Young Generation

Thanks Pol! I don't do alot on Facebook really though, I probably should post a few things to get more members to join here.
I really appreciate everything you all do for me on here. I have learnt so much from you all. If it wasn't for my club and here I think I would have given up already with alot of debt.
My aim by the article was to suggest ways so that others of my age that read it can have the same experience I have had in the hobby and that it doesn't need to be 'uncool' or frustrating. It should be a pleasurable experience being in this hobby and you should be proud of it.

Tom T wrote:

willowlea wrote: did you say thats where ali flies?

I think so, he said he was buying membership, he flies here at all of the events and last time he said he was going buy membership for the new year but not sure if he will or not, hopefully he will.

Send him a smally message on facebook or something, see if he would be willing to give a talk and a demo at your school, or see what he suggests might help as an incentive to youngsters especially as he has his shop and can maybe offer deals?. Just come back from Ashbourne and there was a young lad there, cant have been older than 12 flying beautifully, so some still do take it up

We have an 11 year old at our club who recently passed his "A".He is very good,and recently won a Specrum DX8 from RCMand E.He flies a Wot foamy trainer and Foamy acrowot very well.His dad stands giving instructions,knowing his son is now well ahead in ability and that dad will never catch him up

Sarah: I may do at some point although don't know if the school would be interested, I don't know who I would contact either, hmm.. I will look into it, he seems a busy man but I wonder if he has a space for promotion. Our school offers stalls at our yearly summer fete, i wonder if a model club could go to one of these, that would draw alot of attention! How was Ashbourne? I'm not saying there isn't any, but if you look at the ratio of the amount of adults to youngsters, i recon it would be 70to1? It needs to be 50/50 or maybe a little less at 70/30

Beard: Congratulations to him for getting his A! He will be competing one day at the Nats no doubt, but as you said he has family already in the hobby, what about the youngsters who don't? I just got lucky and found some very supportive people. hmm.... RCMand E.... DX8? hmm... be right back, popping over to see if any comps are going aha

Tom

I will enter it Tom and if i win you can have it, but knowing my luck !!!! one day lady luck will smile me, this time maybe

Thanks but i wouldn't be able to accept it from you, i would feel bad. If you win it, you should keep it! What model is it anyway?

I doubt that our hobby/sport can be called expensive to start in, unless the aspiration is too high. Xbox? 3g phones? Ipad? Hmmm.

Fully flyable, very capable helicopters cheaper than a lot of the above. Then the smaller fixed wing planes are not so pricy either.

Bring in the SOCIAL attitude we now have to contend with at club level as we can't do as in the past,,, easily fetch unrelated kids along or even allow them to appear by themselves and give them help. Heck, I could not even uplift kids from along my road when the school was collapsing in a major storm, at the same time as I was picking up my grandson. Although some of the Staff knew me well, as I used to take them places.

Quite possible direct introduction to model making and flying at schools could be a good route. This would need a strong personal commitment from volunteers, not awful likely though, that many would.

A very interesting read Tom. Well done.
Although I am a few years older I feel in a similar position, I don't think anybody I work with knows what I do as a hobby.
I hope to get my two boys interested when they are older. The four year old already says he wants a plane!!

The modelling community have a lot to offer to the educational system.... let's ask Tom as an example ..... Tom... can you explain what exponential is please?... Please don't let me down here mate.
If Tom gets this right it'll prove that flying model aircraft improves youngsters mathematical skills. ... Expo' is a mathematical concept.
If Tom doesn't know the answer, you can bet your genitalia that he'll be looking it up.... & there we go again.... we've encouraged a youngster to learn.
Every aspect of flying models teaches some serious skills ..... the youth of today are the engineers of tomorrow.

Pol.

On a model aircraft, you can adjust the exponential on your transmitter to change the throws of your control surfaces. Say you have 50% on all your surfaces and you put in full right aileron input, the the aircraft would roll slowly to the right, something you would see in an old plodder plane. Where as if you put 100% thats for your aerobatic maniacs! That gives you full throw of the surfaces.
On my chipmunk at the moment I have.... 75% on max and 25% on min, or something like that anyway . I wasn't too sure on the full maths definition but I had a rough idea from the aircraft use. Heres what I found, the constant e raised to the power equal to a given expression, as e 3 x , which is the exponential of 3 x any positive constant raised to a power. hmm... interesting!

Dean: Buy him something easy to buy now then Dean, get him training. You never know, he may be world champion! If id known of the hobby when I was that age, id of taken that chance and gone for it. Far too late for me to become world champion now, not with Ali, Ali's son and the likes about!

Flytillbroke: You have got a point there! People my age buy the xbox (some 2 or 3) then buy 100 games at £30 each. I don't do that, my brother does but doesn't interest me. Thats the thing though, you think we can all stick to the cheap planes but all we really want is to keep up with the fashion and fly the fancy planes. I have a flight box that is perfectly good enough but I am building a new one this winter just because I look out of place at the field. Crazy huh? Try getting the students near you to join, although would there be enough spaces in the clubs? Its limited already!

Tom T wrote: Say you have 50% on all your surfaces and you put in full right aileron input, the the aircraft would roll slowly to the right, something you would see in an old plodder plane. Where as if you put 100% thats for your aerobatic maniacs! That gives you full throw of the surfaces.

Actually Tom, if you put full right aileron input on the stick you will get full right aileron, I think you might be confusing Exponential with with rate switches, with exponential you get what you could call a 'soft centre' where for up to half of your stick movement is reduced at the servo but when you use full stick movement you will get the full throw from the servo.

oh dear, thats me in trouble with Pol then! aha, i messed up on that bit.... I use it alot and still can't explain it hmm... whats wrong with me? Pol is right though, I don't think I would of got an A in my engineering GCSE exam without having this as my hobby. Helped a lot! It could benefit the education system greatly!

Tom T wrote: oh dear, thats me in trouble with Pol then! aha, i messed up on that bit.... I use it alot and still can't explain it hmm... whats wrong with me? Pol is right though, I don't think I would of got an A in my engineering GCSE exam without having this as my hobby. Helped a lot! It could benefit the education system greatly!

Old Fart is right here Tom ... Expo is used to give you very delicate control at the center of the stick movement whilst still giving full control at full stick movement.
With zero expo 50% stick movement will give 50% control throw .... you can increase the expo to only give a very small % control throw with loads of stick movement .... but full stick will still give full throw.
it makes the control response follow a pseudo logarithmic curve rather than a linear response.

Ive only used it omce ,hated it ,made control feel vague.Your taught to be gentle on the controls,but to me expo is teaching you to use lots moe stick movement