Hello,

One of my friend is interested in this flight system which sends airspeed,
temperature of the engine head, rpm, etc to the ground.

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXJDF2&P=0

Is there anyone who has an experience or has heard something about it?
Your comment will be a great help, thanks.

Tsutomu Mabuchi

Yes, Very good system only advailable in the USA. Go to[link]http://www.eagletreesystems.com[/link] and you will find all the info.

Cheers

The Ghost,

Thanks, I saw the web. I wanted to know if it is practical.

Tsutomu Mabuchi

Well the only thing that I see is you would have to take your eyes of the model whn you wanted to see the readout. Would be good for setting up larger models (scale or warbirds) where the cooling of the engine is suspect or for tuning large scale ships. The filght data recorder will give you better info, only you see it after the flight.

Cheers.

Tsutomu
I don't own a system but I've used them many times for the past few years. A local university has several of them for their engineering students' projects. The system works great and we've seen no problems. The live feed would not be of much value if you don't have someone else to monitor the display but when we fly we have many people to monitor both the telemetry and the video feedback. The data can be downloaded after the flight and graphed on a computer. It's a nice device if you need that kind of data.
Paul

Thanks, The Ghost and ps2727.

I (He) would have someone ask to read out the live data(speed,etc)
while I(He) fly the airplane.
If I installed the system, I would use it for approach and landing
to make a sure and safe landing.
Yes, I(He) would use it on relatively large scale airplanes.
I understand they are so practical that we could use and trust it.
I appreciate your input.

Tsutomu Mabuchi

Does it really make sense to try to fly an RC model "by the numbers" like it's a jumbo jet? You shouldn't need a data read-out to know you're coming in too fast -- or about to stall. Knowing the engine temperature seems a little more useful -- but personally, I'd find the noise of someone standing next to me reading out a digital display more of a distraction than a help.

I see people at my club here in Japan using a Futaba 9C with a thousand bells and whistles to fly a foamie (EPP) or a casual sport plane. There's really no need for that much technology is most cases. But that's just my opinion.

I agree that for the "average" modeler, a remote telemetry system is probably a bit of overkill. Cool, very cool, but not really needed for day to day flying. Even real pilots are taught to fly (VFR) looking outside the cockpit most of the time. I could see this system being useful though for someone who wants to fine tune their engine or fine tune their flying, or for someone who is curious how fast or how high they are flying. You might even be able to use it to go back and debug if some funny "glitch" in flight was due to radio interference, a wind gust, or pilot input. If you could combine it with some sort of gps (position) and attitude sensing system you could go back and analyze your entire flight in great detail, I bet a lot of aerobatic guys would be interested in something like like that ... how vertical was I on that climb, how round was my loop, etc. etc.

I am someone who is dipping his toes into the UAV waters as part of a university project (and I have a separate low-budget home project.) This sort of telemetry becomes much more interesting and useful for monitoring the health and status of your aircraft if you are up for longer flights or trying to do something utilitarian while flying (like aerial photography.)

I'd love to see them figure out a way to add fuel level to their list of data channels. :-)

I've got a little flight computer that can read your transmitter input and then drive up to 8 servos. It occured to me that if you rigged RPM sensors on each engine for a multiengine plane, the computer could read the target throttle setting from the transmitter and then drive all engines to exactly the right RPM so your props are always exactly in sync. You could have the computer do all sorts of interesting things in a scale bird ... you could control your pilot's head in more complex/natural ways rather than just tying it to you rudder servo. You could program complex gear/door retraction sequences without having to build really complex linkages. A computer geek could have all kinds of fun with an onboard computer. :-)

Curt.

Thank you for your opinions, abufletcher and clolson.

Yes, I understand what you say that this system is not much
necessary or effective for our R/C flights since the actual condition
over R/C airplanes is more complex than the data due to rough air,
wind change. etc.
And it seems a bit difficult for us to fly with only the data because R/C
airplanes fly fast. We probably don't have enough time to compensate
or give adequate control to the airplanes. It could be too late.
So I would use the system as one of interesting tools to fly,for example,
to keep specific airspeed on short final. As for him, probably to get rpm,
temperature of the engine or battery voltage,etc.
However, your opinions make sense very much.
We have been interesting in how the system actually works, although
we(I and he) think we can land airplanes safely without such system.
Anyway, I appreciate your helping us think about the system.
We will take your opinions into consideration when we decide.

Tsutomu Mabuchi