%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |  "Putting on the Game Face" |
  This blog is a doorway into the mind of Percy Goodfellow. Don't be shocked at the lost boys of Namby-Pamby Land and the women they cavort with. Watch as his caricatures blunder about the space between audacious hope and the wake-up calls of tomorrow. Behold their scrawl on the CRT, like graffitti on a subway wall. Examine it through your own lens...Step up my friends, and separate the pepper from the rat poop. Welcome to my abode...the armpit of yesterday, the blinking of an eye and a plank to the edge of Eternity. Note: This blog is my journal. I've no interest in persuading anyone to adopt my views. What I write is whatever happens to interest me when I start pounding the keys. |
| My hobby is making model airplane drones. One of the pages I frequent go to is Gemini 2. The Gemini 2 is a large model airplane drone that looks like a cargo plane. It was designed and built by someone nicknamed Spike. I really like the way Spike has designed and built the Gemini 2, to the point where I ordered his plans and the short kit produced by Flying Squirrel Models. If you search RC model airplanes Gemini 2 you will see a number of U-Tube videos showing construction and flight of Spike's models. Also, interspaced about his posts, are U-tube videos about NASA, bizarre statements of Government Coverups and imaginative assertions of extraterrestrial life. If you watch enough of these you not only become more knowledgable of the genre but also learn some archeology, read reams of conjecture and find out more about what is taking place in Antartica, on the Moon and get, (and hear interpreted) spin on Mars Rover images being sent back to earth. Much of this can be dismissed as imaginative, however some, appears to contain some truth. Examples which can't be readily dismissed, are. 1) The pyramids at Giza. I know, I know, these are not figments from Mars. If you can afford the airplane ticket a skeptic can go to Egypt, reach out and touch with their finger, a relic that dates to one of mankind's earliest civilizations. 2) The Mayan, Aztec and Inca Ruins. Again we know these are not figments. Many of these archeological artifacts are quite literally chiseled in STONE. Not only are they real but in many cases the stones are beyond any manageable heft and cut with a precision, unachievable even today... not to mention hauled from their ancient quarries to where they can be seen today. 3) The proximity of the Face on Mars with a nearby pyramid shaped anomaly. 4) Images of a huge pyramid in Antartica. 5) The totality of UFO sightings and claims which are continuously being made, photographed,and reported. 6) The untrustworthy nature of governments and their penchant for hiding truth is more a state of nature than a symptom of paranoia. Almost by definition Big Brother will want to keep the discovery of Extraterrestrial Life hidden from the public. It is more a a pathetic commentary than a doubt, that bureaucrats justify this type of coverup out of a benevolent concern for sparing society the anxiety and unrest such a revelation would lead to. |
| If I were to propose a new motto for NASA, that fits their Modus Operandi it would not be "Go Boldly and Discover new Wonders" but rather "Proceed Cautiously and Verify preconceived notions ." |
| A Book recently came to my attention. It is titled Life and Death on Mars. It is written by John E. Brandenburg, PHD. In his career Brandenburg worked in prestigious laboratories both as a Plasma Scientist and as a Rocket Scientist. He worked as a director on the NASA, Clementine program that discovered water on the Moon. For a period he was a respected NASA insider and rubbed elbows with Carl Sagen and other notable pioneers of space exploration. In his work he noted the discovery of The Faces on Mars and collaborated w with others to verify their authenticity. He also looked closely at the atmospheric samples brought back by early probes and was astounded to see telltale markers of isotopes which he has concluded could only have resulted from thermonuclear weapons (Hydrogen Bombs) exploded over the surface of the planet. He further concluded that Mars was once an Earth like planet and rather than having only microbial life had a well developed intelligent life evidenced by the Face, Pyramid and other surface anomalies that are not naturally occurring and found in the Caledonia region of the Red Planet. You might be wondering why nobody has been waving the red flag and making a big issue over his fact based hypothesis. The best of reasons is that scientists are reluctant to say anything that cannot be proven to an extremely high level of certainty. Currently the scientific community is divided into two camps, one claiming Mars is lifeless like the moon and the other saying it was a once living planet that suffered a cataclysmic event that destroyed its oceans and atmosphere. For example like the asteroid that crashed into earth on the Yucatan Peninsula. Mars being smaller, was not able to recover from the cataclysm like the Earth did. The Scientists are waiting patiently for incontestable proof before making the bold assertion that Dr. Brandenburg has. It is part of science that being found in error is to be branded a "Bad Scientist" or still worse, as in Brandenburg's case, a once competent scientist who has come "Unhinged." In reading this you might be wondering two things....The first is could Dr. Brandenburg's hypothesis be true and the second is perhaps "So What? Both parts are fairly easy to answer. To verify the Hydrogen Bomb assertion simply convene a peer body of review made up of Nuclear Weapon's experts and find out to what extent Brandenburg's claims are true. How hard is that? The second part is to first image and then send a Rover to the site to determine if there is archeological evidence that intelligent life once existed at the site of the Caledonia Anomalies. How hard is that? Since we have the means to verify nuclear test ban treaties from space, photograph the Earth's surface to a resolution of ten meters, and walk Rovers over the uninhabited wastelands of Mars, why can't