TAM 5 Update

Well that's obvious. Re-fuel it and fly it *back* to Newfoundland.

Only joking - an update on the website with an account of the arrival in Ireland, the condition of the plane after it's long flight, amount of fuel left in the tank etc. would be good. But I guess we'll let them celbrate for a day or two first!

Red's sarcasm is lost on some.

Re-read some previous posts/responses by Newbee and others to understand the context.

Don

Just got back from a small gathering to Celebrate the event. The guys are totally wiped out. As time goes on there will be a lot of info available on their site as well our club the St John's RC Flyers

will have a gallery devoted to the flight. The plane will be shipped back to the US soon to Maynard. He will be placing it in a museum. He has not decided where yet.

Craig

See the other threads. Fifty-odd ml fuel left - 40 minutes worth. Close enough ?

Cheers, Fred McClellan the dash plumber at mindspring dot com

Hmm. Now you have thrown down a challenge there...what prop and RPM was he turning...for his 40 hours?

What span and wing area?

I've lost the link.

Hmm. I can get about 5 hours duration max...without any lift or wind assistance.

40 hours is not yet doable with current cells.

5.5lb of cells would be about 100 cells, and at about 4W/hour per cell, thats 400W/hours. To do 40 hours means an avergae of 10W to keep about

10lb of planbe in teh air...nope...1W/lb would mean an ultra slender sailplane type wing with very low drag. and I doubt it could be done.

10w/lb is on tho easily - so 4 hours duration would not be hard.

The best configuration is amazing - use enormous reduction gears to swing a giant prop at a few RPM only - very efficient- like a giant rubber powered model really - and use a rather small motor running at its maximum efficiency for cruise.

If it was a bit intelligent, and could thermal by itself, it might do it.

The advantage of fuel is of course that the plane gets lighter :-)

I certainly think that its an interesting target to shoot for. Some of the materials currently available for photoelectrics if used on the wings might extend the range a fair bit, but I'd be tempted to get the thing up to 40,000 feet - where your slimer would long ago have given up

- into continuous sunshine, AND the jet stream, and go across like that. :-)

Should add a lot of speed that way.:-) :-)

.

Even today, 5 miles is perfectly possible with well designed kit and antnenae and legal power.

I am not sure if the power limits apply to the power into the antenna, or effective fields strength. If the former, a directional array could boost power several times in the model direction.

And a well designed array on the model itself would help too.

Our kit is designed to a price, not a standard. Any decent self build ham could do far better.

As an aside, that was actually an expression of admiration, congratulations on a liitle bit of good fortune, and a heck of a lot of planning and effort.

I thought it had gone down when the data vanished. Seems the plane is more reliable than the comms system.

I bet you will see it in R/C Report first if they get a submittal from someone. :-)

Red S.

Craig, I've just had a quick browse around your club website. Looking at the "TOLR" stats pages

and also I think I understand why they didn't send *you* to Ireland to land TAM5 ;-)))

A great accomplishment. Saw the landing on "CBS Sunday Morning." Looking forward to the article with all the details. Maynard should run for Governor of California.