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Part 6 of Stan's story on the Kittyhawk build is now available for download in the Information Section - member's articles.
I have a feeling that a certain Tom the Burglar will be reading the section on retracts with a gleam in his eye.
Ed
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AEROBATICS
SUNDAY 27th February 8.30am – 5.00pm
THIS IS A NSW PATTERN FLYERS EVENT
THE USUAL APA AEROBATIC CLASSES WILL BE FLYING ALONG WITH A NEW “BASIC” SEQUENCE SO THAT MEMBERS FROM WRCS CAN HAVE A GO AT AEROBATICS (details HERE)
PILOTS BRIEFING WILL BE PROMPTLY AT 8.30AM AND WILL OUTLINE THE DAY'S EVENT AND PROCEDURES
COME EARLY TO SETUP YOUR EQUIPMENT AND MEET THE OTHER PARTICIPANTS
(Engines (and electric motors) can be run after 9am)
PLEASE SEND YOUR ENTRY TO THE NSW PATTERN FLYERS WEBSITE BY 23 FEB
INCLUDE YOUR NAME, FREQUENCY AND CONTACT NUMBER
VISIT
FOR LOTS MORE INFO
| Many thanks to the members who contributed to the debate and development of the charging station concept, and to those who agreed to part-finance the project.
I'm very pleased, though, to report that the club members attending the monthly meeting on 8th Feb 2011 voted in favour of the club financing the project and making the charging station available to all members.
We already have two large solar panels, a charging control unit, a few other pieces of kit and 4 storage batteries. This was the starting solution proposed to handle the needs of a group of 15 to 20 members, rather than building a (potentially) overengineered station that could handle a hundred or more users.
Over the coming weeks we will be installing the panels and building the charging station into the current lockable transmitter pound. There will be a lockable box inside the pound (to house the batteries) and about 5 shelves with banana plug outlets to allow members to attach their chargers (up to about 8 typical chargers simultaneously). We'll write more about the technology and capability in due course, but the club has agreed to fund this stage (which will cost up to $1500), and we will then see how the system copes with storing power and charging the increasing demands of more lipo users with bigger batteries.
The system has been designed to allow us to easily add more solar panels and more storage. I suspect the proof of the pudding will be in the winter months, when solar catchment will be affected by lower light and less daylight hours.
The members also took on board, unanimously, a suggestion from Andrew Yu that we all use lipo bags (or an equivalent) to contain the lipos whilst they are being charged. Once the system is ready for use, it will be up to members to provide their own lipo charging bags (or borrow from another member present, I guess). There are occasions where a member has no choice but to charge a battery within the aircraft, rather than removing it. For these times, it would seem sensible to ask that this be done away from the charging station, as would currently be the case.
It's going to be great to harness free energy to power some of our aircraft. Sustainable, clean and very practical...although the sale of male corsets might take a turn for the worse when we save people from lugging huge 12 volt batteries from their car to the pits each week. And there is a mental picture that you may have preferred not to receive!
Ed
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