mustangman177

This probably doesn't belong in this forum, but I'm watching the History channel and they just showed a section about Nikola Tesla as the creator of Radio Controlled objects. His first invention was a 6 ft. radio controlled boat !!! Cool Huh ??????

He's also credited with the discovery of AC current as a side note !!!!!!!

HighPlains

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Tesla invented the future. No other single inventor did as much to shape our present technology.

He had a working radio before Marconi

RC working in the 19th century

Three phase power, generators, and motors (all AC of course).

Lnewqban

Very cool.[sm=thumbs_up.gif]

"In 1898 at an exhibition at Madison Square Garden Nikola Tesla demonstrated a small boat which could apparently obey commands from the audience but was in fact controlled by Tesla interpreting the verbal requests and sending appropriate frequencies to tuned circuits in the boat. He was granted a US patent on this invention on November 8, 1898."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_control

"Nikola Tesla (Serbian: �икола Те�ла; 10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) was an inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer. He was one of the most important contributors to the birth of commercial electricity, and is best known for his many revolutionary developments in the field of electromagnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries."

"(In 1898), he demonstrated a radio-controlled boat to the US military, believing that the military would want things such as radio-controlled torpedoes."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

w8ye

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After Tesla in 1893 . . .

The Good brothers beginning in the mid 30's - namely Dr Walter A Good and Bill, were credited with applying radio control to model airplanes. They had the first proportional control designs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-controlled_model

Lnewqban

I find the explanation of the primitive servos very interesting:

"The first general use of radio control systems in models started in the late 1940s with single-channel self-built equipment; commercial equipment came soon thereafter. Initially remote control systems used escapement (often rubber driven) mechanical actuation in the model."

"In both tube and early transistor sets the model's control surfaces were usually operated by an electromagnetic escapement controlling the stored energy in a rubber-band loop, allowing simple rudder control (right, left, and neutral) and sometimes other functions such as motor speed, and kick-up elevator."

Escapement principle was used for clocks.
A twisted rubber band supplied the energy to move the control surface, just like the battery and servo's motor do nowdays.
There was no potenciometer for proportional control, it was full deflection or nothing.

"Commercial sets often used ground standing transmitters, long whip antennas with separate ground poles and single electron-tube (valve) receivers."
A long distance from the current hand held transmitter with a little antenna.

w8ye

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I remember doing all of that and thinking I was on the leading edge of technology?

I had an Ace Transmitter with the 9' whip antenna that screwed together in sections. It had a corded remote control box.

The Ace stuff was the best when I first started but it came in kits and you had to solder them up.

A, B, & C DC power for the radio and a separate DC source for the escapement.

I remember the Berkeley and Citizenship stuff be very close to unusable junk.

I didn't have any trouble with the escapements and the rubber bands. They worked very well.

I really moved up in the world about 1960 with the F & M tone set up and a all transistor receiver with a single battery for everything in the plane. Still used escapements though.

Lnewqban

w8ye,

It must be amazing having witnessed and used each step of the RC tecnology.
Everything is so easy and relatively inexpensive now: micro components, super batteries, interference proof, computer mixing and memory, fail safe, precise and strong servos, ball linkages.
Like it is becoming harder and harder to hide pilot's error or sloppiness behind radio failure.

Something else on escapements and old RC systems:

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=6643925

w8ye

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Even in the late 60's those first servos were four times bigger than today's std servo like a Futaba 3003 or Hitec 322.

They had linear slides on them instead of rotary arms.

Stickbuilder

Ever hear of a system called Charley CG? I had one back in the late 50's and it used a ground based antenna as well. I seem to remember that the receiver was a 2 tube affair, and used an escapment set. You could do rudder and elevator. It had another small escapment for the throttle control which was controlled by giving the, "Pickle" a quick blip.

Bill, AMA 4720
Waco Brother #1

w8ye

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Getting harder to remember those but seems like I remember the "CG" brand? I couldn't afford the 10 channel reed outfits.

Radio stuff wasn't as affordable back then as it is now.

Gray Beard

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As a kid living in So. Cal. the big time bus trip was to Reginal Denneys {spelling, sorry} hobby shop at the top of the strip. He only acted so he had enough money to keep his RC designs going. He also has a wonderful story. Back then I was flying Free Flight and U-Control but I always walked over to the RC section and watched the big guys cranking up there rubber bands so they could have enough control to crash there planes. RC has really taken leaps and bounds, as W8 mentioned, the price kept the kids away. I wasn't able to afford RC until the 90s and by then you no longer had to build your own TX and the prices were down to earth. By then we even had the buddy box and learning to fly was a lot easier too. We are really in some tall cotton today!!! I didn't know about Tesla at all. Thanks for the information.

