Video: The castle of Bon Repos

After the aerial pictures posted 2 days ago, here is the video. Because of the wind and the location of the castle, the flight was a little bit turbulent, so the video is a bit shaky, sorry for that:

AP: The castle of Bon Repos (Jarrie - Isère - France)

Today, I went back to a place I discovered last week-end during a walk near Grenoble. This is in the village of Jarrie, a commune in the Isère department in south-eastern France (French Alps).
There is a very nice castle there.

This castle was edified around the year 1450 and modified at the beginning of the Renaissance period. It was abandonned in 1906, and its deterioration speeded up with the collapse of its roof in 1917.

The city of Jarrie bought it in 1976 and decided to rehabilitate and secure its cave so as to welcome artistic and cultural manifestations. The city, thus supports the actions of the association for the maintenance of the castle of Bon repos. This association participates in the building restoration and it animates many activities, such as plays and outside dance spectacles which brings many volunteers.

It is now registered on the supplementary directory of historical monuments.

Source: http://www.sudgrenoblois-tourisme.com







I have very nice video sequences I will edit to obtain a short video clip.

Plane: EasyGlider
Camera: Go Pro HD

Vimeo channel is ON !

I created a Vimeo channel to groups all the video I posted from the beginning. On this channel, you can retrieve all the video posted from the beginning, you can subscribe to receive a notification when a new video is posted, let a comment, etc ...

Enjoy !

Electro Ambrosia in preparation

MiroModel is currently working on an electric version of the fuselage for the Ambrosia F3X. It will use the same wing and tailplanes than the glider version. It is designed to install a motor like the kontronik Kira 500-26 equiped with a 17/13 propeller, a 6S lipo battery (2x 3S), providing 2.5 to 4kW of power. Below is a picture of the master in prepration:

I don't have more information yet about the location of the servos, nose cone or canopy, etc ...
But for sure it will make a very nice and existing electric plane !

Pastic Dip, liquid tape

I discovered recently a very convenient product, called "Plastic Dip", a Synthetic Rubber Coating. I used it on my T12FG to protect the soldering of the JETI module wires on the back of the trainer plug. According to the manufacturer website, Plasti Dip is a multi-purpose air dry, synthetic rubber coating that can be easily applied by spraying, brushing or dipping. Plasti Dip protective coating products resist moisture, acids, abrasion, corrosion, skidding/slipping, and provides a comfortable, controlled grip. It remains flexible, stretchy and will not become brittle or crack in extreme weather conditions

Plastic Dip exists in several color, dry in 30 minutes depending of the layer you apply. It also exist in Spay, but I have not tried. It is convenient for any application where a shrink tube cannot be used: On a surface, on a connector. It can be remove without trouble and without damaging parts.

Plastic dip is not cheap :(

About 17 euros for 100 g. But once again, this is very convenient, that's why I wanted to share the information with you all.

I found mine here.

Vampire Assembly started

This week-end, I started the assembly of my Vampire F3F. I began with the fuselage and the elevator servos installation. using the DS95, I saves 1.5 to 2 cm of length on the servos tray, so my R8 Jeti receiver has plenty of space now.






I mounted the power switch behind the servos, like on my Freetyler. I found it very convenient. When you land, you open partially the nose cone and switch off easily with one finger, without having to move upside down the plane.

The elevator pushrods are terminated by a M2 threaded Rod, glued inside the carbon tube over 10cm, and a 2MM flight line ball link. No Slope at all.

By Curiosity, I also powered the DS95 servos, and was amazed by the speed, and accuracy. Here is a small video showing the speed:

Technical article: Histoire d'Empennages (1ere partie)

Thierry Platon nous propose une série d'article sur les empennages. La première partie de cet article est ici: Histoire d'Empennage ( part 1 )

Thierry Platon proposes to us a new serie of articles about tailplanes. The first part  of this serie is here: Histoire d'Empennage ( part 1 ). Sorry mates, this is in french. Maybe a good opportunity to start to learn this beautiful language ;) !

