November 2023 'Special' postal

[Norman Turner]

25th Nov: 13.55 : 14.35: F5L: 16min: 4.7min: 2.8min: 5.7min: 2.9min

Thought I'd get out as it was sunny and not too windy, cold tho. Actually flew 5 flights but the Altis (or my brain) played up on last flight!

By then tho my fingers were frozen, and my brain as well!

Glad I made the effort tho.

Norman

[AnthonyB]

This is not an entry, but some may find it interesting.

A really simple task for today. Fly my 320g model, then the 450g one. Alternate the 2, then I can see the difference in the sink rate.

So I did a couple of flights with the lighter and they were so different, I went and did some more.

At the end I had only flown the lighter.

The fun question is – What is the sink rate.

Quite a few years ago Mike Proctor organised the “Freeze Fly.” It looked like a comp, but I think it was just his way of finding the least sinky model.

Well that was the aim today.

No wind, below freezing and there would certainly not be any lift.

I did NOT try to work any lift, just flew in a large oblong (with rounded corners).

I did quite a bit of trimming though.

Well here you go :-

[mikef]

It's that old saying verified yet again - 'There's no such thing as Still Air'.

I suggest trying the same thing just around dawn.  5 flights - if the spread is not too broad, take the average.  Maybe clip off best and worst and average the middle three.  Also take out any launch height variation.

[AnthonyB]

3 minutes ago, mikef said:

It's that old saying verified yet again - 'There's no such thing as Still Air'.

I suggest trying the same thing just around dawn.  5 flights - if the spread is not too broad, take the average.  Maybe clip off best and worst and average the middle three.  Also take out any launch height variation.

In the past (at the Freeze Fly)  you just flew round "knowing" there was no good air. But they were 2kg models. These are 1/6 the weight and it really makes a difference. The air (totally still) was a delight to fly in. I got the model slowed right up - It could not have been over 7mph. 

I think I just settled for a really pleasing afternoon of floating. 

As for dawn, the wife threw some warm water on her car screen first thing and it all froze. The grass was still frosty at sunset, but it seemed like it warmed up quite a lot.

[andyharrold]

Richard, that is how I would have liked to display my flights, but if you try that the cut at 60m does not work (emergency start

Anthony, I think Richard is using Competition restart. It resets the parameters .

[andyharrold]

Norman, your motor is switching off a long way before 60m. Either that or you are climbing too slowly and not reaching 60m in 20 seconds. I would suggest that height gives a greater advantage than time 

In comparison to the others you are losing a lot of height.

As an f5res you should be seeing the motor cut at exactly 60m, and a little bit of zoom climb meaning that you commence the downhill part from about 65m.

 

Check your Altis settings.

[AnthonyB]

2 hours ago, andyharrold said:

Richard, that is how I would have liked to display my flights, but if you try that the cut at 60m does not work (emergency start

Anthony, I think Richard is using Competition restart. It resets the parameters .

Richard is doing tow launch - There is no height limit.

[AnthonyB]

In the post above, though I changed from a comparison between light and heavy planes, there was far more (each flight) that I was changing.

RC Electonic's AMRT is meant to be such that you can't exceed the set height – It will stop height gain from zooming by cutting early if climbing fast. Well, there is a work around, which works on all.

So here are the launches.....

First, the climb should last for 16 – 19sec. You also want to build in some energy (speed) without much height gain, look at the dips (done badly in some cases, because I am human. There is a transfer of energy from speed to height, which you can see as a gradually increasing steepness in the chart.

Well it does work, because I can get well over 60m all with (probably) less than 60W.

So here is the highest one, zooming from 58m to 69m (On <60W).

There are 2 lines, one is the actual model and the other is the Vario trace. No I DON'T have a vario, it is just a function in the software.

The black dot is where IT cuts the motor and the yellow dot is where I close the throttle. At the top, you can see where the energy is used up. That extra 9m at a sink rate of 0.3m/sec gives (9 / 0.3) an extra 30secs duration.

Here is the fourth flight. I had done quite a re-trim. It ruined the launch and the flight was really poor, but not as bad as the second flight, which I aborted but was still over 3mins from only 50m. This happens when you change a model's settings, but still fly in the same manner.

 

[Norman Turner]

7 hours ago, andyharrold said:

Norman, your motor is switching off a long way before 60m. Either that or you are climbing too slowly and not reaching 60m in 20 seconds. I would suggest that height gives a greater advantage than time 

In comparison to the others you are losing a lot of height.

As an f5res you should be seeing the motor cut at exactly 60m, and a little bit of zoom climb meaning that you commence the downhill part from about 65m.

 

Check your Altis settings.

That’s a good point, thank you Andy. My settings are correct, I’ll have to try and climb faster.

All a good learning experience 

Cheers

[cirrusRC]

Martyn, can you confirm if we are allowing competition restart or not?  I flew yesterday,  forecast 6mph was the usual 10mph.  Sunny but cold.  No chance of long flights but had a go at this challenge.  Too cold to read lift or wait so consecutive launches.

Only one of them looks a bit high, but that was my worst flight, straight up and down.

 

[andyharrold]

4 hours ago, Norman Turner said:

That’s a good point, thank you Andy. My settings are correct, I’ll have to try and climb faster.

All a good learning experience 

Cheers

Make sure that your batteries are warm.

[Richard Newsham]

27 minutes ago, andyharrold said:

Make sure that your batteries are warm.

When you start or as a gauge to how hard the batteries have been used during the climb? 

[andyharrold]

When you start. It is easier on the pack and will produce more power, enabling Norman to get to 60m

[AnthonyB]

Norman, blow up your start, it looks like you are holding onto the model for too long.

If you look at the single graph of my launch (just above), there is one second between opening the throttle and climbing up in the air.

It is too easy to hang onto the model for too long.

[Norman Turner]

good point, had'nt occurred to me

thanks

[martynk]

23 hours ago, cirrusRC said:

Martyn, can you confirm if we are allowing competition restart or not?  I flew yesterday,  forecast 6mph was the usual 10mph.  Sunny but cold.  No chance of long flights but had a go at this challenge.  Too cold to read lift or wait so consecutive launches.

Only one of them looks a bit high, but that was my worst flight, straight up and down.

 

Hi David

I am not putting any restriction on the AMRT beyond motor run duration and altitude cut off. These are 'fun' events and I wouldn't want anyone to risk a model. If you force a restart, then I expect you to own up and ZERO your flight, not null it..

 

Does that make sense (all)? 

[martynk]

On 26/11/2023 at 17:46, cirrusRC said:

 

 

Struggling to read this one.

I assume that all flights were from a hand launch. Is that correct?

Was the 20 seconds deducted from the times displayed on your Taranis?

#

Thanks

[martynk]

@Norman Turner

 

Norman, you have only submitted 4 flights.  Is that correct?

 

M

[martynk]

New table:

[cirrusRC]

Martyn, competition restart is when the nano automatically resets the height when below certain height (on landing), so you can relaunch without having to disconnect and reconnect battery to reinitialise the nano.

It works quite well but not as accurate as proper battery reset, hence some launches are higher.

I wrote my own lua script for the timings.  As soon as the motor cuts, I pull a switch which starts the timer. On landing I pull another switch to stop timer.   I can't be doing with pen and paper at the field.

I agree the traces are messy with all the annotations.  If you want to ban comp restarts then I will do a separate trace for each flight and reconnect battery each time.