we do the same at the site of the Face and Pyramid? Why must we wait another thirty (30) years to put this issue to rest? The "So What," "Who Cares" and what's the Hurry,"questions are fair ones. It is one thing to cruise around the surface of mars and test the atmosphere and drill rocks. This has scientific value. However, a claim that intelligent life once existed is of a higher magnitude of importance. So why, instead of driving a rover around in the desert, doesn't NASA send a rover to a site of possible archeological significance? It can sniff the air and kick rocks at that location, just as good as anywhere else. For many scientists, Brandenburg's hypothesis is not worth examining. They reason that the natural course of future events will show his "conjectures," were not worthy of serious consideration. His claims are being marginalized and ridicule is being used to make him an example to others. To others he has shown courage and laid his reputation on the line. They reason that even if the likelihood is not great that he is correct the consequences if he is are obvious and portentous. Finding out that intelligent life once existed on Mars would be a huge discovery. However, if that turns out to be true, and Hydrogen Bombs are introduced into the mix, matters become more worrisome. Hydrogen Bombs do not occur naturally. They require an intelligent intervention. Further, evidence of their use persists for a long time. Intelligent life on Mars, concurrent with nuclear weapons raises a HUGE RED FLAG. It begs the questions, One, (1) did an early Martin civilization destroy itself or two (2) did some external cause radiate the planet's surface? Today, the Theory of Evolution is being considered in a broader light. Certainly Evolution is an adaptive mechanism that works on the fringes of life but the theory doesn't adequately explain the complex physiology that concurrently takes place. Even simple one cell life forms are too multifaceted to generate and spring spontaneously from some primordial pool of amino acids. More weight is being given today to the idea(s) that maybe life is an inherent part of the elements and gases that formed our beginnings or perhaps at some early point in our geological history the solar system was seeded by some outside means. This raises a troubling issue. Was Mars like the petrie dish of a failed planetary experiment and sanitized in a thermonuclear autoclave? Or did the civilization on Mars become advanced to where Earth is today and blow itself up? Or did the thermonuclear event recorded by the isotope msrkers result from some naturally occurring process we simply haven't discovered yet? Whatever the answers are, we need to nail down the Nuclear specter by examining the Mars Isotope data with greater scrutiny. Next we need to get some better imagery of Caledonia, If the imagery can't provide conclusive evidence, of past intelligent life, the next Mars Rover should drive in and take a close up look at the surroundings and settle this once and for all. If evidence is found of past intelligent life then a human mission with archeologists should examine the site. If Intelligent life is found to be part of Mar's history the next step should be finding out how advanced it became. If its found to have reached the same level as mankind is today, that would be in a dark sense, reassuring and offer a plausible explanation to the nuclear evidence. None of this requires a technology we don't already have. The urgency of answering these questions and putting these worrisome issues to rest should be carried out with all due haste. While to some these matters might appear highly unlikely, in a worst case they could portend an unthinkable future, waiting to happen. |
| I have followed with interest the controversy over the imagery sent back from Mars by the Orbiter that zeroed in on the Caledonia region of the Planet. This is where the famous Face on Mars and Pyramid images were taken. Since the face image was published over two decades ago, the arguments have gone back and forth as to whether they show "Natural Occurring (NO)" features or if they are "Man Made. (MM) " There are claims that the imagery has been "doctored" in favor of NO hypothesis, not because of a coverup by the Government or NASA, but rather as a consequence of internal politics within the US Space program. Two opposing groups have "Big Time Skin" in the game. One camp is the Moonies. They see Mars as a dead planet like the moon. Their focus is geology and they are championed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The JPL is heavily invested in a continuation of Robotics and unmanned probes. The second group are the Greenies who see Mars as a once living and in some regards, still, a planet like Earth. They favor manned exploration. This polarization between the groups has less to do with a search for truth and more to do with who is going to get the lead in contracts that will come, as our exploration of the solar system continues. Since much of the exploration currently taking place is Robotic, the Moonies, who control the image gathering technology, are accused by the Greenies of doctoring the pictures to fit their parochial view and interests. The story goes that the tax payers are being fed a distorted picture of the truth. Software is being used to obscure, mask, and blur the imagery. It is mind boggling that these "Men of Science" are behaving like school boys duking it out on the playground. The Greenies claim is that the "Public" is not getting transparency . The obvious answer is to simply image the sites with photographs on par with the satellite imagery that DOD uses. I can assure you that the spy satellites could tell the difference between a man-made structure and a boulder strewn mesa.... between a Sphinx like object, looking up at the sky and some coincidental appearing arrangement of stones. NASA needs to show once and for all, high quality pictures and put to rest the question, are the Caledonia anomalies Man Made or Naturally Occurring? How hard is that? |
