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| Title: | Welcome To The Radio Control Conference |
| Notice: | dir's in 11, who's who in 4, sales in 6, auctions 19 |
| Moderator: | VMSSG::FRIEDRICHS |
|
| Created: | Tue Jan 13 1987 |
| Last Modified: | Thu Jun 05 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 1706 |
| Total number of notes: | 27193 |
1470.0. "National Sailplane Symposium - trip report" by KAY::FISHER (The higher, the fewer) Tue Nov 03 1992 12:01
OK guys - here's a trip report for the National Sailplane Symposium.
My wife and I flew out on Northwest Airlines from Hartfort CT
(Actually Winsor Locks) Bradley International Airport. If you
ever happen to the Boston area - it's worth a detour to land in
Windsor Locks and check out the New England Air Museum.
Anyway Madison Airport is really nice and isolated - come in over
open fields and there is only one terminal.
We arrived a day early so that we could attend the EAA Museum tour.
Soooooooooooo...
===============================================================================
Friday 23-Oct-1992
EAA Oshkosh Museum.
We had breakfast in the motel and met with the locals for a car ride
to Oshkosh. We had rented a car because we also wanted to go shopping
for some Oshkosh B'Gosh cloths for our first grandson - who is due to
be born as I type.
Anyway - after a 1.5-2.0 hour ride (everybody drives almost exactly
the speed limit) we arrive. After re-forming at the museum entrance
many more sailplane guys arrive - maybe 30 of us where as only 10 or
so met at the motel.
Just before the tour starts Les Gerhardt shows up. Dolly Wischer
found my wife and introduced herself. There were several notables
there but I was busy looking at airplanes.
Anyway - the tour was led by our guide Gene Chase. What a guy.
He is the "Check Out Pilot" for the EAA and prior to that spent
many years as a Navy Pilot. He has been checked out in 315 aircraft
types - everything from flying cars to jets. He was introduced
as one the few (probably the only) man who within the last 30 days
has flown a P-51 Mustang and a Ford Tri-Motor! The tour started at
2:00 and finished as the Museum was closing at 5:00. I only regret
that I didn't have enough time in the giant gift shop. Just the book
selection alone would take me quit a while to go thru. The hi-light
of the tour was Gene's commentary on the planes telling about how
they flew and things he liked and didn't like about each one.
My only disappointment was the Zero I was hoping to photograph.
As it turns out they have no Zero - only an Oscar. But I was consoled
by the fact that the colors were the same and it looks to me like
my last Zero paint job is right on. But I wasn't standing there with
color chips in my hand so maybe it was just wishful thinking.
Anyway after the tour everyone was headed back and we spend another
hour in a Oshkosh B'Gosh store then drove back to Madison.
================================================================================
Saturday 24-Oct-1992
National Sailplane Symposium - day one.
Up with the birds - check in at 8:00 - $20.00.
Best bargain in 1992 - even came with free donuts and coffee and lunch
on Saturday.
My guess is there was about 100 folks in the room - which is great
to shoot the breeze with 100 sailplane nuts!
Can describe all the doorway discussions that were going on.
I sat with Les Gerhardt (from Acton Mass) and right behind Steve Savoie
and Jim Armstrong from the DSC (Downeast Soaring Club). I keep thinking
I know that guy (Steve) from somewhere - but never made the connection
till Les said something later. I never did recognize Jim but I blame
that on him not wearing big dark sun glasses and a goofy T-shirt.
Anyway - on the the symposium.
After a bit of a late start and a long introduction by Carl Mohs (who had
to put a lot of time into organizing this thing) the first speaker was ...
Walt Good on Frequency Analyzers.
Walt gave a history of the frequency allocation scheme while they were
having major problems with the speaker system and eventually worked his way
up to a demo of the small portable frequency analyzer by Dr. Jim Hauser
(303)499-2584, Aero Spectra Corp., P.O. Box 3021, Boulder CO 80307-3021.
There is a new 4 band one coming out that will cost $800 and the existing
72 Mhz band one is selling for $700.00.
Walt also pointed out Dr. Jim Hauser who designed the unit and they both
answered any questions.
