A new RCSD cover :)

One of my pictures is doing the cover of the July issue of RCSD (RC Soaring Digest) a monthly webzine:



This shot has been taken a long long time ago, at the begining of the digital photography, when the Powershot G2 (4Mp) was one of the most powerfull APN and was costing about 1000 Euros !!!!

Things changed since that time ;) !

This issue presents interesting high lift sections for flying wings, and the now usual and waited gossip column from uncle Sidney few weeks before the next F3J championship that will be in France (Jura).

Another video from Jean Claude Gonin

According to Jean-Claude, this one is a remake using the Go PRO HD. The Glider is a SHK. As usual, the video is excellent !

La Ferté Alais 2010

I cannot resist to share with you the link to this fantastic photo album about the biggest RC meeting in France: La Ferté Alais 2010.
The photographer, Laurent Tereyjol was the official photographer at the Viking Race. He masterizes photography !

http://laurent.tereyjol.free.fr/ferte_2010/index.html

There are pictures for all tastes: warbirds, jets, gliders, helipcopters, etc ...
Few pictures only: 566 !!!

A big thanks to Laurent for sharing this photo album with us !

Enjoy...

Lift Ticket To Norway

I uploaded on planet-soaring a small review both in French and English of the DVD Lift Ticket To Norway recently released. You will also find a report on the last F3F french championship which happened in April, 3 weeks before the Viking Race 2010.

First Video with my New Go Pro HD

Here is a small video, in fact my first video with the GO Pro HD. The cam was mounted on my Dingo for a flying session with some DS at my Local slope Near Grenoble (France). I has some problem with the mount that moved during the flight. I will fix it quickly for the next video session.

The sequence with the cam mounted on the helmet are great and will allow me to do some nice video even while being alone on the slope.

I still have to work on the editing. The Go Pro video format is MP4 AVC which is HD. There are very few editing software able to manipulate HD video natively. Anyway, you need a very powerfull PC or MAC to do it, which is not my case :(

On my side, I used MP4Cam2AVI (version 2.83) to convert the MP4 AVC to an AVI container. Then I edited the clip with Window Movie Maker (beuuurk ;) )!!!

In conclusion, I still need to find the right procedure to download/convert/edit/write video to keep the quality at a raisonnable level.

Here is the result of my first test with the Go PRO HD:

Dingo & Go Pro HD from Pierre Rondel on Vimeo.

MKS DS 6125, a new reference ?

At the viking Race, I received, as prize giving, 2 very nice wing servos from MKS through his french reseller Helidigital.com:


They are brand new servos, not commercialized yet (pre-series) with impressive specifications:

Dead band:	0.001ms (Default)
Control System:	+Pulse Width Control
Working frequence:	333Hz
(RX) Required Pulse:	3.0~5.0 Volt Peak to Peak Square Wave
Operating Voltage:	4.8~6.0 V DC Volts
Operating Temperature Range:	-10 to + 60 Degree C
Operating Speed (4.8V):	0.15 sec/60° degrees at no load
Operating Speed (6V):	0.12 sec/60° dagrees at no load
Stall Torque (4.8V):	6.6 kg-cm (91.67 oz/in)
Stall Torque (6V):	8.2 kg-cm (113.89 oz/in)
360° Modifiable:	YES
Motor Type:	DC Motor
Potentiometer Drive:	Direct Drive
Driver Type:	FET
Bearing Type:	Dual Ball Bearings
Gear Type:	Chrome gear
Programmable:	NO
Connector Wire Length:	15.0 cm (5.9 in)
Dimensions:	30X10X35.5 mm (1.1811X0.39X1.39 in)
Weight:	28.77 g (1.01 oz)
Destruction of properties:	In the 18 ~ 22 kg-cm moment of impact more than three times, the gear will start to slip (push pull at this time there are 3 ~ 5kg/cm); 23 kg-cm instant hit, Gears of collapse.

I have no idea about the retail price, but the quality seems to be there: no slope at all, very powerfull, aluminium case. This servos really could be a winner !

They are the same thickness than other wing servos, but longer than my reference wing servos which is the Graupner DS3210. Unfortunately, we cannot use the DS3210/HS5125 servoframe.

Notre Dame de Vaulx

This week-end was a local F3F contest near Grenoble. On Saturday we went to the north summit at 1500m and had a very good flying session as the wind was not established. On sunday, we went to the South summit (1700m) after a 40 minutes walk. hopefully, two 4x4 took care of the backbag and the planes. The scenery at the top is absolutely superb with a 360° view on the different mountain chains around, the city of Grenoble at the bottom, some lakes here and there, some high summit with snow in the background.

The flying conditions raised progressively during the afternoon but remained very changing. We were lucky enough to not get any thunderstorm or shower. Frederic Hours did a 30.11s during the contest. On my side, I have been affected by the "post-VKR syndrom": bad conditions, bad piloting, bad settings on the Dingo = bad result ;) ! Thomas Delarbre won the competition with his Dingo. A big thanks to the organisers.


You can find the pictures on my picasa album

Viking Race videoclip

Marcos Martínez, the webmaster of the well known website LIVEF3.com, sent me the link to the new videoclip he released about the Viking Race 2010.

Here it is:

Viking Race 2010 from Marcos on Vimeo.

You can also visit Marcos's Excellent website that allows to follow the glider scene in Spain.

New version of Servormances

This excellent software from Patrick Cesarato, Jean-Luc Delort and Olivier Segouin is today the best way to compare servos with a perfect equity as the test procedure is well defined and applied exactly the same for each servos.


This new version includes some recent servos like Hyperion, BMS, Turnigy.
Servormances can be donwloaded here

A big thank you to Olivier, Jean-Luc and Patrick for their hard work !