| I have always been skeptical about the theory that Life Forms got to be the way they are as a result of Evolution. This is not to say that Evolution doesn't take place. Clearly there is evidence that life over time has the ability to make adaptive changes on the margin... for bettor or worse. What is too much to swallow is that we evolved ourselves into the state in which we presently exist. In my view the capability to evolve is a change module and not the creative force responsible for life as we know it For example it is one thing to accept that Detroit changes its car models every year and quite another to say that Detroit doesn't exist and automobiles are doing all this to themselves.. |
| I was walking the dog this morning and got to thinking that I hadn't been keeping up with my blog. It isn't that I don't have plenty to write about but the weather is so beautiful I spend as much time as I can out of doors. Last week I bought a foamy model airplane, The Apprentice, by Horizon Hobby. I had seen it advertised and the billing was that it was super easy to fly and almost impossible to crash. Anyway I purchased it on a whim and immediately suffered an episode of buyers remorse. Then I shrugged and said "What the heck... my wife and I live modestly and chances are good we won't outlive our money. Anyway I took it to the flying field and had Don trim it out. When he was satisfied he handed me the transmitter and I was off to the races. Well not exactly the races. This model is not exactly fast. What it is, is full of functions like auto-stabilization, which compensates for the wind that gusts through our flying field. In addition if the pilot loses orientation all he/she needs to do is release the control gimbals and the airplane self rights itself. There's a panic switch if someone gets it into some kind of convoluted maneuver, where it will right itself and reassume level flight. It's a wonderful little model and a real pleasure to fly. When I got home I took a nap and around 4PM went out into the shop and worked on my camera plane. Right now my primary focus is on the wing. I have it framed up and am inserting the foam. I'm using two kinds of foam. One is the white foam stuff they use in cheap insulation and shipping fragile items. The other is a more expensive type that is very flexible and almost impervious to damage. I saw a fellow on U-Tube fly one made of the stuff into a brick wall and it just bounced right off. It was a pusher plane with the engine in back. No way it would have survived if the engine had been in the front. The more expensive foam will go underneath the wing because it is thin stuff and has the properties I'm looking for. The wing will have retractable landing gear. The foam will be covered in brown craft paper using Elmer's glue slightly thinned with water. Every day I try and do a little bit. Once I get started and into the routine I often find myself doing more than a "Little Bit." My experience is that being persistent and sticking with something make it possible to take those "Overwhelming A" projects and break them down into bite sized chunks. It is the same work habit I try and instill in my students taking the Exploratory Writing Workshop. Writing a novel requires a plan and some "Stick-To-Itness." When I build my models I often don't have a blueprint but rather only a general idea of what I want to do. These ideas I get often generate a lot of passion in their formative stages and it is from these that I select one for investing long term energy and resources. Keep in mind that I might not know exactly where I'm going in the beginning but if I feel that twinge of excitement I know I'm on the right path. I can't emphasize enough doing at least some little thing every day on a long range project. Not only will doing a little task keep you in the groove, and often leads to doing more than expected, it keeps the job at the top of your self consciousness. Chances are you'll dream about the project and when this happens its a good thing. Better to have dreams about a project you're working on than some random nightmare. |
| I have not been a good blogger here of late. As a matter of fact it is fair to say that I have been a "lousy" blogger. Part of the reason is that Linda and I went to South Carolina (Myrtle Beach) and celebrated with family our 50th Wedding anniversary. It was a blast. The other part is that I've been to busy to bother. I find this worrisome not because I feel I'm letting down my readers but rather because when I write about something it gives structure to my imagination and thoughts tend to become a whole lot clearer... In my mind anyway. As my readers must be aware I'm a Radio Control Model Airplane Enthusiast. What I'm enthused with at the present time is making camera models. I use a construction technique I call Dowel on Donut for the fuselage and Dowel on Rib for the wings. What this entails is inserting dowels through a bulkhead form in making a fuselage and doing the same thing with the ribs when making a wing. This allows me an opportunity to see very quickly what the end product is going to look like rather than finding out well into a project that I don't like where things are heading. If something doesn't look right to me then even though it might meet a broad range of utility criteria, I slam on the breaks and go no further. A good example is period automobiles. To me there has to be something about the design of an old car or truck that catches my eye. Yes, it needs to run well and be maintainable but to begin with something about the appearance needs to jump right out and capture my interest. In clothes I appreciate a well fitting garment of material appropriate to the climate and conditions but when shopping for a winter coat I'm not wondering if it is going to keep me warm. That will be a follow on consideration but there are plenty of coats that keep a body warm but not all coats look elegant and stylish. So, when I'm thinking about a new airplane project it has to be something with a good look, with balance, symmetry and good lines. I spent a lot of time on line looking at pictures of model airplanes, hoping that something will perk my interest or ignite my passion. We are fortunate in this day and age to have the Internet and