I didn't take many notes on this because I am very familiar with the
frequency problems and solutions and frequency analyzers and have seen
this portable unit before.
Every club should have one during contests - just wish we has enough
quantity to drive the price down - in terms of on board hardware they
should cost closer to $100 than $700 - but if you only sell a few...
Next
Terry Edmonds and Steve Metz on Full Size & R/C Sailplanes.
First Steve talked.
Started with a show of hands - How many have flown in a full size?
About 80 percent raised their hands.
How many have soloed in a full size?
About 20 percent raised their hands.
Steve brought a unique view to the program - he learned to fly
Full Scale Sailplanes at the very same time he learned to fly
RC Sailplanes - about 5 years ago!
His first full scale plane was a DG101 which his partner crashed
so he took it apart and buried it. So his experience with full scale
construction started when the disassembly of his DG101.
He talked about molded wings and fuselage formers and showed several
slides of constructions details of full size birds under construction.
Then he talked about things he has learned from full size that can help
in model flying.
Flying a pattern landing.
Written check list.
Walk around inspection.
Checking stress points after a hard lands.
Terry Edmonds has a Switzer(sp) 135C - all metal high performance plane.
Terry passed on the following tidbits of full scale experience:
1 thermal = an hour or more and many miles.
noon = best lift frequency.
2:00 to 4:00 PM = stronger but fewer thermals.
Flying techniques
yawl string - skidding or sliding is very inefficient and dangerous
[hey - wouldn't be neat if we has a yawl sniffler instead of
a thermal sniffler? Anybody wanna talk about automatic yawl
stability/correction?]
Thermal Snifflers = necessary only for cross country.
Then Terry showed us some barographs.
The old mechanical ones actually have carbon smoke on a metal drum
then scratch the flight on it and you spray the film with lacquer
to preserve it and send in your record - wow.
Next
Tim Renaud - Computer Radios
Infinity 1000 = 1000 mah pack
lower consumption
3.5 - 4 hours
It has both negative and positive FM modulation
(that means Futaba Mode).
It has a clock integrated into the snap roll button
(actually it's a spring loaded 3 position switch).
The audience asked if there would be an upgrade path from Infinity
600s to Infinity 660s? Answer no.
Tim apologized for the 660 coming out so soon after the 600. He
explained that there were some major off shore problems with manufacture
of the first model 600 cases and the major slips of the 600 made the
release dates of the two versions too close together.
Interestingly enough Tim is not touting even the Infinity 1000 as a
replacement of the Vision - he said the Vision replacement would be
in the future. Hmmmmmmm - anybody know what functions are missing
on the Infinity 1000?
Tim broke the computer radios into 3 categories.
$300 range - sport computer radios
$500-600 - Competition radios
$1000 - Professional class
He had a long description of each class but it makes since.
Next
Peter Walters - Muncie Update
Peter is the VP for the Wisconsin district and gave a very very
interesting presentation and history of the Muncie purchase and use.
Having read much of the AMA propaganda and many of the opposing views
(especially in R/C Scale magazine) I would not put my self on the list
of AMA supporters in this deal. I support the effort to purchase land
but thing it was too big of a decision to not be put to a vote.
But...
After listening to Peter's presentation I now feel much better about
the AMA decision. You had to be there to get the feeling and I wouldn't
describe Peters presentation as one of selling the concept either.
Did you know that Muncie is a 1 day drive to 60% of the AMA membership?
Steve Neu - Electrics
Steve is a member of our world championship team and told us all about
his trip to Holland and details of the flying and airplanes.
He brought his in for show and tell.
Wing loading = 75g/dcm = the FAI limit (what is it in American?)
27 - 1000 mah cells
No cooling holes.
Batteries get hot from inside out.
Astro 60 @ 65 amps
They removed the cases from the Astro motors and
machined them to thin the case and route out areas to save weight
Home built speed control.
Speed control must be electronic because surge current
equals several hundred amps and welds contacts of switches
Best props are quiet
Props are home made
Must have hi-point balancer and prop pitch gauge
Can change pitch with a heat gun
Wing = vacuum bagged in a female mold.