Winter Regional league: Another win with the Ambrosia F3X

Yesterday was my second competition with the Ambrosia F3X, and after a battle with my F3F mate Yves Tirand and his Vampire, I finally won the competition, after 10 rounds, taking the best time of the comp with 41.43s.







I continue to discover the Ambrosia F3X: Last week, I moved the CG to 102 mm. Yesterday, before the comp, I again mode backward the CG by supressing 20 to 25g from the nose. Then during the competition, I played with ballast, putting 1 more ballast in the rear compartiment, which gave excellent result, and still no bad habits. I'm probably now at 105mm, maybe more. Another point is that the Ambrosia F3X carries ballast very well. If you can climb enough during the first 30 seconds, then the plane keeps the energy very well. According to the pilots presents, the Ambrosia is pretty stable compared to other plane.

Aer-o-tec new items for 2011: Crossover

Among few new items, Aer-o-tec is annoucing a new sport and F3F sailplane, the Crossover. This new ship is rather small (2.70 m wingspan), and seems to be 100% new, and not a declinaison of an existing sailplane.

Not much information except this nice 3 views. Section appears to be a new section, not the one of the Crossfire 2 (Thickness 7.9% camber 1.62%  ?). The rear boom is big to provide stiffness in flight and robustness during landings. Announced quality is premium thanks to a new supplier, and a online configurator will allow to configure many things between the layout and the coler scheme.

No price or availability date communicated yet.





Source: http://www.aer-o-tec.de/

MKS DS95 servos arrived !

I received my 2 MKS DS95 servos to be installed in my Vampire F3F. The idea is, as the fuselage is very thin for radio installation, to save some space by using shorter servos. I could have used the DS6125-H that also fit, but is longer.

On this picture you see that the DS95 is 2mm larger, but shorter. used in tandem, I can save few centimeters on the servo tray, so more space for the battery and the receiver.

The DS95 is primary an helicopter servo. But the specifications of this little monster make it a premium choice for a F3X V-tail elevator, giving plenty of power in addition to the precision and extra fast speed even if I will use 4 nimh Eneloop cells in the glider.

Here are the specifications:

• Operating Voltage: 4.8~6.0 V DC Volts
• Operating Speed (4.8V): 0.066 sec/60° degrees at no load
• Operating Speed (6V): 0.053 sec/60° dagrees at no load
• Stall Torque (4.8V): 2.44 kg-cm (33.88oz/in)
• Stall Torque (6V): 3.05 kg-cm (42.36oz/in)
• 360° Modifiable: YES
• Motor Type: Coreless Motor
• Potentiometer Drive: Direct Drive
• Bearing Type: Dual Ball Bearings
• Gear Type: Chrome-Titanium alloy gear
• Dimensions: 23X12X27.25 mm (0.9X0.47X1.07 in)
• Weight: 21.21 g (0.74 oz)

I found this video from RC-Mania giving a good overview about this new servos:

This new little servos seems to be a killer and will certainly give good results on elevators. Lots of  F3X pilots started to use it already.

Video: Mens - Trièves

Video taken last dunday in the Trièves, with the GoPro. The initial video was 720p 60fps, but because of my slow PC I had to downgrade the resolution, return to 30fps, before the editing. So I'm loosing all the benefit of this cam :(

Vampire F3F

Here are the pictures of my Vampire F3F double carbon. Given the color scheme, this is an halloween limited serie :) !

The kit comes very complete with ballast, wing bags, wire looms installed. The weight of each element is following:

• Right wing (including wiring): 610g
• Left wing (including wiring): 626g
• Right Tail: 41g
• Left tail: 41g
• fuselage (including wiring): 300g
• Joiner: 112g
• Total: 1730g

There is 1.5 Kg of ballast provided (brass), located in the joiner and in the wings. The Fuselage is 2.4 ghz friendly.

Stay tuned for the assembly, that I will start soon as the F3F season is approaching.