U-tube. It is amazing how much you can learn from a little on line research. Many of the things I see that perk my interest don't have plans, or kits. So I rely on my remedial drafting skills to make the plans for what I want to build. Hence, my construction technique that gets me quickly to a mock-up of fuselage and wing . Now here is an important thought. There is a synergism between a wing and fuselage. One can have a good fuselage design and without the right wing it just doesn't pop! So I start with an overall idea and build the fuselage mock-up. Then I try different wings until one laying around the shop comes comes close to making the right statement. Then I take the lines off the shop wing and use it as a starting point for the one I want for my airplane. Once they are both mocked up and fitted together I begin looking for the right horizontal and vertical stabilizers to complete the basic shape. For example suppose that Batman wanted an airplane. You can imagine the look he'd be trying to achieve. That is sort of how it is with me. I want a camera plane that is more than something conventional that can be suitably adapted to the task. I want something that looks "Cool." Most of the designs I see out there simply make me want to yawn. |
| Today was a busy one. I sold my 1940 Ford Sedan, my scissors lift, an industrial welder and a great running flat head engine on a test stand. Then I spent the morning with the buyer moving it all from my garage to his shop. My goodness, I sure have more room than I used to have. When I finished with all that Linda fixed Hot Dogs for lunch and then we piled into the car and drove up to Steven's Point for Rehab. The insurance ran out some time ago and my wife and I decided to continue the schedule as a life style change of venue. While in Steven's Point we bought a second wheelbarrow. The reason we need two is that I pick up the pieces from the pile in the yard and Linda stacks them inside the shed.....You got it! While one is being unloaded the other is being loaded. Linda is a good wood stacker and I am good at sorting the good stacking pieces from those that go onto the reject pile which will be the first to burn come late November. We had the fish fry for dinner at the Supper Club on Wood Lake. I ordered the broiled cod which was a dumb mistake. When am I going to learn to order what Linda orders. She ordered the Fish Fry along with 99% of the other customers.... there's a reason its called Friday Night Fish Fry. When we got home it was clean up the garage and shop time and I was at that until dark. My friend Ron called and has the fuselage for my latest camera model almost done. When I got finished outside I discovered the cats eating their dinner. Feeding the outdoor cats is my job but sometimes Linda does it for me. What a great wife! She would have done it anyway, even if I hadn't split the proceeds of todays sale with her. She was like a kid on allowance day. |
| Well I met my friend in Tomah and we talked about a camera plane that he is going to help me with. Note that I'm not calling it a DRONE! I hate that label! I'm content with the guidelines the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) have come up with. They allow me to fly First Person View (FPV.) It's a compromise but something that most hobbyists should be able to live with. Not everyone however, agrees with me. There'll always be those who will want to operate outside the rules and catching them will be a difficult undertaking for those in the FAA charged with enforcement. In my last blog I talked about having the windshield view of a camera plane unobstructed by a whirling propeller. One design that eliminates this problem are twin engine/motor designs. There is another design that is very popular and that is using a pusher propeller . In other words the prop is located behind the pilots field of view. Most camera airplanes use such a pusher type design..., where the propeller is on the rear end. I will definitely have one of these in my hanger. In addition I intend to have a ducted fan version like those used on the aft end of many commercial jets. My friend Ron is almost through covering the fuselage of my home designed cameral plane. He said it should be ready not later than Monday. How exciting is that? |
| Tomorrow I'm going to Tomah to meet with one of the best model airplane builders in Wisconsin. I met him last year at our club's annual Fun Fly and was impressed by the quality of his work. He built a model for a friend of mine and the quality was excellent and the price affordable. Anyway he called today telling me to get my name on the waiting list and order a "Short Kit" of whatever it was that I wanted him to build. I told him I wanted a "Drone" and his reply was that nobody had ever asked him to build one before. To make a long story short we will be meeting to discuss the project I have in mind. What project is that Percy, you might be wondering? Thought you'd never ask. One important characteristic about a camera carrying, First Person View(FPV), model airplane is that the view from the front not be obstructed by a spinning propeller. Since most model airplanes have the propeller in the nose a serious FPV'er will choose a design that has the propeller located somewhere else. One option is to use a twin engined model, which gets the props off to the sides. They are still in the front but on the wings rather than the nose. If you are familiar with WW2 airplanes, the P-38 Lightning is a good example, however there are others like the Mosquito and B-25 Mitchell. The Drone I'm going to ask my friend to build looks a lot like the P-38. It will have two electric motors on the wings and behind them two booms extending to the rear of the aircraft. On the ends of the booms a V-Tail design connects them. One thing about a V-Tail design is that the elevator and rudder are integrated. In the more common design of an airplane the tail houses the rudder and beneath it, the horizontal Stabilizer holds the elevator. These two work independently of each other. In a V-Tail the two are integrated. When the pilot wants to climb both control surfaces in the "V" tilt upwards