SEN 3359

1. Champs reflections
2. What did About Time say ?
3. BVLOS Quandry

 

Champs reflections
From John Carter

Well  reflecting on the Champs,
Site very  good but used inappropriately
The Flight line dictated by fixed infrastructure. It might have been better to add a mobile control van and relay back times etc to main control .

If on B day line had been appropriate distance from the building I doubt that a flyer  would have got injured ?
also then in B FO models would not have gone OOS behind buildings ( totally against all drone regulations!)
A site thats 5k by 10 k and we still fly near obstacles totally mad. If site used properly there would have been little or no need for competitors to resort to challenging scores for models that were behind the buildings and still flying ?
Also time keeping was very poor we experienced timekeepers having no idea where or what model they were watching .
The FAI really needs to get in gear and stop playing lip service to the requirements of keeping models in line of site .
JC UK

What did About Time say ?

Editor

We went and had a look at Neuron’s About Time website that we mentioned a few issues back at https://abouttime.flyingneurons.io/  and put in the dates of the Champs.  In particular 07/23/2025 to see F1B.  It just happened that some F1B sportsmen put there times in.   Only 2 were for the final fly off round – that where it matters.
Gil Hagay of Israel and Janne Isotalo of Finland

Gil got according to his Neuron 380 seconds  and the official results had it 380 seconds too giving him 16th place. Looks like Gil had a good timer.

Janne got according to his Neuron 459 seconds and the official results had it 456 seconds giving him 5 th place. Does 3 seconds matter ?  Well the 4th  place was at 459 seconds.

BVLOS Quandry

Most countries have a Civil Aviation Regulation controlling the operation of Model Aircaft and Drones. These rules vary from country to country. Many have a clause to do with not flying beyond visible line of sight.  While in principle BVLOS sounds simple in reality its interpretation can be complicated.  There was recent article in SEN by Chuck Etherington of the USA who was involved professionally with many aspect of civil aviation regulation and addressed some of them.

The quandry is that there is the uncertainty on how these regulations might be interpreted is making it difficult  got some possible changes in the Sporting Codes passed.   Here is an example of the reasoning. A change to the Sporting Code is proposed changing the way models are timed. This change permits the timing of the model by a device in the model that detects when the model takes off and  when it lands so  records the flight time. This flight time can be radioed back to the sportsman, server on the internet or contest director.   Some people  say that the use of a devices like this permits the acceptance of the time by a model that could have  flown beyond the visible line of sight in contradiction to  civil aviation regulations.  So that the person either as the contest organizer or the contestant could be liable for for a fine or imprisonment.  So some countries will not approve the change to the sporting code. Certainly we do not intentionally fly our model out of the line of sight.  If the sportsman or his helper follows the model it is in the line of sight, is that OK? We do not have any indication at this time of people having legal issues with the use of altimeters for the verification of times in flyoffs.  In general the use of device like the Neuron is very positive.  It does provide some information of the position of the aircraft during the flight and could give more . Helps find it and could even suggest an early  RDT if it was going into a bad place.
As long as we have performance aircraft we need to improve our timing.

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…………..
Roger Morrell