pilot for a take-off and the chap nearly ran off the runway becuase he had not applied corrective rudder.  Any powerfull car exhibts engine torque by rocking when revved - well, they used to anyway, and that's without a prop on the front.

 Snails 

PS. There is another club not far from the lake there at Callian, see thier web site Link  Only trouble there is I think they probably have to have to cut out flying during the high fire-risk periods of the summer.  Worth a look though.  But maybe the club at Fayance airdrome is better - I don't know it.  i know the Glider Club resteraunt allright though

Hi David, You have a good model shop close to Fayence, in Montauroux.  Very helpful in there - not a huge place, of course.  Centre Espace Modelisme, they are on the Plan Occidental (opposite Leclerc), RD562, MONTAUROUX, 83.  Tel 04949993 But you probably knew that.

Just about fit my old laptop

 This interesting aspect is touched upon in notes to be found at Link  parts of which I reproduce below. If the propeller is at the rear of the vehicle then the efficiency canbe higher. The only common flying example of this is the Cessna 337 "push-pull" twin engine Super Skymaster. The engines are identical and the aircraft engine-out performance is distinctly better with the pusher engine than the tractor. In the right configuration a pusher has been estimated to be 5% to 10% better. This is because: (1) The accelerated airflow behind the propeller does not wash over the fuselage (the inflow still does, however). (2) The inflow and reduced pressure in front of the prop can help keep the boundary layer attached. (3) The propeller accelerates some of the flow that was retarded by drag. This is inherently more efficient.

Hmm,  What are anglers going to use as for their fishing weights if lead becomes a banned substance - and, by extension, what are we going to use as ballast then?  Go to the tyre-fitters for weights, but they won't be allowed to use lead either.  We'll have to use rocks, I guess.   Progress back to the Stone Age 

LOL   Join the Club

I was in Brussels back in the early Seventies just before Britain joined the EU and I recall that a British housewife was asked her opinion on the forthcoming event.  "My God,"  she exclaimed, in horror, "Does that mean we will all have to eat that French food!" Don't know what that has to do with fixing your own cars, but it always made me laugh. 

Well, you probably are too young to have seen them, but they were the original Floppy disks.  They were five and a quarter inches square and originally held just 360Kb.  They really were floppy, that is, flexible. The disk drives were of course sized to take them.  Then they became able to take greater memory 750kb, I think then they got smaller until they shrunk to the most recent but almost obsolete three and a half inch size.  Back then the whole of the Operating System (what now is Windows XP or Vista) was held on one or two of those meagre floppies.

I understand that offset on the fin of prop driven aircraft is fairly standard, but I am blowed if i can recall where i read that now.

Ah, Win98, takes me back to the sweet old days of MS DOS 3.  One 5 and a 1/4 disc held the whole operating system if I remember rightly,  Don't know that it was much faster though,

Just a load of old Prop Wash, eh

Okay, thanks.

Is the new statement about a different problem then, David?

 Well, I don't know anything about the Ripmax exchange programme but the Futaba statement is Here

Thanks for your views on the ES mod - perhaps your Formosa is one that should have bigger ailerons

I did get some software with my charger (rc power 601BC) which enables one to monitor the charge but I don't use it because I am not keen on charging the lipos in my study where the computer is.  Perhaps I'll resuscitate one of my aging laptops for that purpose., they take half an hour to boot-up though

One or two of the above wage slaves might just be tempted to tell just what to do . . .

Incidentally, Nick, was the aileron mod worth doing on the Easy Star - presumably you had a brushless as well?

Great Sim.  Plenty of models and fields to download at Link  Worth knowing that there is a useful option to keep the ground in sight and this helps enormously in orientation.

has anyone already set out a spread-sheet to record the charges put into their batteries in order to monitor their decline? The batteries decline, that is, not their own.   And if so would they care to share it?

For the complete version of the above text, complete with links to further discussions see Flightgear.org