And yet EVEN MORE B.O.T. Torture !!!

[quote="WingingIt74"]

Kim wrote:WOW !!! Can't believe I survived all those years with just my Kodak Click-o-Matic !!!

One like this?


Hardly! Mine is a flat little 110 with a receptacle on top where you jam a "Flash Cube" !!!!

andrew wrote:

Ivanhoe wrote:Hey Kim, this is what I mean. Perhaps the crop circle aliens have been at work!!!

Wilf --

What you may be seeing are drains. In sections of fields that are prone to water erosion, we plant a fast growing grass and then do not plow or disk that portion of the field. Any top soil that washes from the field during natural drainage will be trapped along the edge of the grass and, over time, will help build up and flatten that area. Without the grass, water will eventually cut a ditch into the field and make movement of equipment difficult or impossible.

Of course, some farms have more drainage issues than others.....

[quote="Kim"]

andrew wrote:

Ivanhoe wrote:Hey Kim, this is what I mean. Perhaps the crop circle aliens have been at work!!!

Wilf --

What you may be seeing are drains. In sections of fields that are prone to water erosion, we plant a fast growing grass and then do not plow or disk that portion of the field. Any top soil that washes from the field during natural drainage will be trapped along the edge of the grass and, over time, will help build up and flatten that area. Without the grass, water will eventually cut a ditch into the field and make movement of equipment difficult or impossible.

Oh, OK, but that is far too mundane an explanation, I much prefer the Aliens and/or wandering Ancient Briton theories!

Kim wrote:Hardly! Mine is a flat little 110 with a receptacle on top where you jam a "Flash Cube" !!!!

110s were good little cameras.

That's it !!!! My faithful little buddy that survived all manner of motorcycle trips in rain and cold back in the 70's ! Still got it! Now, reckon I'll have to load some film in it ! Just wish I could have afforded more film "back then".

You're costing me money Travis !

More Stuff !!!!!

Kim, I reckon you must get in more flying hours than the rest of us on this forum put together!

Ivanhoe wrote:Kim, I reckon you must get in more flying hours than the rest of us on this forum put together!

I don't know about that, Wilf...it may be that I just blab more about it !

Thanks Cribbs74 for the question about acronyms. You good people lose me all the time. I just started a notebook on these acros. today. About the only acronym I know and live by is K.I.S.S. I got away from computers and the internet in '03 (had my reasons) and just got back into this about a year ago (again, had my reasons). The first post in about 9 yrs. (a life time in computer terms) for me was on this Cox Forum. Any explanation of your acronyms will be welcomed by me. If you think I know it, trust me, I don't.

Yeah...sorry about the acronym deal...just some attempted humor on my part. Most of the acronyms I use are of that nature, and my buds and I often just make them up (or modify existing ones) to aggravate each other !

Thinking I had a contender for my "B.O.T. Takes Video of Lightning" project, I launched my battered 2-Meter Sailplane with it's new HD "Flip" camera locked and loaded for some dramatic footage. I had a good couple of cells coming down from the north, with plenty of cloud-to-cloud and ground-pounder bolts busting loose a few miles away.

Once again, however, the Lightning Gods appeared intimidated by the raging .051 atop the B.O.T., and hid themselves every time the little spyplane turned it's camera their way.

I DID manage to keep the B.O.T. aloft just long enough for the storm's gust front to arrive at the same time as the glider slid onto short-final for my front yard runway. Slamming down through the grass at about three times it's normal landing speed, it's left stabilator sheared off close to it's root rib. So, it's time to break out the magic glue !

Tough break (no pun intended here) --- the fronts that have been coming thru west Kentucky the last three years have carried some vicious winds, moreso than I can remember for years.

Your videos always have interesting themes, from alien ground paintings to the bolts of Thor. Hope the BOT goes back together without too much work and gets back into the air for filming.
andrew

Cool!

Sure would have loved to have seen some footage!

You oughta hire on at NOAA!

It would be fun to be paid to fly, plus you get a government account!

Maybe next time.

Go BOT!

You should try flying the old BOT into a twister! That would really test your piloting skills.

Yeah, I'll have that stab spliced back to the root rib pretty quickly. While I've got the Monokote Iron cranked up, I may also rework it's wing for the third or forth time, using the opportunity to take a good peek at the splices on it's always-overstressed spars. The old bird has had a pretty full life since 1999 when I found it at a swap meet, laying in a corner with a broken wing and covered with dust.

One thing for sure, it's come a long way from having a Walmart single-use film camera strap-taped across it's snout! "One Flight-One Photo" technology can burn a lot of fuel to make an album !



Kodak Film Camera...Summer 2000. The hills in the background are now covered by a subdivision! AND yes, Wilf's "Crop Patterns" existed even back then !!!



I figure that any flight near a twister would probably test my Parts Recovery Skills more than my Piloting Skills...but who knows?!! Maybe a "Discovery" or "Weather Channel" film crew could get footage of me and Patrick arguing some model airplane tech-babble before a raging, black funnel...and start yet another Reality Series : "Storm Nerds!"

