|
Post by Tom Goodrick on Feb 15, 2009 11:58:55 GMT -5
A sail is simply a wing with its spanwise axis pointing generally upward. In sailing we must generate good lift to maintain a track into the wind. So there is considerable similarity to gliding parachutes. Some people have even used tethered gliding parachutes instead of sails.
I had my beard mainly out of lazyness after retiring. It does take special grooming to avoid skin infections. When I was being prepped for heart surgery they took off all hair between the navel and the lower lip. I was able to keep the mustache which I have had for many decades.
A very fine example of the control methodology I was talking about already exists in FS. It is a model of the Bison Ultrlite Trike sold in the US by the Cosmos company. I was steered to this by a friend in Russia where these are very popular. You can find the model on avsim.com with a search for "Benilure" who designed it. I have added a small instrument panel (non-electronic instruments) and have recently made some FD adjustments for realism. The model still has to have a tail in FS because FS does not allow differential force calculations across the span. In X-Plane you could do those differential force calculations which would provide adequate directional control without a vertical tail. I use a slight amount of pitch trim which would be implemented as a screw-driven angle adjustment on the wing.
When you fly this model, you can watch from the side as the pilot rotates the wing to control pitch and roll. This is the equivalent of moving the CG. Consider that an XYZ reference system is attached to the wing so rotating the wing rotates the axes and "moves" the CG within the reference system. In real flight when a man pushes on a handle "to move the wing", you would see more motion of the man than of the wing. But when the wing "rotates," so does the flight path. Flight mechanics can be confusing sometimes.
My 1975 paper on stability of parafoils was the first to document the ability to influence the flight path by changing the incidence angle of the wing. After that paper was given, a young engineer at Wright-Patterson AFB went out and jumped his wing and found that by pulling on the forward risers he could gain speed but he lost glide ratio. In other words he could make it dive. He alled me the next day to talk about that. It was what the analysis showed should happen. That became a common control method by skydivers using those chutes.
I have modified the FD for the Trike and posted it on my web site.
|
|
|
Post by Tom Goodrick on Feb 16, 2009 20:21:28 GMT -5
NEED FOR SPEED LIVES ON!
I have continued to enjoy Need For Speed - Porsche Unleashed since buying it in 2001 for my Dell which was just a few months old. But it has been plagued for most of that time with random crashes caused by faulty drivers for the GeForce graphics card. The initial drives caused random crashes so I downloaded fresh drivers about a month after getting the program. Those worked fine until I replaced them a year later with fresh new drivers. The new drivers did not perform well with Need For Speed. It was one of those things called a "known bug." But I had to revert to the original faulty drives because the ones that worked were lost. So for many years I have enjoyed the racing program even with occasional system lockups.
Today I put the program on the new laptop. Ir runs great. I also had to install my Sidewinder steering wheel that was made for Windows 98. I was warned it probrably would not work right. It works fine. I ran it for several hours with no problem.
This is a neat program that many people on this Forum have used at various times. One feature is that, while it offers 14 courses on which to race, you only get the use of 4 when you first load the program. To get the other 10 courses and to improve on the rather poor "factory carrs," you need to go through a sequencs of races called Evolution where you progress through the various stages of the Porsche designs. I have started doing that. It's a lot of fun now that I know all the courses and the tricks of driving these cars fast. It has been many years since I have had so much fun. The Evolution races are better tan any you can do later. The competition is better plus you have to be concerned with finances and with buying just the mods you need to win races.
Besides my wife was cleaning my computer desk and the surrounding area so I had to do my part by staying out of her way. I am driving the dining table 110 mph on the straights.
|
|
|
Post by Tom Goodrick on Mar 19, 2009 21:02:28 GMT -5
Ever heard of www.soundclick.com? It is a sight from which listeners can download free MP3 files posted intentionally by the authors themselves. Unfortunately, to download the free music you have to register, giving your email address. But for that you get a choice of a lot of good music. Many of the artists are either young pros are advanced students who could easily become pros. I posted a song on there today. You can hear it at www.soundclick.com/TomGoodrick. There are search routines after you select a genre, that get you to many other artists. One "cost" of the free posting is I have to allow random ads. But that's not all bad as this morning I noticed there was an ad for "Hooters" on my page. On tricky little feature is that we cannot post copyrighted songs - meaning any song you have ever heard of. That's why my song is named "dewdah" and is a collection of 12-bar blues choruses with a background from my synthesizer and solsos with my trumpet, trombone, soprano sax and tenor sax. More strange things will be posted in the future.