Team selection in Huntington Beach CA.
there were 6 contestants
in Germany they had > 100 contestants
The Holland contest
Weather was everything from great to terrible.
Rain/fog/sunny/windy.
Air foils - he likes the SD7003, RG12A next best.
Next
Al Doig
Al gave a great speech - but he had prepared it in advance so it was
pretty mechanical as he read it to us. He also supplied a copy of his
speech so I didn't take many notes. I'll just mention the items
that I thought were slightly out of the mainstream.
He was advocating using Extractor Pins from the die casting industry
as the worlds best wing rods. You can get 3/8" x 10" for < $5.
He talked about finding a light way to fill grain on obechi. His method
now is two light coats of nitrate dope. Lay on Japanese tissue and then
brush on dope thinner. Use but joints with the tissue - on overlap.
Finally 2 coats of brushing lacquer.
[OK - I never heard of brushing lacquer and have a hunch if I
went to my normal paint store (an auto store) they wouldn't have
any idea what I'm talking about - anybody know what this is really
called and where to get it?]
Al mentioned the Feather Cut Foam cutting rig a few times and the
said he liked but admitted it was his only experience.
Other than cost I have never heard anything negative about this rig
which is available from Tekoa, 3219 Canyon Lake Drive, Hollywood CA
90068.
[Being lazy about building tools I may abort my stack of
material being gathered for a home build cutter and get one of these
myself one day. The problem is up until starting with powered gremlin
combat I have never had a need to cut a wing. I keep getting plenty
of wings in kits and even had a few given to me. In fact I have a
hand launch with 3 sets of wings and still haven't cut one.]
Next
Lee Murray, Al Scidmore, and Dave Beck - Instrumentation and Telemetry
Lee Murry talked about accuracy of data statistics and showed several
examples which included the Casio Altimeter and the bottom line
is the Casio turns out to be very accurate. Of course they
were creating there own instrumentation package to fit in a gentle
lady and their altimeter (The Al Scidmore altimeter) was much
more accurate than any others measured.
Al Scidmore talked about schematics for sensors.
Dave Beck talked about and showed the CPU module
DS-2244T from Dallis Semiconductor
32K RAM w 10 year battery backup
serial port
24 bits binary I/O
real time clock/calendar
2 alarm clocks
300/1200 baud modem
.5 oz weight
$85.00
Their airborne package weights
Computer and Altimeter 3.1 oz
Compass .4 oz
Wind Speed .75 oz
Transmitter .75 oz
====
5.0 oz
Their airborne package current draws
Computer 33 ma
Altimeter 7 ma
8 channel voltmeter 6 ma
compass 25 ma
wind speed indicator 5 ma
---
76 ma
Transmitter 60 ma
===
136 ma
The total is without because you can record an enormous amount
of data onboard and analyze after the flight if you don't want
real time data.
Anyway it was a technically interesting presentation but suffered
from the same thing my notes did - they never told us what they
were doing and the goals before they started dumping technical data
on us.
The bottom line is there is this group working on telemetry devices
and a package that comes out about the size of a thermal sniffler.
Right now they are staying on a Ham band. I would hope that they
can conclude their work and release something for sale on non ham
bands eventually - but there doesn't seem to be any real commitment
to a product much less any fuzzy goals.
Next
Martin Simmons - R/C Cross Country
Martin gave a fascinating presentation and several folks had
copies of his books they were getting autographed. I was wishing
they had some there for sale but they didn't - rats - I missed
a good opportunity.
Anyway he showed several slides of full scale cross country methods
and talked about them - unfortunately I forgot the details of these
so perhaps some of you can fill them in.
Classic Method = Climb till you run out of lift then go down range.
McCreedy Method = Climb only briefly and go down range - after all
this is a race!
Dolphin Method = Frequently just slow up for a thermal - don't circle
even once and go real fast thru sink.
Martin then gave hints about model sailplane flying.
The biggest single thing you can do to increase performance of a
sailplane is to increase it's size!