performing the elevating function. When the pilot wants to bank right or left the two surfaces tilt in opposite directions. So which tilt does what you might ask? I can only respond that the answer is still not self evident to me. I know the answer but it is not intuitive. For example on a regular airplane when the elevator tilts up it is self evident that the airplane will climb. When tilted down the airplane dives. Conversely when the rudder goes left the model goes left while the opposite holds true for turning right. I can see the wind hitting the surfaces and intuitively understand what happens when they do. On a V-Tail both control surfaces tilting up obviously will make the aircraft rise. No mystery there, however, when they tilt in opposite directions which way will the plane bank? Again I know the answer but it isn't intuitive. When the right wing aileron goes up and the left goes down the aircraft banks right. The same is true on a V-Tail. When the right control surface on the "V" goes up and the left goes down the same aileron principle holds true. The airplane banks right. So, I know the answer, in a monkey see monkey do sense, but why it works that way never really sunk in. I've heard it explained a hundred times but it still doesn't intuit. There are some things that my brain refuses to process and when that happens I just have to forego a deeper understanding and accept the school solution. |
| Yesterday the main focus was fixing the interior door tops I use as shop tables. Al gave me several after he got out of the annual yard sale business. He was a tenant land lord for many years before retiring and replaced a lot of them. I went to Lowe's and got 2 big sheets of thin plywood for less than $30. They were good enough to cut it to my specifications. Then I bought a big jug of Elmer's glue, came home and laminated the tops. They didn't turn our too bad and they are flat, which is an important quality when building model airplanes. In the summertime I set t hem up on saw horses and work under the shade tree next to the driveway. I met with a friend of mine after PT and bought some models from him. It was a sort of sad experience because I could see he was losing it. Probably has beginning stages of one of those dementia afflictions. He was once a really smart person and is going down hill. Too bad, so sad. We are all getting older. Me, I take my Prevagen and hope those jelly fish know something I don't. Traditionally I worked with balsa and light plywood in making my models. Lately I've been experimenting with foam. Foam has some good characteristics like being cheap, light, strong but brittle, and easy to work. If I sandwich it between thin plywood formers the result is some of the best of both materials. There is one big problem I've encountered with my building process and that is that plywood/balsa and foam do not like the same chemicals nor can they tolerate the same levels of heat. So, a builder has to be extremely careful. The foam can suddenly melt when the wrong stuff is sprayed on and if the covering iron gets too hot the result is a puddle of goop. I enjoy watching u-tube and seeing how different builders are coping with the problem. One takes a brown paper supermarket bag and covers with that. Elmer's glue is thinned slightly and painted over the foam. Then the brown paper is soaked in water and applied to the portion being covered. The result is a light cheap covering that can be painted and makes the underlying foam more resistant to heat. The down side is that it tends to wrinkle and not draw tight when it dries. As a writer I often find myself trying to get the most out of characters who are very different. Writing is like that..., taking different things and getting the most out of them. |
| When I checked my Summary Statistics yesterday I saw another hit on Enchantment. It used to be Pageant got all the hits but these days my erotica readers like Enchantment. Pageant was Seven Shades of Grey before the bondage thing was popular. I came to Writing.com because there was a group of writers who were practicing Sensual Prose (SP) writing. Of all the genres I have ever attempted SP is the most difficult. Actually the best way to go about it is not with prose at all but rather experimental forms of poetry. Describing the sexual experience is as much an etherial undertaking as it is a physical union. The physical part can be treated clinically but the etherial part is a journey into parts of the human psyche that are better left to the poet. When I wrote Enchantment I wanted to have the setting be in a dark room. This precluded all visual imagery and required imagery that appealed to the senses and imagination. To achieve the effect I used exchanges of dialog traded between the partners in short exchanges to capture the single most pervasive thought image that flashed into the lover's minds as the process of sexual intercourse was unfolding. I tried to capture as many different examples of thought imagery as my imagination could come up with. I was constrained by the use of certain words which carried a particularly crude and vulgar connotation however, used some when the context softened the meaning or called for an effect that needed to be achieved. The word choice depended on mood and the essence if what I was trying to show was the effects that subtle secretions of hormones exert on the mind as the participants move through the process from beginning to end. Enchantment was the mood where the lovers are in an almost dream induced state of mind, that comes prior to ejaculation or organism. As the effect of the hormones wears off, usually more abruptly in the male than the female the couples view of reality changes from a more spiritual one to one grounded in the physical reality of daily life. |
