john 8750

Does anyone have an interest in old type pulse proportional, is that stuff still available, in legal freqs, galloping ghost, or?

aksmithrc

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Pulse Proportional !!! Sure brings back memories ! To my knowledge, none of that is available except from those who have something they have saved...which I don't. As I recall, those things went away in the 70's.

I flew it in late 60's..rudder pulse using a homemade actuator made from a Mighty Midget motor (worked great) and a Shows Rudder Only Pulser on the back of a Controlaire Mule single channel transmitter. I flew a Sterling J-3 cub (52 inch wingspan and Fox .15) for about a year using rudder only pulse, and it was pretty smooth. Then came the World Engines Galloping Ghost actuator and I had a ball with that in a Fox .07 powered Jr Falcon (finally chopped off a rib bay from each end of the wing and put a Cox .09 in it !)...tail-end of airplane just a-wagging ! I only knew of one other person in the Chapel Hill-Durham area of NC who did rudder pulse. He flew the little magnetic actorator sold by ACce RC which Dave Robeln (spelling ?) used in his little aircraft; it never seemed to work as reliably as my mighty midget moter set-up in the Cub but was much smaller and lighter. It was all interesting and exciting and quite a departure from other single channel flying. But, in 1967 I purchased a PCS 5, 5 channel digital proportional radio and started real flying !

JohnBuckner

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John, much of the vintage equipment out there like single channel tone escapement, multi reed systems and the later pulse systems in this country were on the 27 Htz band which had at one time (in my memory) as little as two channels. Currently there are six channels on this band for RC use and it is still legal to operate the old wide band stuff here as this band as well as the two ham bands were not subject to the 1991 narrow banding. The 27 Htz band is a combined ground and air band and close to a lot of garage doors but with a little commom sense on flying sites can and is used by a lot of folks operating vintage equipment.

Check out the vintage forum on this board and do as search on vintage radio and how to fly rudder only . you will be surprised.

John

john 8750

Exciting to hear from you John and AK. Was those the days! I guess everything was different back then. I flew free flight in the 60's at Sepulveda basin in Los Angeles area. Then single channel pulse for a long time. Even after I was flying multi-channel I still enjoyed the old rudder wagger. I fly electrics now , mostly my own designs. Wondering if the old pulse would still bring the same enjoyment. Thanks for responding, I will check out the vintage section. Regards and many happy flights, John Smith.

Ladyflyer

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One of my first radios ! A Min-X with a Rand Galloping Ghost actuator. All in a Golberg 1/2 A Falcon ,powered by a Cox Black Widow .049 .

It almost seems like that stuff was a lot more fun than the semi -robotic ,let the radio fly it for you stuff we use now.

It would be pretty easy to build some GG gear but the bandwidth would require you to operate on 6 meters or 11 Meters. The AMA sanctioned freqs don't allow for that kind of bandwidth. (AFAIK) .

Vy Best,

Cincinnati Joe

Pulse proportional is alive and well in the MICROLIGHT category of flight gear. THere are TINY actuators that consist of a magnet which you glue to the fixed surface, and a small coil that you glue to the movable surface so that it encircles the magnet. Special reciever/decoders convert our normal radio pulses into PWM )pulse width modulation) that drive the coil to either attract or repel the magnet resulting in the worlds lightest actuators, and they ARE "pulse". Look into the ultra lightweight electric areas for more info on this stuff!!

thomasb

Modern actuator driven models are not at all like the old days. Today's actuators do not flap or wiggle. They use high rate PWM rather than the old 4-12 PPS we old folks flew with.

Todays actuator equipped models are used on indoor and backyard e-flyers. You will be amazed by how small the radio gear is! They make the Ace/Adam's Baby look like a huge monster.

Full three channel systems for indoor flight weigh just a few grams. For example, the 3 channel propo Rx's weigh about 2 grams. Some folks have built models that will easily fly in their home's family room.

Example of some micro Rx's and actuators (there are several out there):
http://www.smallrc.com/DWEhtml/produ...ts.cfm?cat=110
http://www.smallrc.com/DWEhtml/produ...ts.cfm?cat=115
http://www.ruijsink.nl/mm_hoofd.htm

The old Pulse Propo gear is getting some use by those of us that want to relive the fun we had in simpler times. I even built a modern pulse system out of *****ar-G micro car radio parts just for the heck of it. It is amazing what you can do on rudder only.