Speed increases down force on the wing tips and the stab. [Gee - it
wasn't until I heard this lecture that I figured why I blew the stabs
off my Lovesong twice this summer. Sure enough my failure was ripping
the stab off in a down direction!]
Steep banks (> 85 degrees) = 11 Gs.
All stable sailplanes will porpoise (varying in speed and angle of attack).
[Hmmmm - been cursing my hand launch for this and now he tells me I gotta
live with it.]
Next
Banquet
We sat with the guys from Maine (Steve Savoie and Jim Armstrong)
and Bob Harold. Bob was a fascination buy and you can read about
him in one of the older symposium papers. He was building and giving
away gliders made out of aluminum cans. This was really neat and he
had all types imaginable from canards to bi-planes. Most flew great
and it was fascinating to watch him build one in about 30 seconds
then chuck it across the room.
Gene Chase was the speaker after dinner and his talk was pretty
much a repeat of the Museum tour but enhanced by slide pictures showing
many of the aircraft in flight with Gene at the controls. An interesting
bit was when Gene said his real love was models and model building and
how he doesn't subscribe to any full scale aircraft magazines but he
subscribes to all the model aviation magazines.
================================================================================
Sunday 25-Oct-1992
National Sailplane Symposium - day two.
Up with the birds - start at 8:15
First
Workshop/Swap shop/Vendor Demo
The first hour was billed as workshop. It was that plus a vendor
demo and swap shop. The Airtronics guys were there with two Infinity 1000s
and a Whisper kit. I played with the 1000 for a bit and couldn't guess my
way around the menus very well at all. Sure didn't seem like they were
written buy the CSL guys - but Tim said they were. Anyway - I doubt if
I could have guessed my way around the Vision menus without first having
read the manual either.
They also had a box full of their mylar hinging and gap sealing tape.
I bought a roll of each and saved the shipping and handling cost.
It's great stuff but you gotta be sure what surface you apply it too.
One fellow was there to complain about how he put on on Black Baron
21st Century film and it wouldn't stick. He went on to day that he had
used the tape on 21st Century film in the past and it worked. [So my
conclusion is that depending on the color/coat of 21st century film
or perhaps the batch of tape - you should test your application first.]
We got so see all the previous days stuff up close and personal so I played
with the spectrum analyzer and looked at the gentle lady instrumentation
package.
There were some interesting things for sale that the local Wisconsin crowd
brought in such as:
4 Legends (2 @ $170)
Cumic Plus kit $120
Mueller Thermal King CLONE $400 RTF.
Competition Products Phoenix $275
Gold Coast Avionics Vortex $100
2-meter Alycone $75
Flight Line Composites Thermal Eagle $400
Alycone $175
2 Prodigys $35
Airtronics Espree $190
Winch with new battery $100
A guy had some cardboard boxes full of batteries
Sanyo 900mah batteries for $1.00 each.
They were factory rejects because the weld had failed.
[Wish I hadn't just fixed my B&D cordless drill just before I left Mass!]
One guy had a PitchMoth. That is a Culpepper models future (probably)
HLG kit. Looked really neat and was about 12 oz. It had a really neat
linkage to a full flying stab. It was pull pull with a T shaped bell crank
in the tail. It was the guys personal design and may not be part of the
kit but he did plan to show the design refinement to the creator.
Anyway - here's a crude picture:
___________________
/ o o \ Flying Stab
\_____________|_____/
Forward |
___ |
/ \ |Music wire
---------------------------o | |
Kevlar control lines | | |
| | |
| +------|-\
| o o |
| +--------/
| |
| |
---------------------------o |
\___/
I told it you it would be crude:-)
Chuck Anderson was there demonstrating his Model Design Program
and giving away free floppies with a wing layout program on it.
I got a floppy but haven't had it converted to 3.5" yet so I
haven't tried it - but free was the right price. I attempted to
get a demo of Chuck's Model Design Program but others were asking
questions and Chuck got side tracked so many times that after investing
10 or 15 minutes and not getting past simple explanations of how menus
work and what default answers I gave up and visited other displays.
