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- Newsgroups: rec.models.rc
- Path: sparky!uunet!haven.umd.edu!ames!pacbell.com!att-out!cbnewsd!mju
- From: mju@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (michael.j.urban)
- Subject: Re: Quiet combat?
- Organization: AT&T
- Distribution: usa
- Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 18:40:44 GMT
- Message-ID: <1993Jan4.184044.29591@cbnewsd.cb.att.com>
- References: <LARRY.92Dec25074349@peak.psl.nmsu.edu> <1992Dec28.082250.2565@inland.com>
- Lines: 59
-
- >I fly R/C, not combat, but I'm going to let you know how I feel anyway.
- >I posted about a year ago on the subject of "why don't the control-
- >line flyers use mufflers?" It seemed strange that the AMA is such a
- >strong advocate for mufflers in R/C and yet had no stated public policy
- >for C/L. I fly at Ned Brown Woods in Elk Grove Village and the C/L
- >engines are indeed quite loud and irritating; loud enough that you
- >cannot hear your R/C plane in the air. The loudest engines are the
- >combat types practicing for competition. The replies to my original
- >post explained that combat engines had to be loud because
- >
- >1) it was a competitive event requiring the ultimate in engine performance
- >2) combat flyers during practice must use the same setup as in competition
- >3) AMA had no muffler requirement
- >4) there were no effective mufflers available that would survive combat
- >5) no mufflers could be designed to survive combat.
- >
- >Well now it becomes obvious that if rule #3 is changed by the AMA then
- >a whole new world of technology is available to the combat flyers. It's
- >amazing how the laws of physics change so dramatically in 1 year.
- >
- >
-
-
- Bull. I was one of the responders to this original query, and
- the summary of responses seems pretty accurate to me. They are
- still valid, no matter what the AMA muffler requirement is.
-
- Do you really think that just because the FAI is planning to
- require mufflers on .15 glow engines in FAI combat, that this
- means that there are actually suitable mufflers available?
- If so, you are sadly mistaken. The new FAI rules are purely
- political in motivation, as evidenced by the fact that the
- requirement is in terms of muffler chamber dimensions. There is
- no requirement in terms of sound levels, and there is no muffler
- requirement at all for diesels! As Bill Lee pointed out, a high
- performance diesel is just about as loud as a glow engine.
- The British combat flyers have tried for years to drive FAI
- combat towards diesels, and this is just another attempt. All it
- has done is effectively kill the FAI combat event in the US,
- with a very few exceptions.
-
- Items #4 & 5 above are still true. There are no effective
- mufflers available that would survive the inevitable carnage, and
- no one seems to know how to design them.
-
- I would like all the RC flyers out there to note that the single
- loudest event in all of model aviation is one of your own, and
- that is Pylon Racing. Not only are they loud, but there are
- usually FOUR of them going at once, and they are up there in the
- sky where the noise propogates more widely than when on a 60 foot
- tether. I would be the last to suggest that they be placed under
- some kind of noise level regulation. To someone who appreciates
- high performance model engines, that stuff is music, not noise.
- However, it does sort of irritate me to have an RC flyer complain
- about the noise of a competition control line event, when the
- competition RC event is louder.
-
- Mike Urban
-
-