Originally Posted by paintball_kidz

First shots with my New aerial radian. Landing was harded than usual gliding around houses to land on the street, need to add some airbrakes now.

Went to your Flicker page and enjoyed looking at your Radian mods for AP. You have lofted some hefty cameras with your Radian. Do you still mount your main battery in the cockpit area?

Hi Guys,

I think i will go with the PNP radian package and use my DX6i. What batteries would you suggest? I can probably afford 2 or 3. Maybe one for low wind, one for higher wind/Areal video, and one for thermals. I'm just talking about variations in mah and c rating.

Thank You

E

Originally Posted by Energy

Hi Guys,

I think i will go with the PNP radian package and use my DX6i. What batteries would you suggest? I can probably afford 2 or 3. Maybe one for low wind, one for higher wind/Areal video, and one for thermals. I'm just talking about variations in mah and c rating.

Thank You

E

When I go up and find I can't deal with the higher wind I start filling the wing rod with steel. I have four different lenghts of steel rod cut and wooden dowel plugs to keep the weight centered. Works well.

is the wing rod right at the CG?

Pretty close as far as I can tell. Haven't had any strange things happen even with the heaviest weight.

Originally Posted by Energy

Hi Guys,

I think i will go with the PNP radian package and use my DX6i. What batteries would you suggest? I can probably afford 2 or 3. Maybe one for low wind, one for higher wind/Areal video, and one for thermals. I'm just talking about variations in mah and c rating.

Thank You

E

Low wind pack

Rhino 3S 1050 25 or 30C

Higher Wind

Rhino 1350 3S 25~30C
Many use the 2200 sized packs, but I think they are just a bit too heavy. The largest I really want to use in mine is the 1350, but if you want more weight, anything up to the 2200 3S packs will work.

Thermals, see the light wind recommendation above

Diggs

Originally Posted by Don Stackhouse

The problem with the 400 ft. rule (or any similar regulation) is that it's utterly unenforceable.

The vast majority of model flyers cannot visually judge their altitude with even a shred of accuracy, certainly not close enough for a court of law. The average FAA enforcer cannot either. Although there is telemetry that can measure altitude and record it for downloading after landing, the ownership and use of it is rare, and the use of telemetry that can send back the altitude in real time in flight is even more rare.

In addition, even if you have such telemetry on board, we don't have any practical means of calibrating our pitot-static systems, so the altitudes measured are going to have serious accuracy issues. It's one thing to generate a number, it's another matter entirely to generate a number that actually represents what it claims to be.

The FAA ATC radar does not measure altitude, it has to rely on calibrated transponders in the airplanes (connected to a calibrated pitot-static system) to tell it the planes' altitudes. The transponders and their power requirements are far too big and heavy for all but the largest models, and even there the weight is going to be a substantial handicap, never mind that the cost of one of these units exceeds the price of a fairly good automobile.

The bottom line is that without a good, accurate, reliable, sufficiently compact and lightweight, and reasonably priced means of verifying altitude, it's unreasonable to expect a modeler to even know their altitude with any certainty, much less hold them accountable for it. Furthermore, the planes most likely to be at higher altitudes, that have an actual and legitimate need to be at those altitudes, are typically doing so in a thermal, sometimes one that will make it difficult to stop their ascent, even with spoilers/flaps/dive brakes.

Any enforcement action would have to first measure the altitude precisely, then prove that the pilot of the model knew their altitude with a similar level of precision, had sufficient control authority and means to limit their altitude, and knowingly and willfully broke the regulation. That's not going to be a practical proposition in other than a few token cases. If a law cannot be applied and enforced in a consistent, fair, and even-handed manner, it's a bad law.

I would sincerely hope that even the folks in Washington are clear-headed enough to understand this.

I agree with you on the whole but...there are several instrumentation providers that provide "reasonably" accurate altitude feedback. Precision is not the key for modelers in determining their legality. Kind of the "close doesn't matter except in horseshoes" argument. The sophistication of GPS, speed and altitude data loggers mean...yeah we do know where we are, how high we are, and where we should be.

I just don't agree that precision if needed to provide proof of a violation. A reasonable pilot doesn't argue the inches, feet, yards of an incursion. What is reasonable is different from a precisely calculated judgement.

Stay away from each other...

Originally Posted by Raften

When I go up and find I can't deal with the higher wind I start filling the wing rod with steel. I have four different lenghts of steel rod cut and wooden dowel plugs to keep the weight centered. Works well.

What lengths of steel do you use? Wooden dowels go in first to keep the weight near the center?