One guy was there with a table demonstrating how you can do vacuum
bagging on a shoe string budget.
[I was amazed at how many were interested in his table. I thought this
was all pretty old hat stuff but apparently many sailplane pilots/builders
were not aware of the techniques. Guess they have been skipping the parts
of the magazine sailplane columns when they turn the subject to mylar or
vacuum pumps or check valves, etc.
Well from when people ask me about vacuum bagging my advice is to purchase
the $70 bagging kit from Aerospace Composite Products. As one who has
went thru the hand sucker kit to the refrigerator compressor and another
compressor and aquarium valves and pressure switches and bagging material
and caulking and...
Forget all the complexity - spend the $70 - it is a great bargain.]
Jerry Slates (editor of RC Soaring Digest and president of Viking models)
was there passing out Viking catalogues and I believe he had at least one
fuselage on display.
Bill and Bunny (B&B Plans?) the folks who write the flying wing column
for RC Soaring Digest were promoting and selling the book "Tailless Tail".
[I always enjoy their column but ain't ready for a wing yet, tried a
genesis - didn't like it].
Next
Jeff Raskin - Sailplane Precision Aerobatics
Jeff was introduced as the Apple Mac Team leader.
[Can't say I've ever heard of him - anybody else?]
Anyway - Jeff gave a very enthusiastic presentation on Aerobatics
but we found out that he had a hidden agenda - he was trying to sell
a new foam sailplane.
First he had a show of hands. How many have done a loop?
Everyone raised their hand. How many have done a roll? About 80 percent
raised their hand. How many have pulled up vertical and done a roll?
Now about 20 percent. Then he asked a couple more.
Then he gave a lesson in Aresti(sp) Notation.
[Really pretty interesting and I learned a lot about the notation.]
Then he gave a lesson on Aerobatic history.
Then he talked about full scale aerobatic sailplanes.
Then he posed this interesting question.
Most sailplane wings - the trailing edges sweep forward 3-4 times
as much as the leading edges sweep back - why?
Answer = to keep the 1/4 cord line straight. This is for symmetrical
aileron rolls
Then he showed their kit plane.
Anabat2 from his company Anabatic Aircraft, Eight Gypsy Hill Road,
Pacifica CA 94044, phone (415)573-9363.
Looks kinda like a throw away foam plane for $34.95 plus $5.00 shipping.
Kinda a goofy looking thing that looks like a toy but I kinda like it.
Also it looks like the kind of thing you would only buy one of and after
that you would cut your own wings and fuselage. Looks like the kinda
thing a club could take on as a project an kick out about 40 in a weekend.
But don't get me wrong - I kinda like it! Worth a look and I'm sure
you'll see it favorably reviewed in the magazines in the near future.
Next
Maynard Hill - World Duration Record.
It turns out that Maynard Hill set another longer duration record
between when they booked him for this presentation now. So I have
some data from both. Basically he used the same plane for both and
for the first record he landed with a lot of fuel on board.
Oh - he had a clever explanation for why this was in the correct context
of a sailplane symposium. In addition to the fact that he has held
numerous world records for model sailplanes as well. It had something
to do with the fact that the engine on the front had an alternative
purpose than just spin a prop. It was some sort of a permanent thermal
generator.
He currently holds the worlds records for altitude = 26,990 feet.
33.3 hours duration (the subject of this talk).
150 MPH speed record. I don't know what class this is or if was
an old sailplane record that is no longer standing?
Anyway details on the plane.
14 square feet and the wings weighted 15 oz.
Airfoil = 1DFP
Now picture this. If you draw a crude airfoil with not very
many points in the curve and you connect the dots you get a lot
of straight lines. 1DFP = 1 Dozen Flat Plates.
Anyway - it was just a handy airfoil he had around and didn't know
the number. It was mostly flat bottom.
Engine = OS FS .60
Not the new surpass. He said the older non-surpass was much
more fuel efficient.
Fuel Tank = home made with plywood and fiberglass. Interestingly
enough the outside of the tank was fiberglass - the inside was
just coated with epoxy.
