Serious accident

| > All the technology in the world won't fly a plane whose receiver battery | > has just died. | | True, BUT......... Even with todays radio systems. IF they would | just put some capacitive energy storage in a receiver and | implemented battery fault detecion, a receiver could, when it sensed | imment power loss, kill the throttle servo with its last gasp of | power.

In order to deliver 500 mA (remember, you need to drive the servo too), for one second, and to not go below 3.5 volts and starting at say 4 volts would require a big capacitor. Probably one that's a good deal larger than the receiver itself. A coil could hold more power (it's easier to store energy in a magnetic rather than an electric field) but either way, a second battery pack would be much more practical.

I do believe that many (most? all?) PCM receivers will, when the voltage has dropped too much (probably below 4 volts), go into fail safe (hopefully killing the engine) and then shut off right before it goes too far down to do anything. This would shut off the engine in the event of a battery that was never charged, but wouldn't help if a jolt severed the power lead.

| At least then you wouldn't have an aircraft flying full throttle out | of control. This was a full throttle out of control big bird with a | carbon fiber prop that hit the guy some significant time after he | lost complete control. If the receiver had killed the engine, this | serious injury would likely not have happened.

Yes, but did they ever say it was a dead battery? The impression that I got was that everything checked out just fine after the crash.

I have great sympathy for the person that was injured.

Unfortunately this is what comes with extremeism. Faster , bigger, pushing the edge, getting close to the action, etc.

There needs to be more margin of safety somehow, changing the rules, putting up better barriers . dunno.

C.O.J> Most unfortunate! The hobby certainly does not need such events.

Anything can be taken to ridiculous extremes.

Whenever a modeler, whether because of their demeanor/size of their model, makes me feel uncomfortable, I seek shelter or I leave the premises.

I go flying to enjoy myself. When it ceases to be fun, I no longer need the activity.

Anyone with half a brain knows that extremely large models most certainly do represent more of a danger than smaller models. This is why the Army uses artillery instead of bombarding a target with millions of .22 rounds. Yes, a .22 can kill you, but the chances of dying are much greater when hit with a .50 cal. round than a .22. It is just plain common sense.

I do not like being in the presence of very large model aircraft, or their owner/operators.

No, I am not getting into an argument of what is very large. It depends upon the circumstances. I have seen some "very large" .40 powered models in my day. (joke)

Ed Cregger

Getting to be quite a few of them running around!

Yep, them too!

That's cool! How? Dr.1 Driver "There's a Hun in the sun!"

"Dr1Driver" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m16.aol.com...

Its called Digital Command Control or DCC (short). DCC only requires two wires too hook up to the rails and you can slave two of them together to automaticly control reversing loops (some more wires). How it work is that it sends signals threw the rails to a DCC decoder equipped locomotive. My system can control up to 15 decoder equipped trains individually at the same time on the same rails and one convetional. It has hand held controler with 4 throttles and 4 groups A,B,C,D. The first thing you must do is to program the trains on a track hooked up to the DCC system isolated from the rest of the track You can address each loco a throttle. Example: On group A my red throttle controls a conventional loco (no progamming needed), green = address 1 (DCC loco ), blue address = address 2 (DCC loco ), black = address

3 ( DCC loco). Now you can go on to group B....address forr DCC equipped locos 4 to 7 ( red throttle will now control a DCC loco in this group and C and D aswell )...Group C......8 to11, and group D 12 to 15. You can also program accceleration, deceleration, and mid power curves to simuilate protypical operation for each loco. Example would be if your train is hauling a heavy load and you want to stop it....you can simulate a slow brakeing effort by adjusting deceleration curve so that the train will slow down come to a crawl and stop when the throttle is shut down instead of it stopping suddenly. You can progam them for MU lash ups, lighting, and almost anything to simulate protypical operation. I only have 4 trains equipped with DCC decoders........runnin 15 of them would realy have me jumping around. The other way (old way ) of operating multiple trains would be to block a section.....isolate a section of track with a throttle and switches ( alot of wiring ) on it and operate that train only....switching, yard work, ect.. Then when another train comes along you need to get that one out or both will operate on the symestaniously on that trak. NMRA has rules governing DCC so that different brand systems and different brand decoders will work on 99.9% of layouts with DCC. Sorry if I could not explain about the "innards" of the DCC unit.... am no electrical wizard....but I think the signals works just like R/C radios........dont know......not sure.....wild guess.

Mike

How about this for a new safety proceedure? "PAy attention to what's going on out there, guys!" Roger Guinn new e-mail: rogerguinn at charter dot net

Won't happen. Want proof? Just look at the other drivers next time you're going down the road. Especially near a major city. You'll see as many as half of them yappin' on the phone.

Saw a nasty accident a few months ago. Controlled intersection between a six lane and four lane. Speed limit on six lane is 50. Mini van on 4 lane got the green light and went without looking. Dump truck on other side didn't see the red. It was T-bone with the Mini van in the worse place. I was on the other side of the six lane watching all this come toward me. Only thing that made it to me was a cell phone sliding down the pavement. Doesn't mean anyone was on it but....................................

And it is probably going to get worse as time goes on. I lived in Vermont before the interstate was built. Shortly after completion, crime went up noticeably. Hit and run. Never could have gotten away with it on olde route 7. Sorry about off topic.

C.O.Jones wrote: It was T-bone with the Mini van in the worse place. I