LesUyeda

Sure makes me feel old. I remember flying with those old escapements, and having to remember to wind the rubber band before every flight. Even that was a far cry over free flight. I even remember having times fuel times and then having to chase down the airplane to bring it back to the "flight line"; usually the back of the station wagon.

Les

w8ye

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Even motor control back then was a joke compared to the way the engine speed is controllable today.

Low speed was about half engine speed at most. Sometimes just 3/4 speed?

BillyGoat

Kind of makes you wonder where R/C technology will be in another 30-40 years?

w8ye

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The new trends will be able to read in-flight parameters on your transmitter. Reading plane battery voltage is already here.

crustychief

I guess the new DX8 is able to do nearly full telemetry.

Redback

Bring back the Galloping Ghost system

Terry

LesUyeda

Bring back the Galloping Ghost system

The good old days)))))))

Les

Rodney

Are you sure Al Gore did not invent all this?

Tall Paul

.
Bonner Vari-comp escapements could be cascaded to give rudder, elevator and motor control.
Just took a lot of "blipping" to get the third and fourth positions consistently.
The early 6 and 10 channel radios came out not long after and escapements went away, but Galloping Ghost 3-channel proportionals lasted for awhile.
One major improvement in the 10-channel era was the elimination of the relays with the use of simple integrated circuits. No more daily fussing with tuning each individual reed and its relay to pull in and drop out at the correct voltages.
I flew 10-channel stuff at DC/RC when almost everyone else was using Walt's TTPW system.
And had a Space Control for awhile, until pulling up when inverted too low to the ground.

w8ye

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Paul, Tell us some more. You had a lot more experience with the big stuff than I did.

Tall Paul

Well.. the first radio was a Citizenship kit. Transmitter and receiver. Constructed at home. Flown in a Royal Rudder Bug with a Fox .19. Flew OK. Made a couple more after spiraling the first one in when due to inexperience it was flying away over a deep forest in Virginia. Made lots of crashing noises descending thru the trees.
Played around with the Vari-Comp using the third blip to get up elevator. That worked nicely.
Built up a MAC 2 transmitter from an ACE R/C kit. And a Kraft 12-channel triple simultaneous reed transmitter for the 10-channel planes. Transmitted 3 tones at the same time to get 3 surfaces to move, but took 3 thumbs to reach all the toggle switches.
The 10-channel planes usually had a Bonner Duramite or Transmite servo just for elevator trim, with a Johnson bar connected between the elevator servo and the trim servo. Later I etched my own PC board for the elevator servo to eliminate the automatic return to neutral when the signal stopped, as a form of trim.
Tried to set an endurance record at Fort Meade in February of 1961 or so.. Used a very modified Smog Hog with a Taplin twin-diesel and a home-made 1 gallon tank. Test flights went OK, but one of the Bonner servos froze due to the cold weather, and the plane crashed right after launch. foto 4
Galloping Ghost was fun, if less than pretty when flying. Haven't seen a Mighty Midget motor in many years.
Only had one flyaway back then, with the airplane being found months later and returned.
Had a Don Brown Quadraplex proportional radio for awhile. Foto 1 .REAM controls with Mighty Midget servos. Giant box, supported by the entire forearm in use. The single stick twisted for rudder, with motor control an escapement.
The plane was a modified Debolt with a symmetrical wing.
The Flat Top Stormer passed thru a few hands by the time I got it. Foto 3. It may have been the one that crashed inverted, with the motor hitting the only rock on the field, bending the cylinder relative to the crankshaft. It ran after that, but always overheated.
Had a lot of fun with the wing kits for the Taurus. These made good basic planes, easy to build and fly. Foto 5

HighPlains

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To the best of my knowledge, no integrated circuits were ever used in a reed system when reed systems were in production. Transistor amplifiers did indeed replace relays, with the Bonner Transmite amplifier designed by Bob Elliott (the E of EK Logictrol).
The first use of IC's by any of the major manufacturers was by Bonner, though there may have been available a system by an underfunded company that advertised once or twice. The available IC's of the time were high priced flat packs which was a package scheme I have not seen for over 40 years.

w8ye

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Brings back a lot of memories. Most of that was big boy stuff for me as I was still using the single channel escapments and .09 thru .19 engines. I dreamed of having one of those gieant K&B 45's some day. Did eventually have several ST 46's but used them in control line. A friend had a couple of those ST 56's back then. When the came out with the 5 channels on 27 Mhz I quit flying R/C and flew C/L for a few years.