Flight Pack
.982 pounds w 4 servos
Rate Gyro
uCPU w altimeter sensor
1 D Cell 3.6 volt Lithium 13 amp hour battery
Can run system with lights for 50 hours
146 MHz Down link = postage stamp size
Normally used to mount on wildlife (a Falcon)
Hidden in the fin.
Wing tip Rx on 449 MHz Direction finding Receiver
The plane weighted 10 lb 15.8 oz
There was 3.85 lb of fuel at start of flight.
At end of 24 hour record they landed with 1.62 lb of fuel.
At end of 33.3 hour flight they ran out of fuel and landed
dead stick at 3:00 AM.
Gasoline
Maynard showed slides of the equipment and a video of the two record
setting flights and one failure.
Next
Professor Roland Stull - Meteorology for Model Sailplane Flyers
Professor Stull started off by showing several charts and graphs
showing the existence of the convective mixed layer of atmosphere.
Basically temp drops as altitude increases up to about 5 or 10 thousand
feet at which time temperature begins to raise again (temperature inversion).
[I always thought this was a freak occurrence but it is almost constant.]
Anyway this causes all thermals to top out at the top of the clouds and
for almost zero thermal activity above the clouds.
Then he showed several other graphs including one showing the top of the
convective mixed layer altitude against time. This shows that thermals
don't exist at night [something we know to not be universally true] and
that they start in early morning and grow rapidly thru noon.
An interesting aside is that he stated (several times) that thermals are
typically as wide as they are high. [Of course he later showed charts
that illustrated intensity going up much more in the center of a thermal
than at the outside. But this is certainly something to think about.
I believe that all to often I am flying much to small circles up high
and perhaps also too large circles down low.]
The most interesting thing to most folks was the U of Wisconsin LIDAR
(Laser RADAR) which showed thermals. [I had seen published black and white
pictures of this before so it was no big surprise but it was interesting
to watch the video of them moving.] Basically thermals look like clouds.
One thing he showed was resultant statistical representations of thermals
and their intensities at various points. The bottom line here was that
they do NOT rotate. Some folks from the audience brought up dust devils
and the professor acknowledged that indeed some do twist but on average
there are as many that turn clockwise as counter clockwise and the end
result average vectors are straight. Unfortunately he left the impression
in enough minds that I'm sure a portion of the audience still believes
that all thermals twist and that all of them in the northern hemisphere
twist counter clockwise. He even gave an example of a farmer he saw on
a tractors in the field kicking up a pair of dust devils on each side
of the tractor as he moved along - one turning clockwise and one turning
counter clockwise.
My interpretation of the data he presented is
(1) Thermals do not turn and
(2) Toilets don't flush in the opposite direction in Australia.
Others will disagree I am sure.
Next
The Raffle
I only regret that I did not purchase more tickets. With only approximately
100 present the odds were pretty good.
But I must admit there was nothing being raffled that I really needed
so to purchase a gaggle of tickets would have only been greed on my part.
They raffled off the following items:
Airtronics Vision SP radio
ACE Micro Pro 8000 radio
Alycone kit
Fox Scorpion 2-meter kit
Sig Samurai kit
Sig Nina kit
LJM Software Simulation (not sure of this description)
Chuck Anderson Model Design Program
Subscription to RC Soaring Digest
Book - "Tailless Tail"
PWS101 plans
3 $10 discount coupons to Aerospace Composite Products
and some other smaller things
================================================================================
Monday 26-Oct-1992
Mall of America - Minneapolis Minnesota.
Now is a good time to hit your read next unread note button if you only
care about Sailplane Symposium stuff. On the other hand if you have found
that your Sailplane budget could use a boost and you haven't convinced
your spouse that RC is an important part of the family budget - perhaps
you should keep reading.
I have found that the only way I am allowed to spend money on building
airplanes that I crash and build more is to include side trips and activities
that also interest my wife. So when planning the Madison trip I also planned
to take in the new mall.
If you are not familiar with the Mall of America it is the new Mega-Mall that
just opened - billed as the largest mall in the world.
It is shaped like a large rectangle with 4 major stores (Sears,
Bloomingdale's, Macy's and Nordstrom's - one in each corner.
