Wingnut RC Flyers take to the air — indoors at Vogel | News, Sports, Jobs

Posted on February 24, 2019 by Writer
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Staff photo by Fritz Busch
Dale Cordes of New Ulm does acrobatic maneuvers including “hanging by the prop” with a YAK 54 RC (remote control) airplane at Vogel Field house Saturday.

NEW ULM — Wingnut RC (remote control) Flyers club members flew their battery-powered planes and helicopters almost silently around two basketball courts at Vogel Field house Saturday.

Participants included Lake Crystal corn and soybean farmer John Greenough. He said for the past decade, he has often flown his RC planes and helicopters during the winter months in the field house.

“My dad flew real airplanes and I could actually fly one if I got a license,” Greenough said. “I followed his footsteps, taking aviation lessons in Mankato and joining the flying club there. My dad joined the Civil Air Patrol and flew, then took up model (RC) flying in his later years.”

Greenough said the Key City Bald Eagles RC Club is located on Highway 60 between Lake Crystal and Mankato. In addition, he flies his RC planes, helicopters and a drone at his farm, to help him assess field conditions.

Only RC micro helicopters are allowed to fly in the field house, in order to avoid mid-air collisions, Greenough said.

Staff photo by Fritz Busch
John Greenough of Lake Crystal readies an RC (remote control) airplane with the Wingut RC Flyers club at Vogel Field house Saturday. The public is invited to watch future indoor flying events at the field house, 1

Article source: http://www.nujournal.com/news/local-news/2019/02/24/wingnut-rc-flyers-take-to-the-air-indoors-at-vogel/

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Summers, Robbins: Chattanooga’s Tuskegee Airman – Joseph C. White

Posted on February 24, 2019 by Writer

Much has been written about the Tuskegee Airmen’s wartime accomplishments, but less is known about their impact on the civil rights movement. The Airmen’s feats coupled with Jackie Robinson’s success with the Brooklyn Dodgers amid pressure from civil rights groups prompted President Harry S. Truman to end segregation in the military in 1948.

Joseph C. White was born in 1921 in Town Creek, Lawrence County, Alabama. His parents died early. He was raised in the 1930s in Chattanooga by his aunt, Maggie (Mrs. James) Eastman, who worked for and became assistant manager at the Martin Hotel. He developed an early interest in building and flying model airplanes. Achieving the rank of Eagle Scout, he attended the first Boy Scout Jamboree in 1937 in Washington, D.C., where he met Eleanor Roosevelt. She patted him on the back. He refused to wash the shirt he wore for days.

Read more Chattanooga History Columns

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Why Feedback Rarely Does What It’s Meant To

Posted on February 24, 2019 by Writer

Idea in Brief

The Challenge

Managers today are bombarded with calls to give feedback—constantly, directly, and critically. But it turns out that telling people what we think of their performance and how they can do better is not the best way to help them excel and, in fact, can hinder development.

The Reality

Research shows that, first, we aren’t the reliable raters of other people’s performance that we think we are; second, criticism inhibits the brain’s ability to learn; and, third, excellence is idiosyncratic, can’t be defined in advance, and isn’t the opposite of failure. Managers can’t “correct” a person’s way to excellence.

The Solution

Managers need to help their team members see what’s working, stopping them with a “Yes! That!” and sharing their experience of what the person did well.

The debate about feedback at work isn’t new. Since at least the middle of the last century, the question of how to get employees to improve has generated a good deal of opinion and research. But recently the discussion has taken on new intensity. The ongoing experiment in “radical transparency” at Bridgewater Associates and the culture at Netflix, which the Wall Street Journal recently described as “encouraging harsh feedback” and subjecting workers to “intense and awkward” real-time 360s, are but two examples of the overriding belief that the way to increase performance in companies is through rigorous, frequent, candid, pervasive, and often critical feedback.

How should we give and receive feedback? we wonder. How much, and how often, and using which new app? And,

Article source: https://hbr.org/2019/03/the-feedback-fallacy

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Vintage Ford ‘Tin Goose’ aircraft to visit Concord

Posted on February 24, 2019 by Writer

CONCORD — Henry Ford’s Model T “Tin Lizzie” is credited with putting “the world on wheels,” but his “Tin Goose” Tri-Motor airplane put the world in the sky, launching America’s first successful commercial airliner.

