School yard flying

[rcsoar4fun]

I have been flying electrics for years now and I have never given a thought to the noise. Now that I have a couple of 1/2A planes (norvel .061s) I have been thinking of flying at the local school yard. Anyone have any problem noise wise with these engines? I have not yet run the .061, just trying to get an idea.

Kristopher

[Lynn S]

It is quiet compaired to a non muffled Cox .049.
I'm always amazed at how much noise a Black Widow can make, even when it is 200-300 ft up.

[rcsoar4fun]

I remember flying the old plastic control line planes with cox motors on them. Sounded terrible, certainly a way to get run off from the local field. I have a TT .46 pro, I sometimes can't tell if its running or not in the air. Maybe I should use it for schoolyard flying :).

Kristopher

[T. Lyttle]

Yeah, we lost many schoolyards to the larger models; they local club would see us flying there in the morning, come and fly that afternoon, site posted "no model flying" the next morning. One of these sites was in constant use by the 1/2A guys for 3 years , and we lost it to the big engines in 2 weeks.

It has to do with noise footprint: if you fly a 1/2A model, it seldom gets outside the boundaries of the schoolyard, and the noise is more or less restricted to within a couple of hundred feet of the yard boundaries. A 40-size model is outside the yard just after takeoff, and 75% of its flight is also outside that boundary, and that is when the complaints begin. This is one of the reasons that "park fliers" do so well: they interfere with no one, even if they live right beside the school grounds.

Trust me, this is my experience after dealing with municipal and school officials for almost 40 years. Or, you could just ignore me and try it anyhow!

[RiBell]

I would think that you might get complaints. Like T.Lyttle said the noise footprint will be the biggest issue. A Norvel 0.061 IIRC R/CReport did a review on this little engine a few years back and it was 88 db's. Lawnmowers and weedwackers are most likely louder.
Electric parkflyers are very quiet. as you would know from flying them and as they stay within the soccer field. there are fewer complaints.
Rick

[T. Lyttle]

Yes, most weedwhackers & mowers run into the 90db range, some MUCH louder, parfticularly on a Sunday morning. We used to fly every sunday morning, biggest motor was 15 diesel, the rest were Cox 049s. Never a complaint; we used to check to make sure all neighbours were happy. Some didn't even know we were flying! Until...

Gotta watch the complaints, too. We had the cops show up with a noise complaint; at the time NO ONE was flying power nearby, and we told the cop. He went and checked the complainant, and came back 1/2 hour later, very apologetic. Turns out that this guy's dogs would start barking furiously every time they saw a glider fly near the house, so it was OUR fault! The cop told him not to phone again or the dogs would cost the guy a nuisance ticket; end of problem. Some people are sure stupid.

[rcsoar4fun]

Have you guys used any of the "quiet pipes" I see advertised on Ebay. Looks like it would quiet things down a bit, but I am willing to bet a lot of noise is from the 20K rpm prop.

Kristopher

[T. Lyttle]

Certainly is. Over the years there have been many articles published on this subject, and some props are FAR noisier than others, and RPM is a big factor; hence the popularity of 4-strokes and diesels. On its wildest day, my 15 diesel would never approach 20G, and with no muffler either. I had one high performance diesel that was quite noisy, but the RPM was much higher. Footprint is still the big culprit, and I have proven this to myself and others many times.