|
|
|
Post by Bill Von Sennet on Mar 20, 2009 11:43:33 GMT -5
Nice sounds Tom!
|
|
|
Post by Bill Von Sennet on Mar 20, 2009 11:44:28 GMT -5
Nice sounds Tom!
|
|
|
Post by Tom Goodrick on Apr 14, 2009 9:54:57 GMT -5
I am suddenly prohibited legally from creating MP3 files to post on soundclick. The MP3 encoder that came in the Cakewalk software with my microphone (that enabled the microphone to work) was a version for 30-day trial only. It is now locked until I pay $19 to Cakewalk. the amount of money is no big deal but I gat very angry when, after 28 recording attempts - most ending prematurely due to computer "dropouts" - I finally complete a good recording and tried to make an MP3 file from the wav file. I got a box that said my MP3 encoder was locked.
I was amazed. I went on-line to find out if there were free MP3 encoders available. There I one from a renegade outfit in Australia. Its title is LAME which is code for not an illegal MP3 encoder. When I told son Scott about this, he said he would try to make one using the Python language. If it looks like he might get in trouble doing that, I will pay the $19 to Cakewalk. I just hate this business of "bombs" in software that you get these days thinking there is no problem and suddenly they "blow up" and cost you money. My Toshiba laptop was full of them - about a dozen. In all cases I ripped out the offending software (such as Microsoft Office and Norton Utilities) and either went without or replaced them with free versions that I think are just as good.
I do not think there is a similar bomb for the Cakewalk software itself although after I registered it, they sent me a note that I could upgrade it to the current version for $225. An original copy costs $500.
I have no objection to good software that is sold in a legitimate way - advertised to do a certain job, you buy it to do that job and it does the job. The peoblem with today's market is first, most software does not do the job very well - like my 28 attempts to make a recording with at least 25 of those stopped by interference within the computer using an operating system it is supposed to work with. The second thing I dislike is the inclusion of software in or with a product that is part of the purchase price of the hardware but which stops working 30 days after you first use it demanding payment of more money. In all these cases you do not know what the final cost is until you attempt to remove the blockage prohibiting its use. The seller of the hardware should be required at least to disclose the experiation times of all embedded software and the cost of getting a clear license to use it.
This Dell Computer I bought in 2000 came with software I selected at an attractive price and all the software was usable without restriction. What happened to that concept? What they have now is equivalent to a grocery store manager sticking stuff into your pockets as you shop and then demanding 30 days later that you pay for that stuff. It is disgusting. If I stuck a bomb like that in all my aircraft FD files that would demand payment of $19 after 30 days of use, I could not live with myself.
Now excuse me while I go look into the matter of one of my 90ft pine trees that fell on a neighbor's property and damaged his 6ft chain link fense. He's a rich banker. I could fix his fense for about $30 but he'll probably want it done by professionals. It will also take professionals to cut up and remove the tree. So it goes.
|
|
|
Post by flaminghotsauce on Apr 14, 2009 19:46:31 GMT -5
Tom, you might try Audacity. It's a free program. I've only used it to do some conversion from cassette tape to CD for a guy. It does multiple tracks, and has a lot of built in effects and things.
My buddy used to do square dance calls, but is too banged up to do it. He's had both his knees replaced so he doesn't dance anymore, had surgery on his neck which messed up his voice (he now squeaks), so he doesn't do the calls anymore. He had me put his old recordings onto a CD so they can still do the square dancing. A couple of weeks ago, he brought the CD back and asked if I could slow it down, too. They're getting too old to keep up! Audacity can do this as well. It slowed the recording down without dropping pitch, so it still sounded human.
I've been very impressed with all the free software this one package includes. I'm not sure about the MP3 thing. Doesn't Windows Media Player save as MP3? That should be a simple thing. I also used to have a piece of software called Total Recorder, that would save as MP3. I transferred three CD's worth of my music from cassette to CD using that. It used to be $20, but I was given the program by a fellow musician that didn't like the program.
I've seen an older version of Cakewalk in action, but back in the early 90's. MUCH older version. I always thought it was the cream of the crop from what I read. I'm surprised you're having so much trouble with it.
I view the trial software as simply advertising by free sampling. If a program blows chunks, I won't buy it, but if it's better than butter, I just might purchase. Most junk included with computers these days is in the "blows chunks" category, however. Norton is brilliant. They sell people one of the worst bits of software ever, might as well be a virus. What a marketing plan!