A luxury airplane — the first of its kind — the Ford Tri-Motor redefined travel in the late 1920s. Earlier planes were relatively small and built with coated fabric covering wooden or metal frames, but the Tri-Motor was all metal and considered the most advanced of its time.

Now, one of only several Tin Gooses still flying, a 1928 Ford Model 5-AT Tri-Motor, will be on display and available to the public for flights at Buchanan Airport March 14-17. The Experimental Aircraft Association has leased the vintage aircraft from the Liberty Aviation Museum of Port Clinton, Ohio, and is hosting the event as part of an 18-stop tour of the Western United States.

“What Henry Ford did is bring the possibility of public flight to the public, beyond the barnstorming and pioneering era that had defined aviation to that point,” said Sean Elliott, an Experimental Aircraft Association vice president. “His position as an influential industrial leader brought credibility to the nation of passenger air service.”

Area aviation buffs will get the opportunity to view or take 30- to 45-minute rides aboard the vintage aircraft from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. while it’s in Concord. Potential riders can book flights in advance or show up and hope for a space, Stephen Tucker of the association’s Concord chapter said.

https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/02/23/vintage-ford-tin-goose-aircraft-to-visit-concord/

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Model airplane enthusiasts visit AMA Expo East at the Meadowlands

Posted on February 23, 2019 by Writer

model airplane enthusiasts visit AMA Expo East at the Meadowlands

The Academy of Model Aeronautics hosts the annual AMA Expo East at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, N.J.

Article source: https://www.northjersey.com/picture-gallery/news/hudson/secaucus/2019/02/23/model-airplane-enthusiasts-visit-ama-expo-east-meadowlands/2963598002/

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Model planes, boats, cars and drones are featured at the AMA Expo East in Secaucus

Posted on February 23, 2019 by Writer

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The Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) hosts the annual AMA Expo East at the Meadowlands Exposition Center
Anne-Marie Caruso, NorthJersey

The ceiling — not the sky — is the limit at the AMA Expo East show, spotlighting model airplanes, drones, and other remote-control gizmos.

Fortunately, the ceiling at the Meadowlands Exposition Center is high: maybe 45 feet.

“This is actually pretty easy to fly,” said Richard Roland of Chester, New York, on Saturday afternoon.

He was test-piloting a quadcopter, imbedded in a tiny airfoil, in the netted-off  “Drone Zone” at the back of the 60,000-foot expo hall in Secaucus.

“Like it?” asked Corey Sewell, owner of Klowd 9, a Facebook group for FPV (“First Person View”) hobbyists based in Woodland Park.

“I’m gonna get it,” Roland replied.

He was wearing goggles —  like most of the people gathered in that part of the hall Saturday (the three-day event concludes Sunday).

For FPV hobbyists, the thrill is to get a virtual reality view from the air. A tiny camera, embedded in the flyer, transmits a drones’-eye view of the surroundings to the agog goggles-wearer. 

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Ion-Driven Model Aircraft Flies without Moving Parts

Posted on February 23, 2019 by Writer

We’ve often heard the expression “that won’t fly,” but an MIT-based experimental model literally contradicts that statement for one type of flight propulsion. Like a science-fiction story come true, what’s claimed to be the first-ever heavier-than-air craft with no moving parts has flown using only ion-based propulsion (formally called electroaerodynamics and commonly known as sonic wind).

While ions have been used for demonstrations of small toy-like devices hovering over a desktop while still tethered to a power cable, this aircraft—with a wingspan of about 5 meters and weighing 2.5 kg—made 10 successive nine-second-long indoor flights of about 60 meters distance at a height of about a half meter, while cruising at about 4.8 m/sec (10 mph). The silent aircraft (Fig. 1) could be a precursor of silent drones and engines with a barely detectable infrared signature.

1. The team prepares the ion-wind aircraft for flight at the MIT’s duPont Athletic Center (the largest indoor space they could find) where the plane flew 60 meters, the maximum distance within the gym. (Source: Steven Barrett/MIT)

The project was led by Steven Barrett, associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, and head of their Electric Aircraft Initiative. The principle of the ion propulsion, which has been discussed since the 1930s, uses the “wind” that’s created when current is passed between a thin and a thick electrode as its thrust source (Fig. 2).

2. An electric field (not shown) is applied to the region surrounding a fine emitter wire (shown in cross-section) that induces electron cascades in

Article source: https://www.electronicdesign.com/power/ion-driven-model-aircraft-flies-without-moving-parts

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