| I'm experimenting with using foam, sandwiched between the formers which are stiffened and held straight by dowels. This process is leading to a light, straight design. As the adage goes, "Build light flies right.... build straight flies great." In my writing class I use a Favorite Author Chapter Template. The idea is to show aspiring writers the importance of using a full range of the techniques a writer has at their disposal. If most of what a writer uses is "Dialog" or some other component of the craft the work will be what I call "One Dimensional." The same is true for model airplanes. If all a builder uses is fiberglass, foam, balsa or some other material will only optimize the the technique being used, or maybe a better term is sub-optimalize. Every technique has its advantages and disadvantages and by using a range of components the good can be used to neutralize the bad resulting in a better final product. For some reason however, the human mind likes to choose one component it likes best and tends to spurn or neglect the others. I use the Ford/Chevy example of many car owners. One is golden and the other is crap! The gold lies in the diversity of using the power and diversity of many forms , optimizing the the advantages, qualities and special characteristics each has to offer. I know I sound like a broken record urinating into the wind but the obvious is so pervasive it tends to be overlooked to the detriment of the things we do. For all the genius of the human mind it can be dumb as a box of rocks. Its like a computer that has never awakened to awareness. |
| I've been busy the last few days and neglected my Blog. No big deal, not many people read it anyway. And why should they? How interesting is "Making Circular Formers on a Drill Press?" This is not a cop out but I don't write my blog for others.... I write it for myself. If I write something down in a logical sort of manner than it helps crystalize the process I'm involved in, in my mind. It also helps me remember things, the details of which I don't want to forget. At the present time I have four camera planes I'm working on. The first is the Anaconda which crashed big time and required me to build a completely new fuselage. I really like the way it turned out even though I liked the way the original looked too. That was the strongest attribute the model had... a sinister drone like look. Then I got to fly it thirteen times, eleven being uneventful and two where it crashed. I don't want to forget those crashes and why they happened. Going back even before I bought the Anaconda from Dustin, it had suffered a crash on it's maiden flight. The reason for the first mishap was a center of gravity issue. A model airplane must have the weigh distributed properly for it to fly. Its like a titer-totter. Too tail heavy and the model crashes and too nose heavy is almost, but not quite as bad. The designers of the Anaconda saw it as a First Person View (FPV) model. This means that instead of flying it from the edge of the runway the pilot flies the model from an onboard camera. An FPV set up can have a panoramic camera, a flight camera, and On Board Screen Display (OSD). OSD enables the pilot to see, in addition to the camera view, an instrument panel similar to what is on a real airplane. All this extra equipment adds additional weight, but who in their right mind would put all that equipment in a foamy model that they hadn't test flown. Therein lies the rub. If you don't have all that extra weight in the front end the plane will be tail heavy and crash. There have been some spectacular U-tube videos of Anaconda's crashing on take off because without the extra weight the model is not airworthy. I feel sorry for RMRC. They built this cool looking model that is fundamentally not airworthy. This is not to say that it won't fly.... of course it will, but it requires putting more weigh in the nose than the styrofoam should be expected to lift. So I don't like this aspect of the Anaconda's design. Now a manufacturer can have a cool looking model that will still fly even though what needs to be done to make it trim out goes outside the box of what the design materials should be expected to deal with. What makes matters worse is that when in the manufacturing process the foam was not strengthened sufficiently to insure a reasonable designs life. There were two crashes while I owned the model which bear noting not to mention some close calls. Crash One: The motor ripped off in flight for no apparent reason. This goes back to expecting the foam, supported by only a thin plastic backing plate to be able to get the job done... talk about a spectacular shower of foam. Crash Two: A clip on the servo linkage arm came loose from the horn on the control surface of the V-tail. This caused the model to plummet into the earth from an altitude of 200 feet. Close Call 1: The foam piece on the underside of the wing came loose in flight setting the carbon fiber spar askew. Close Call 2: A take-off had to be aborted when the when the electrical jack on the carbon fiber boom malfunctioned. Close Call 3: The styrofoam hinge on a rear control surface had a manufacturing defect and separated halfway up the tail. The upside of all this that in fixing all the glitches there were some great "lessons learned" that I have applied to the scratch building of my other camera planes.... and the beat goes on. |
| My flying has been a disaster the last few times at the field. The Anaconda crashed, my camera plane flipped on takeoff, breaking a propeller, my Grey Ghost has an engine that won't start and today I crashed my Mosquito on takeoff. Not exactly a great track record at the old aerodrome. On the positive side of the ledger my model building efforts have come along well. Anaconda 3, will be coming off the assembly line next week and I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will turn out to be a good flyer. Anaconda 4 is coming along nicely. It looks like a V-1 Rocket from the Second World War. The ducted fan engine I ordered arrived and the fuselage is nearing completion. The wing is from a crashed model which is undergoing repairs. All it will take to get it up and running is building the tail fins, control surfaces, installing the ancillary gear, and covering it. Anaconda 5 is a fuselage with a wing I have from an RC fire sale I went to last year. The original model is a fiberglass bomber and its swept back wing. The construction technique I use is pretty cool. I got the idea from a wing jig that was used to align the ribs