Flying for Real..

[GHD]

This is where the balloon lives at Weston George..

I'll give it a go tomorrow Dave.

[DaveB]

Cheers George I'd do it myself but didn't think there were any library barrage balloons kicking around Will try and find out more about Aldridge too

ATB
Dave

[GHD]

I found a group of four barrage balloons on Google Warehouse but the model file was huge. I have extracted one and removed the tethers and it isn't too bad. Have you any idea of the length of them?

[DaveB]

Difficult to say off the top of my head mate. We 'guessed' various heights but could have been way off. I think we decided 200ft was a fair guess but in reality, it may have been 300

ATB
Dave

[GHD]

A Google search gave the length as "three cricket pitches"

I have it positioned at Weston but I need to reset the model origin and scale in order for it to be useful. I'll know more this afternoon.

[DaveB]

A similar search last night didn't reveal much for me either though I didn't see the 3 cricket pitches quote 3 cricket pitches is what.. 66yds/198ft so my recollection of around 200ft isn't far off. It has to be said though.. using cricket pitches as a unit of measurement isn't what I'd call the norm

ATB
Dave

[DaveB]

BINDING..

Eddie..
I'm not 100% on this binding lark. I dug a bit of film out showing a Spektrum chap explaining how to 'bind' and his explanation was a bit vague. It seemed to suggest you power on the rxer with the bind plug in place.. turn on the txer keeping the training switch pulled.. the rapid flashing of the receiver will go to solid and that's it. Pull the plug and power off. Another explanation I've read says you do basically the same but you power off then remove the bind plug. I noticed the other day that the rxer lamp was flashing.. not rapidly as it does if it's not bound but flashing all the same. The ESC beeped recognising the battery and all the controls worked fine but the rxer shouldn't flash when bound should it.

ATB
Dave

[speedbird591]

.. using cricket pitches as a unit of measurement isn't what I'd call the norm

I disagree! It's a British tradition to use units of measurement that ordinary people can understand. Apart from the historic chains, knots and hands there are lots of modern ones that the newspapers use to good effect. Football pitches, Nelson's columns, blue whales and double decker buses are the most common. For very large areas (an area the size of...) Wales crops up frequently.

Sorry to go off topic but I wanted to put in a word to support using units of measurement that real people can visualise

Ian

[DaveB]

Thank you Ian



Seriously.. how many 'real' folk can visualize how long a cricket pitch is in this day and age. I don't think I could but that's neither here nor there. I know what 22yds is though.. if that's how long a cricket pitch is. I could be completely wrong so it's all academic
ATB
DaveB

[hobby]

Barrage Balloons; Height of flying.

When the TA was much larger the Paras (TA) used to use a tethered balloon with underslung basket for practice jumps over Wanstead Common near London and at various airfields throughout the UK. I don't know what the safe height for a static line jump was but 200ft seems a bit low?
On the other hand the lower the balloon is flown the less time has to be spent hauling the contraption up and down so perhaps the lowest safe height would be chosen to allow the maximum jumps to be made in a day.