Then on the 3 levers between the 4 corner there are 400 other store. In the
center section there is a theme amusement park called Knott's Camp Snoopy.
We arrived the night before and alto the mall was closed the 26 plus
restaurants were open so we had supper there. That night Camp Snoopy was
closed for a private party.
Anyway we arrived in the morning and spend the whole day covering the entire
mall.
In each Major store there are also multiple restaurants.
One restaurant "Hooters" has skimpily clad waitresses and the sign over
the door said "More than a mouth full!"
There were night clubs on the 4th floor and 12 (I believe) theaters.
One of the night clubs had a virtual reality system and guys were paying
to put on a helmet and hold a electronic pistol. You could see on the monitor
what they were seeing. It was kinda neat but pretty low resolution.
Basically there wasn't any special kinda store that you might not come across
in any other mall but they were all under one roof. Someone figured that
you could only spend 1.5 minutes in each store if you wanted to see them
all so we figured we had to make optimum use of our time. So we skipped
all the stores that we have chains of out this way. There ain't a mall in
Massachusetts that I haven't spent hours in.
My personal favorite was the Laser store. If you have never seen some of
these laser 3-D photos - wow. This one had a pair of binoculars that appeared
to be about a foot out of the wall. But you could lean over and put your
eyes up the the eyepiece and look thru them - wild.
There was one place that had a Model Train setup with 20+ "O" gauge trains
running on a half mile of track. This was done by the local model railroad
guys and they charged a couple bucks to go thru their setup - had night scenes
every 15 minutes - really pretty nice. It was still under construction and
will constantly undergo changes and improvements. The brochure said the trains
alone were worth over $50,000. Worth checking out if you appreciate model
building and scale stuff.
I was encouraging my wife to get something for her birthday but after covering
the whole mall she still hadn't made any major purchases so we ended up going
to Service Merchandise (a chain which we also have out here) and she picked
out a diamond anniversary ring. Could I afford it - heck no - but from
an RC budget standpoint - I couldn't afford not to:-)
Anyway by now it was getting dark the the lights were coming on in the Camp
Snoopy. So we went for a ride on the roller coaster and log ride. Both
of them had two climbs. One of the nice things in Camp Snoopy was the Lego
display/store. They had awesome stuff constructed - some huge (3 stories
high). The part appeared to have a lot of Disney influence. Very nicely
run - very clean - music playing constantly - great lighting. Kinda reminded
me of the Magic Kingdom at night during the electric parade. Not nearly
as nice mind you but that kinda influence and feeling.
We ended up walking so much that our legs ached for the next two days.
Sorry it took me so many days before posting a trip report but I've got
one of those kinda jobs that when I take some time off - most of my work
will be just waiting for me to come back and get caught up by working
harder or longer or smarter or all.
I apologize in advance for any technical in errors and I met one usenet
fellow there but I wasn't taking notes at the time and I'm terrible with
names so I forgot his name - any way - it was nice to bump into a fellow
computer networker and perhaps he can fill in some missed details and correct
my mistakes.
Now I'll let the spelling program have a crack at this.
Bye --+--
Kay R. Fisher |
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Name | Date | Lines |
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| 1470.1 | Wish I was there | UNYEM::BLUMJ | | Wed Nov 04 1992 14:15 | 12 |
| Kay,
Great trip report! It sounds like it was really interesting.
The English frequently hold these type of things and they sound
like a lot of fun.
By chance did Steve Neu mention if his Astro 60 had an other
modifications other than the case thinning?
Regards,
Jim
|
| 1470.2 | Astro 60 was stock | KAY::FISHER | The higher, the fewer | Thu Nov 05 1992 10:02 | 13 |
| > By chance did Steve Neu mention if his Astro 60 had an other
> modifications other than the case thinning?
No - in fact he made a point that it was stock and the case thinning was for weight only
not performance or cooling. It looked pretty crude with the case modified and he
had it side by side displaying it with some foreign motor that was mostly chrome
and absolutely beautiful.
Bye --+--
Kay R. Fisher |
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