of an airfoil. Holes were drilled through the ribs and aligned on steel rods to keep them perfectly aligned. Once the leading edge, spars, and trailing edge were glued in place the rods were removed. Me thinks, "Why not substitute the steel rods for dowels and leave them in when the construction was finished and use this approach not only for the wings but the fuselage as well?" Made sense to me and I've been experimenting with the process for the last two months. The challenge is to keep the weight down. Rather than cutting the formers for the fuselage on a jigsaw I use a drill press and circle saw blades. Then taking thin plywood from Michaels, I cut out out discs to the required diameter. From these I next cut out the middle, getting a donut shaped final product. These become the formers for the fuselage. Once the formers are ready I drill four holes in each ring at the cardinal points and insert long dowels. In no time I have a fuselage that is perfectly aligned. What used to take hours now takes minutes with a precision I never thought possible. This cigar shaped structure opens the door to an endless variety of model airplane designs. |
| Yesterday was a busy day. I had to clean up the shop and then drive to Marshfield for a dermatology appointment. My years in the military have wrought havoc on my skin and these days I walk around wearing sunscreen, a floppy hat and one of those seersucker like long sleeve shirts made by Columbia. After burning off the bad crud on my face and arms I returned home. Going on line I ordered some batteries and an electric motor for a drone I'm building. Then I had to write up the minutes for the last club meeting.... yeah! I'm the Club Secretary. Then I threw this plane I bough at a swap meet into the van and went out to the field. Naturally the plane I brought had some issues... one of the servos began to move back and forth, out of control so forget flying. Then it was time for the meeting and the discussion went on and on about Flying Field Maintenance. When I got home I kissed my wife and went to bed. This morning I'm rejuvenated and ready to go out to the shop and get back to work. I dreamed up some new ideas last night. |
| My wife Linda must love me because she went with me Sunday to the EAA. The EAA, don't ask me what it stands for... I looked in the guide of events and they don't even define their own acronym. Anyway it is this huge annual aviation event held in Oshkosh WI and aviators from all over the world converge for the show. It lasts a week. There are hundreds of airplanes, vendors and everything and anything that has to do with flight. It is held in the hottest time of the year for some reason, and to see everything would take easily two or three days. Walking up and down the old cement taxiways is hard on the feet but it is quite a show. Linda does not find it an enjoyable way to spend the day, following her husband around who wanders in an absolute state of wide eyed wonder. I promised we would stop at the antique mall on the way home. She bought me a T-Shirt that says, "Drones need Pilots Too." I'm wearing it as I write this blog. On Saturday my Anaconda Drone took off, climbed to 100 ft and suddenly the engine ripped off its mounts sending a shower of styrofoam flying in all directions. I never did see where the engine went, so intent was I in getting the model to return and make a dead stick landing on the runway. I'm not a great fan of using foam without a liberal substructure of light plywood, and hard wood dowels. I repaired the damage and went out to the field today. Don said he would trim it since I had made some major structural changes and don't you know, it climbed to about 100 feet and something went haywire in the V-Tail control surfaces. It plummeted to the ground. The fuselage nose dived into the sod bog which surrounds our flying field. I've been outside sectioning the remains of the fuse to take the lines off, so I can build a new one. The motor, wing/boom assembly and V-tail were undamaged. The Anaconda is an EPO Foam model airplane that has the look of a drone. It is fun to fly when it behaves, however, it has been a pain in the ass ever since I bought it from a friend who crashed it on his maiden flight. I really liked the model, however, to get it to fly required adding too much weight for the foam to accommodate. It was a fun model to fly but not very flight friendly. Of the fourteen flights it took during its service life, three experienced serious mishaps. |
| I have a couple of books on drones. One I got from Barnes and Nobel with the "Bargain Price" sticker on it. The other I bought last week from the Wall Mart book stand. What I like about the publications is that they have plenty of pictures. One in particular I really liked. It showed the developer of the Predator Drone standing behind an early model of his prototype. From this I was able to estimate what the basic specifications were. Assuming he was about 5' 6" I could take measurements on the prototype standing before him and get a pretty good idea about fuselage, wing and tail dimensions. I have a model of an RC flying drone, The Anaconda, and I am building my own version. What I don't like is the twin boom set-up. With the Predator the motor is on the rear of the fuselage and you don't have the hassle of the two booms attached to the wings. Building these is extra work. With the Predator design the engine and V-Tail are on the rear end. I got out my mechanical drawing stuff and did a quickie draft on the prototype in the magazine. I needed to scale it down so it would fit in my Van but I got pretty close.... close enough, for my requirements. As I worked, it occurred to me how easy it would be to put a motor on each wing section, half as large as the one in the rear. That would give more take off power and once in the air, could throttle back for a longer duration flight. Since I have all the components on hand, I've decided to include this in the design. Ron, my friend, who is a builder said he would help me with it... like he is with the twin boom drone nearing completion. Cant' wait to test fly it! |