Video: Ambrosia F3X - Miro Model

This video has been taken last saturday. Weather was great for beginning of February with 10° and a gentle breeze around 10 to 15 km/h.

I flew the Ambrosia all the afternoon with 300gr of ballast. It performed very well. The plane is so stable and so easy to fly. Whatever the turn style, you can place the Ambrosia and it doesn't move. This is the easiest plane I have seen and piloted. The tailplane is probably the first reason, but also the section.

Here is the 4 minutes video:

AP: flying above the Trièves

Yesterday was a superb day outdoor, no wind, sunshine, 15 degrees celcius. A perfect day for some Aerial Pictures and Video. Trièves is an area at the boundaries of three departments which are the Isère, the Hautes-Alpes and the Drôme, limit between the north Alps and the south Alps.

More information can be found here: http://www.trieves-tourisme.fr/

I need to edit the video, but here are some shots taken with the Go Pro HD:

New DS world record with 468mph !!!

Spencer Lisenby flew his Kinetic 100 DP to 468mph on February 2 !!!
This new record has been set at Norco California in high wind (gusts over 65mph).






More information and link to the High Resolution Video is here: RCgroups thread

500 mph frontier is not that far !

Congratulation Spencer !

Spektrum introduces the DSM-X technology

By Merging the DSSS and the FHSS technologies, Spektrum is introducing the DSM-X, a wideband DSSS. Mode information can be found here

Robbe / Futaba News 2011

You can download the news catalogue 2011 here. 
Other version are here: http://www.robbe.de/service/webkataloge.html

Big disappointment as there is no telemetry announced :( !

A closer look to the DS 16 from Jeti

Here is a higher definition picture of the DS16 transmitter (Source http://www.pina.cz) :

JETI DC16 switched ON:

The new JETI switched ON at Nuremberg (source http://www.rcpilot-online.com/ ):

JETI transmitter released !

More information here

A thumbs version will be available in september 2011 :

DC-16 main features:

HARDWARE: 
- Magnesium body
- 3,8 inch wide display with backlight, 320 x 240 pixels
- Weight only 1,2 kg
- 2 GB memory
- Integrated antenna
- Integrated long life Li-Ion accu
- Aluminium transport box
- Aluminium sticks variable in length with bearings
  - Scanning sticks position by hall sensor
  - Swivelling the stick units
  - 4096 throttle steps resolution
- Voice output
- Jack headphones
- Digital trims  

SOFTWARE: 
- 2.4 GHz
- 16 channels
- Customizable menu
- Unlimited settings
- Unlimited model memories
- Firmware upgradable
- Ultra fast response
- Power management system connection to PC
- 3 model types programming (ACRO / HELI / GLID)
- 5 languages (EN / DE / CZ / PL / FR)

TELEMETRY:
- Full telemetry in real time on a main display
- Recording telemetry data
- Telemetry warning - voice
- Connection to PC - telemetry records, telemetry and transmitter settings

Multiplex News 2011

The Multiplex Catalogue 2011 is here

Graupner News 2011

The catalogue 2011 Graupner can be download here

Video: Dancing on the slope

Funny video filmed during a F3F competition: Pilots imitating the pilot who is flying (and dancing with him) !

Mutliplex news for 2011

Seen on the RCMF forum, here are some information regarding Multiplex News for 2011

• The Cockpit Sx will be available in 3 colours - Original silver Classic, Dark Grey Elegance and a Yellow and Black Action version!
• A GPS sensor which transmits speed, altitude and range, already available in fact

• A new Rx5 and Rx7, slimmed down with a single Rx board but with telemetry.
• New M-LINK modules to fit Graupner/JR mc18-24 series transmitter or mx-22-24 transmitter
• An external telemetry display screen to allow use of telemetry on the PROFI 4000/3000, Graupner/JR and EVO/PRO transmitters!
• A 150A current sensor
• A range of ECS's with telemetry 

source: http://multiplex.zhype.com/