I learned to fly on an ARF (Almost Ready to Fly) plane made completely of styrofoam, using ailerons and an electric motor. I didn't have any problems because of my flying background which I'd updated with a computer based flight simulator using an R/C transmitter.
What I'm in the process of doing now is interesting though. I'm adding 8 inches of foam to the middle of each wing as well as converting the inside sections of the ailerons to become flaps. The flaps are activated by the old servo in the center of the wing that used to drive the ailerons, but which I considered insufficiently powerful. The new ailerons each have a micro servo which is mounted in the wing, close to the aileron.
Instead of using an extra radio channel (which I don't have) to work the flaps, I'm building a micro-controller circuit that will observe the signal to the rudder and if it's moved in a particular pattern (possibly full left/right and held for half a second) then the flaps will be extended or retracted a third. The signal recognition part has been done (non-commercially) by Alejandro Garcia in Wag Switch (see rcgroups.com) where he uses a control wig-wagging full throw three times left-to-right-to-left; then he drops a bomb or something. We both use an AVR micro-controller (ATtiny13) and in fact I'm basing my code on his. The only name I can come up with is Flap Switch (or maybe flapSwitch).
As a bonus, I'm using the micro-controller to monitor the voltage and if it drops too much a high-intensity LED in the tail is flashed -- telling me to get the plane down before the LiPo battery pack self-destructs. This is a very useful function as normally you have to time your flight time so as to be less that a certain amount which you've worked out by trial and error -- except that you can't have too much error or you've lost your battery. If you've gathered that LiPo's are sensitive about running on low volts, you're right; another reason I'm hoping to get away from them.
Robotics
I've just finished constructing a Sumovore robot kit and am modifying its C program, written for the AVR micro-controller, so as to extend its capabilities. I have come up with a runtime debug tool which, after stopping after a problem, displays an error code and pauses for a Continue button to be pressed at which point it will continue from before the problem.
Assembled a non-working Apple II clone (from a kit with two missing traces)
Fixed it with the help of a hardware monitor which I designed and built from a Multiflex Logic State analyser and my custom interface card, so that the latter would control the Apple's CPU. Normally an analyser just records the last few hundred signals after a given location is reached. I fed back the ‘location found’ signal from the LSA to the interface card and let the user step thru operation of the CPU with a push-button.
Designed and built (wire-wrap) a TTL chess clock.
Flying
Owned a Cessna 140 for nine years, including about 400 hours
of flight time. Flew (solo) from Toronto to California, via Vancouver, and
back by way of Albuquerque.
Also flew from Toronto to Oshkosh and to Florida.
Logged about 80 hours in gliders; including a wave
flight to 25,000 feet over Pikes Peak and a 5 hour duration flight in Pennsylvania. Link to photo of my plane.
Chess
Have played in chess tournaments since university.
Currently have an 1800+ Standard rating on the Internet Chess Club
and an 1850 USCF rating.
Usually I play 2+12 minute chess on ICC and 15 minutes over-the-board.
Cat Photos
Here are some photos of my cats.
They aren't the best technically, being in black and white and not edited to fit, but they do justice to the cats' personalities.
All were shot in available light, mostly indoors at 1/30 sec on Tri-X.
This is Plato, so called because he was intelligent and I lived in a Greek neighborhood at the time.
This is Hector, he was brave and I still lived in Montreal Nord.
Of course the original Hektor wasn't Greek, but he was fighting them.