Hate to see the damage to the B.O.T. Hope repairs are easy. I find storm chasing with spy B.O.T. very interesting. Friend and I were talking about this idea a few weeks ago. Hope you have B.O.T. flying soon. Love your vids.

Looking good Kim
Was there much difference between the Widow and Medallion?

MMT wrote:Thanks Cribbs74 for the question about acronyms. You good people lose me all the time. I just started a notebook on these acros. today. About the only acronym I know and live by is K.I.S.S. I got away from computers and the internet in '03 (had my reasons) and just got back into this about a year ago (again, had my reasons). The first post in about 9 yrs. (a life time in computer terms) for me was on this Cox Forum. Any explanation of your acronyms will be welcomed by me. If you think I know it, trust me, I don't.

MMT:



As to acornyms and abbreviations, I use this site:

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Although not specifically model aviation related, I find it very helpful in an ever-changing world.

MMT wrote:Hate to see the damage to the B.O.T. Hope repairs are easy. I find storm chasing with spy B.O.T. very interesting. Friend and I were talking about this idea a few weeks ago. Hope you have B.O.T. flying soon. Love your vids.

Thanks MMT !!
I think some careful splinting ought to have it back on line shortly. It's actually seen a lot worse....like wrapping it's left wing around the light pole in the corner of my yard! Just some of the hazards of landing a spoilerless sailplane in a tight space!

I'm just thankful that I decided to let the 3-Meter B.O.T. sit it out on this run! It's glide is a LOT flatter than the 2-Meter, and any hint of a tailwind on landing turns it into a locomotive on greased rails during it's slide-out.

It's a minor miracle that the 2-Meter B.O.T. is still with me anyway, since it's done more than it's fair share of cloud-punching and riding high above low scud:



Putting it at risk has netted me some photo/video frames like this one, showing the storm-destroyed hangar at my home airport near Cairo, Illinois:



The whole trick with videoing storms has been, for me, catching one of those isolated cells that's raising Cain close by, but with almost nil winds outside of it's immediate area...AND having the B.O.T. up and ready to go after it. I've gotten fairly good at telling when a gust front is on it's way, but getting a sailplane down from serious altitude can take a while...providing that you want to keep the wings on the thing. So, it gets exciting!

John Goddard wrote:Looking good Kim
Was there much difference between the Widow and Medallion?

The engine on the 2-Meter B.O.T.'s most-used pylon is a hard-run Tee Dee .051, so it DOES have a lot more stuff than my also-hard-run Widow. The B.W. still has no problem hauling the glider with smaller cameras, though I haven't tried it with the much heavier "Flip" cams.

The other advantage of the .051 is, naturally, the longer runs I can get from it's film canister fuel tank (1 ounce). With no cargo on board, that little sucker can take the B.O.T. up SCARY high on a full tank, so I seldom top it off unless it's packing a cam. I never use "clunk" tanks on the B.O.T., and the bottom pick-up lets me kill the engine by just flattening it at the top of a loop. Even with max rudder/elevator and as much aft-C.G. as I dare, I have never been able to induce the B.O.T. to spin, but have found that simply flipping it on it's back and holding it inverted will give a great descent without a ton of speed building up.

Aaaaaah I saw red in the vid and assumed medallion..
How long run time do you get with a full oz?
I'm still chasing better pwr 2 weight figures and think
Losing another 4 percent mass by coming down from
2 to 1 oz poss worthwhile.

John Goddard wrote:Aaaaaah I saw red in the vid and assumed medallion..
How long run time do you get with a full oz?
I'm still chasing better pwr 2 weight figures and think
Losing another 4 percent mass by coming down from
2 to 1 oz poss worthwhile.

Hey John,
I'm getting a solid 4 minutes and change from the 1 ounce film canister, running the Tee Dee on 25% Sig and a black 6-3 prop. I should point out though, that I do try to run it a bit rich, with a good four-stroke break before launch to help keep the engine cool...since I've usually got a surplus of power anyway.

This engine is another of my relics that must have about a million miles on it. I replaced it's split plastic case with an aluminum unit that's worked great ever since I put it on.

Does it break all the way into 2 stroke during the climb? I would guess it doesn't unload like a regular plane that gets to level off and dive.

Your camera work and FF planes inspire me. I'd like to live in the great wide open spaces.

RknRusty wrote:Does it break all the way into 2 stroke during the climb? I would guess it doesn't unload like a regular plane that gets to level off and dive.

Your camera work and FF planes inspire me. I'd like to live in the great wide open spaces.

If I hit it just right, after launch, it does lean out to a mostly 2-stroke run, with just "blips" of four-stroke as it climbs. When I launch from my front yard, I try to get some immediate height in case the engine does get froggy...the set-up landing may have to happen fast.

Sometimes when I can launch from a more open space, I like to drop the nose on the B.O.T., and let the .051 really wind it up down low. It's amazed a lot of folks (including R/C types) that the "tiny engine" on it's pylon can make a six-foot span airplane go so fast !

I've always wanted to take photos/video with my planes, and am living it up now with these inexpensive little cameras !

I do like Missouri, and this area specifically, so it'll probably be my home 'till I croak !