| This morning I have to get myself in gear and head out to the flying field. The Anaconda is already loaded in the van and the Twin motor Beechcraft is waiting in the garage. Yesterday I was under the weather. I had some kind of stomach virus. This morning when I got up and weighed the scale showed 173. I haven't weighed that in a long while. Last night I was plagued by bad dreams. In one I was strapped into the Electric Chair and given the juice. It didn't kill me and I remember thinking, I should be dead but I'm not. Then I heard my executioners talking and one said to the other. "He must be an electrician and developed an immunity to the amperage." So go my dreams.... sometimes they really suck. I try and be more upbeat when I'm awake and enjoy life. At dusk however, all bets are off. As likely as not the Demons show up and I'm in for another restless night. Sometimes I dream about my RC flying models and how to build one better. I get a flow of ideas about how to make them lighter and stronger, and others regarding what power system to use. There is a broad range of internal combustion engines available as well as electric motors. These dreams are not so bad and if I think about them they give me ideas for my daytime building activities. So I guess you have to take the good with the bad and make the most of it. I wonder why somebody hasn't come up with a hybrid model airplane. You know one that uses a gas engine for propulsion and generating electricity and an electric motor for sustaining and extending flight times. Like is the case with Toyota's Prius. I had one and really liked it. Sometimes I text someone and they respond asking for clarification. I give it and ask a question in turn... and that's the last I hear from them. It makes me wonder if its me or they're just being obtuse. I don't think those I correspond with are being deliberately rude but when I get a text, respond and thats the last I hear, I find that bothersome. Is there a protocol out there on answering texts or is this just a fact of life? In ancient Greece there was this contemporary of Homer, known as Hesiod. Hesiod had this to say about the types of people you are likely to meet. There are those, he pointed out, who can conjure up excellence from the fonts of their minds. This is an extremely rare quality and you won't meet many people with this ability. A more common quality is knowing best when we see it. This is more present in the population at large but not overwhelming so. It's something worth striving for and being attentive to. It gives hope to to think we can sometimes recognize it when it slaps us in the face. For example, a few years back, there were all these scientists trying to figure out the structure of DNA when Crick and Watson stumbled on the answer by shifting a model of chemical components around until one fit all the available facts. Their approach was radically different from how other researchers were struggling with the problem, however, even though their fellows were disappointed that somebody else found the answer, nobody questioned that the findings represented the optimal solution to the problem. The teaching point here is that you don't always have to figure out what best is. That's why scientists do research. You don't have to be the "Einstein." All it takes is knowing what he's talking about. In my definition of "Leadership" I say Leadership is "Knowing Best and Getting Others to Do it." The Knowing Best part is realizing the optimal solution or the best way of doing something. This is also a laudatory talent, and a commodity in short supply. Having the ability to know BEST when you see it is a huge part of the the Leadership equation. Getting people to do things is the second half. Hillary Clinton's a good example of how to not to go about it. The last category Hesiod identified are those who can neither "Think Best Up" or know it when they see it. He concluded this to be the most common state of nature and called it, "Worthless." It's here you'll find the Democratic Presidential Candidate. |
| An act prompted by emotion is not a "Reason." At least it isn't to me. It might be spontaneous or the result of premeditation but it isn't an act of reason. The Greeks are credited with inventing a reasoned process for solving problems. Most are familiar with the process and the salient points are Identifying the problem, gathering facts and assumptions, laying out possible solutions and selecting the best candidate. So when a particularly vile act is taken, like ambushing a police officer, or strapping a suicide vest on a child and giving some religious or political belief as a reason for the a perpertrator's action... this is so much balcony. They do it because they were compelled by their emotions to do it. Reason has nothing to do with the process. It is "Reasonless." Before the Greeks, "Best" was whatever the people in a positions of power said it was. The Greeks showed us there was an alternative to emotional decision-making. The optimal solution has nothing to do with who figures it out and gives it voice but rather finding an outcome that optimizes good. So what is good you ask? Good is a thought or act that improves the world as opposed to thinking or doing nothing. If someone goes through some variation of the problem solving process, the outcome will tend to be better than shooting from the hip. If someone responds emotionally and acts on the first impulse that comes to mind, the notion is likely to be ill conceived. This is the way animals respond by nature. We're not born reasonable creatures, but have to learn how to get past our emotions in facing the issues of life. Middle Eastern Cultures never got around to taking the reasoning process seriously. Alexander the Great tried to introduce it but it never really caught on. Sure, these Middle Easterner's can attend our Universities and learn the process itself, but it's not one that ever percolated down to the gut level in Arab culture. Attributing reason to their actions is like arguing with a drunk. It's a total waste of time. |
 Log in to Leave Feedback |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
Love it! Especially the safety measures for us homo sapiens...
