Dick I have 9 foamies from the Shock fliers to 6 of my own design. I went brushless and Lipoly only a few months ago (my old Nimh packs finally got too tired - kinda like me) and finally got a model that could get close to the hi-alpha stuff. I don't fly them well enough under those conditions to notice what you are talking about (cold and wind and bad heart keep me inside in the winter) but I am looking forward to playing with it. I don't care much for hovering but the aerodynamics of high angle of attack fully separated flight is very interesting.

I wouldn't care to fly in the Osprey - doesn't that just look scarey. I am sure that when everything works it is great but that wing is sooooo little and when you are hovering all of those little bits of linkage have to work just right or big torque roll. I don't care for helicopters either. Wings is where it is at.

The university programs are an effort to make/allow the students put the theory to practical use. Dick you miss the whole point (on purpose I believe) of theory. It lets you understand what you see and it keeps people (and you) from having to redo every possible variation in a hands on approach every time you want to design an airplane. It also stops you from mis-interpreting what you see, like the results that let people believe swinging a dead cat about your head will cure warts. What you tend to call hands on is what an aero engineer would call a wind tunnel test. Consider that a high resolution aluminum and steel model can cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars and you can see why a manager would expect his aero types to apply a little theoretical and practical knowledge to its design. Not the same magnitude of course - but I certainly didn't want my heart surgeon using me as his hands on experience when he put in my valve. I would perfer he went to med school to prove he was at least book smart and had operated on 50 or so pigs to get the hands on problems ironed out. OK - extreme example - but there is a great deal of satsifaction in knowing why what you are seeing happens. It isn't too hard, I know lots of pretty dumb engineers that work in the field successfully (my bosses seemed to imply that I fit in that category).


I enjoy the comments about the flying of the competitions. I wish we had something like that when I went to college. The Purdue Aeromodellers would make up our own contests to get some competition going, unfortunately limited to CL and indoor freeflight stuff. I would have drooled all over the floor at the prospect of being able to work in a design like the guys do today.

The closest thing I had was a 15 pound or so Senior Telemaster with a geared AstroFlight 40 in it. Very slow and stately and the takeoffs took the engire length of our paved runway. But it chugged away. It gives promise of what could be done with a little design work and finesse.