Originally Posted by Energy

Hi Guys,

I think i will go with the PNP radian package and use my DX6i. What batteries would you suggest? I can probably afford 2 or 3. Maybe one for low wind, one for higher wind/Areal video, and one for thermals. I'm just talking about variations in mah and c rating.

Thank You

E

For batteries I use 1800mah blue lipos. I balance my Radian for the one battery size. It does not matter if the winds are 10mph or 0mph. The plane flies the same. Also I get a good hour of flight or more if I work thermals.

Speaking of thermals. Diggs and I where at a contest last weekend. This would be fun for anyone. The contest was a 6min ladder task. This means your first flight is 6min. second task is 12min and you go up 6min each task. But you are only allowed 200m launch. Which is about a 20sec. motor run on the Radian. The rest is all thermal duration flight. This is a good challenge for anyone to try and see how far they can get.

Have Fun
Kevin

Originally Posted by kunclebuc

Speaking of thermals. Diggs and I where at a contest last weekend. This would be fun for anyone. The contest was a 6min ladder task. This means your first flight is 6min. second task is 12min and you go up 6min each task. But you are only allowed 200m launch. Which is about a 20sec. motor run on the Radian. The rest is all thermal duration flight. This is a good challenge for anyone to try and see how far they can get.

Have Fun
Kevin

+1 on that. I got hooked on the ladder task competition. I prefer the LMR I have done in the past due to the spot landing addition, but for just some great casual fun with a purpose, the Ladder Task ROCKS! I am going to get an LMR device so I know I am at 200m in the future. It will sharpen your skills in a big way and is perfect for the radian flyers. I would love to put the pro up against the original in this style of competition and see which one comes out ahead.

Diggs

Originally Posted by Foambird

I agree with you on the whole but...there are several instrumentation providers that provide "reasonably" accurate altitude feedback.

However, we're talking about a rule that would apply to all models at all times, so everyone would have to carry something like this. Also, mere data logging would not be sufficient, it would require downlinking in real time in flight. Then of course there's the issue of how the FAA would monitor all of this and determine for themselves when an infraction had occurred, and document it to the necessary level of accuracy to hold up in court.

Precision is not the key for modelers in determining their legality. Kind of the "close doesn't matter except in horseshoes" argument. The sophistication of GPS, speed and altitude data loggers mean...yeah we do know where we are, how high we are, and where we should be.

SOME of us do. To properly and fairly enforce a law (as opposed to a recommendation or guideline like we have now) ALL modelers would have to carry that equipment and use it at all times in any model that was capable of flying that high AGL. Since nearly all of our models can fly in places like Denver, that means they can exceed 400' AGL in the vast majority of the flying sites in this country, and therefore would need to carry the equipment. The equipment woud also need to be government certified, like the alitude-encoding transponders in full-scale aircraft.

Furthermore, it isn't just the accuracy of the equipment that matters, the accuracy of the pitot-static system it's connected to can introduce substantial errors in the measurement, so that would have to be calibrated as well.

I just don't agree that precision if needed to provide proof of a violation. A reasonable pilot doesn't argue the inches, feet, yards of an incursion. What is reasonable is different from a precisely calculated judgement....

My guess is that you don't know too many lawyers.

As soon as a modeler is faced with legal proceedings representing possibly hundreds or thousands in fines, and probably even more than that in legal fees, you can bet that the inches will definitely matter.

Right now we have what amounts to an "honor system" based on everyone's good faith effort to stay out of each other's way. As soon as some law-and-order-obsessed federal official decides to escalate things to a regulations-and-enforcement basis, the nit-picking will begin in ernest, on both sides, and it will get very expensive for all of us, in terms of both money and personal freedoms.

All for what the statistics indicate is presently a non-problem.

Originally Posted by rbrown3rd

What lengths of steel do you use? Wooden dowels go in first to keep the weight near the center?

I have steel pieces two and four inches long with wooden dowel pieces cut to size that will give a full tube with little movement when banking. Wood as needed on each end and steel in the center. If I wanted to get fancy I have tungston rod but that would be overkill unless I were trying to use the smallest length and as much as I can dead center of plane.

Finally, after about 20-day wind, arrived calm weather. Well, although not quite silent, but fully airworthy :-)
So, such is the winter evening here now. The time is 15:30 and outdoor temperature is -12C

Winter's Eve (3 min 19 sec)

Great video! So smoooooth!

Is there an in plane rc altimeter that isn't any telemeter, but records data and can upload that data to the computer? Like the zlog, but i can't find a place that stock them. When i go to hexpert, a hit buy now, i get a manufacturer error message.