Model Airplanes

Bill Reynolds shares a memory from his youth of when his dad reached beyond his expectations to help him.

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In 1976, America was in the throes of celebrating its 200th birthday—all year long. Everyone wore red, white, and blue and flew flags.

Gerald Ford was the President of The United States as we tried to start fresh after Watergate. You couldn’t go anywhere without spotting the stars and stripes. Every business wanted a piece of the action, including my beloved Estes model rocket company.

The cover of the catalog I got in the mail that spring featured the most stunning thing I could lay my eyes on: the Patriot. It was a gleaming beauty with a black plastic nose cone, painted red, white, and blue, replete with decals of golden eagles and the flag. Our flag! I had to have this thing.

When it arrived in the mail, I wasted no time assembling it meticulously: no stray glue, no running paint. Most of all, I placed the decals perfectly; no wrinkles, no bubbles, no rips. This was to be my pièce de résistance. No rocket I had built compared to this. I couldn’t wait to launch it!

On a windy day that that spring, rocket in hand, I announced to my dad who was laboring in the backyard, “We’re gonna fly rockets now, Dad!” He looked at the waving trees. “Isn’t kinda windy?”

I knew what he was saying. Rockets were launched

Article source: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-day-my-dad-risked-his-life-to-save-my-model-rocket-lbkr/

Until recently, weather forecasting was a fairly straightforward process. Scientists and meteorologists with a government agency developed computer forecast models, collected data about current weather conditions, input that data into their models, and then ran them on government hardware. A TV forecaster would next review the output of these models and give you the weather during the 6 and 10 o’clock news.

But more recently, the private US weather industry, valued at between $3 billion and $6 billion, has gone far beyond this traditional method of forecasting. Because the National Weather Service is federally funded, the agency makes both the basic code of its model, as well as the raw output, available to both research and commercial entities. Companies have taken the government’s models and “added value” for consumer and business customers.

In late January of this year, IBM finalized its acquisition of The Weather Company, buying all of its assets except for The Weather Channel television network. Both IBM and The Weather Company had been working separately with one of the government’s most popular models, the WRF, or Weather Research and Forecasting Model. Developed in the late 1990s, the WRF is tuned to provide more accurate local forecasts rather than predicting conditions across the globe. (Other companies, such as Panasonic, have developed their own global models based upon the government’s code).

Designers, engineers, regulators, and even the general public have created an inconsistent dynamic in which automation is seen as safer and superior in most instances, unless something goes wrong, at which point humans are regarded as safer and superior. Unfortunately, creating this kind of role for humans, who must jump into an emergency situation at the last minute, is something humans do not do well. The “human in the loop” becomes the weak link, rather than the point of stability. For instance, when the A330’s predecessor, the A320, was unveiled in 1986, an aviation expert was quoted as saying that the plane’s all-new fly-by-wire system would “be smart enough to protect the airplane and the people aboard it from any dumb moves by the pilot.” In the case of AF 447, automation seems, instead, to have contributed to those “dumb moves.”

Article source: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/06/why_do_blame_humans_when_automation_fails.html

In 1937, brothers, Walter and William Good, paved the way for remote control airplane enthusiast, like Richard Rice, Steve Johnson and the rest of the Falcons R/C Model Club of Bartlesville, when they constructed and operated the first fully functional R/C airplane.

A group of radio-controlled model airplane enthusiasts organized the Falcons in 1960. Today, the Falcons continue to carry on the tradition of flying, said Rice, Falcon club president.

Rice said the club of roughly 25 active members was formed to teach others how to fly and promote model aviation. “We also formed this to maintain this land as well,” Rice said.

The Falcons have 38 acres called the Copan Model Air Park, just north of Copan for their airport. The park features a 300 foot runway as well as a cross-wind grass runway. There are also pilot stations, airplane hold-ups and a shelter for shade.

The Falcons have an indoor facility in Bartlesville at the First Christian Church where they, as well as visitors and families, meet once a month and fly smaller model airplanes.

When it comes to what type of model airplanes members of the club bring out to the land, Rice’s fellow club member, Steve Johnson, said there are all types of planes that come to the field. “We’ve seen a model jet, crop dusters, gliders, you name it, we have seen it out here,” Johnson said.

The planes according to both Johnson and Rice, feature a gas powered, two cylinder motor, depending on the size of the model. “These plans

Article source: http://examiner-enterprise.com/news/local-news/model-airplanes-take-flight-saturday-copan