This continues a series of guest columns on how technology is reshaping hobbies and passions – basket weaving, rugby – whatever.
This time it is Anil Wats, COO at DP World who writes about model planes - including his Piper, his Cherokee and his Calmato.
“How time flies. My job at a company which builds, operates and manages ports around the world requires me to fly several times a month and routinely over a million miles a year.
Forty years ago, the best I could manage was scrounging for dog-eared aviation books and magazines. I remember the book dealer had a 15 minute rule – after that he would force me to buy whatever I was reading. But spend I did out my meager pocket money. It helped fuel my dreams about flying. And gave me half-baked ideas to present to my parents about materials I needed to build model planes. Since I couldn’t pilot a plane at the time this was the proxy for what had become a passion.
State of the Art then
My first plane was made from balsa wood, had a plastic propeller, plenty of stretched and twisted rubber band, some tissue paper to cover the wings and a pair of unevenly rounded plastic wheels. The runway was a piece of lawn I carefully stripped and mowed in our garden. After many frustrating take-off attempts I had to settle for a hand- held launch.
Gradually, I progressed to making planes with engines and wires – the biggest had a 6 foot wingspan and was controlled using a simple four channel radio. Those days the equivalent of $100 provided for the ultimate in sophistication.
Life then brought real planes and incessant travel, and the model planes became a distant memory for 30 years. I found that I was away most week ends - but could do what I did back then. The hobby came back, with me much more appreciative now having experienced real planes.
Of course, model planes had evolved in technology in the meantime - literally from rubber bands to turbines!
State of the Art Now
The radio controlled aero models today are often made from machine cut balsa wood, fiber glass and other composites. They can be fixed wing, helicopter or other exotic combinations. They are powered electrically or with a nitrogen based fuel, engines are two stroke or four stroke or turbines. Models can cost as much as $50,000. Sizes range from feather weight and size that can be flown in a closed room to 12 feet wingspan moving up to speeds of 200 miles per hour (though in many countries you have to be certified by agencies like the Academy of Model Aeronautics to fly those speeds). Radios have 9 to 12 channels, a far cry from the four channel radios of yester year.
I am now able, using the G4.5 simulation software to simulate a real airport or create one of my own and simulate climatic and wind conditions. Of course, remote controlled aircrafts are being scientific uses such as real-life weather forecasting and modeling of real-life planes.
And in some ways model and real planes are morphing. How else can you explain the huge military drone, the Global Hawk which is remote controlled via satellite by a crew in California?
After a gap of thirty years my “flying” skills were particularly bad. Every flight was a close shave or a crash. I needed practice and the fine and simple touch with hand and eye coordination with just the right reflex action. Of course, every time I crashed all I have to do is press a reset button and I would be off again. All from a massage chair and a tall and cool drink close by:)
A far cry from a frustrated young boy whose emotions ran high when his plane crashed. No reset buttons back then – took real time and money to reassemble the crashed plane. He was one miserable boy to be around!
I tell you what else that kid would have loved. The new communities and events around radio controlled aircraft. If I had known about it growing up, I would have had my parents take me often to the model aircraft museum in Muncie, Indiana. If I had known it was the site of many a tournament including ones with night flying in the video below I would have convinced them to move there!
In parting, let me invoke words of Ernest Gann in his book on some of the most courageous pilots:
Run as fast as you will
Escape if you can
You are the quarry
Fate is the hunter…
Yes, it was one of the dog-eared books at that store from my childhood. He was referring to the dependence on his two engines, today there are over 66 computers which back each other when a plane flies…..technology has changed so much."
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