Norton is the first thing to go when I clean up computers.
|
|
|
Post by Tom Goodrick on Apr 15, 2009 10:06:23 GMT -5
Cakewalk was free with my $94 microphone. It is firly equivalent to Audacity. But the MP3 encoder was embeded within it. Now that part is locked but the rest of Cakewalk works fine.
No, the Windows media Player does not convert any file to MP3 format. It will play MP3 files you get from elsewhere. But the Windows recorder now makes a file-type from built-in mics or mics connected through the microphone input similar to .wav but not identical to it. My top-quality mic uses a USB2 input.
The thing that amazes me is that, wheile many people are now using MP3 files in place of music CD's, the fidelity of music in MP3 form is significantly reduced from the original wav files. Many cars today come with provisions for playing MP3 files. Of course, in a car, reduced fidelity is seldom noticed. You might notice it in a Cadillac with a Bose system but otherwise it is unlikely.
|
|
|
Post by Allan_Lowson on Apr 15, 2009 17:05:44 GMT -5
With MP3 files the gain in compression against purity of tone loss is probably acceptable enough for youngsters wandering along streets with open earphones. For that matter volume has always seemed of more importance than sonic accuracy for a generation or three.
After trundling up and down to London for most of the last six weekends to ease No. 1 Daughters flat move, I apparently only have one more trip to do before getting a month off for the golf fling. I may up the stakes and go for the Eclipse to avoid getting snowed in for the winter before I finish.
|
|
|
Post by Tom Goodrick on May 9, 2009 22:08:42 GMT -5
Son Scott came through with a good program to convert .wav files to .mp3 files. It gives me a choice of bit rate settings to control both size and sound quality. Unfortunately, soundclick won't let me use the high bit rates unless I pay for my web page. I'll have to think on that. Anyway, I have posted more songs. One is going up in a few minutes. It took two days and 41 recording attempts. That is the most frustrating process I have ever seen. I screwed up a few times. (It's a challenging piece.) But at least 34 of those attempts were cut short by computer dropouts (interference). The new song is "Gettin On With IT." One I posted yesterday is "Now". My next tune will be called "Then". These tunes can be heard at www.soundclick.com/TomGoodrick if you like light jazz. In a week or two I'll do a song named "How far can I Throw this TOSHIBA Laptop?" The doggone thing is terrible for writing. It frequently and randomly jumps to strange positions to place your text. BTW I took a break from recording to fly a Merlin III around the pattern. I'll have to do more flying. It is a way to forget many frustrations.
|
|
|
Post by flaminghotsauce on May 10, 2009 15:40:09 GMT -5
One thing I've learned messing with Linux is that sometimes the touchpad is too sensitive, and causes the cursor to jump to another area where the mouse pointer is. You might check and see if there's a sensitivity adjustment in there somewhere.
|
|
Ed Burke
Member
Healthy living is fine, but it's having fun that keeps us going!
Posts: 433
|
Post by Ed Burke on May 10, 2009 17:44:37 GMT -5
Fine music Tom, thanks for that.
|
|
|
Post by Tom Goodrick on May 22, 2009 19:15:34 GMT -5
Here's some news some might find funny. Several VOR stations were scheduled to be decommisioned in 2009 as I remember it. (could be 2010). Now it seems our economic conditions may cause trouble for GPS. It costs quite a bit to replace those GPS satellites. Several will fail in 2010 and their replacement has been delayed on budget concerns. Now that the commercial air service is strongly dependant on GPS, this could be trouble. The note about the probable lack of GPS coverage in 2010 comes from AOPA's weekly news bulletin.
|
|
|
Post by Tom Goodrick on Jun 7, 2009 10:11:52 GMT -5
In my garge there are now 5 kittens (three weeks old) and two momma cats. One of the momma cat is the one who gave use 5 kittens last August. Both mommas are black. It is very hard to tell which is which. The one who had the kittens last year has been "fixed" and does not want anything to do with the kittens. But she does think it is HER garage.
Of course we still have the three yuoung male cats from the first black momma's first litter. The next five were successfully given away though we do occasionally see one that was given to a neighbor.
|
|
budsbud
Member
Cross winds of life
Posts: 211
|
Post by budsbud on Jun 8, 2009 8:34:23 GMT -5
Tom You must be a glutton for punishment, taking in all those cats ! If you need another cat we have this small one, only about 19lbs. He is not fat he is just a big Main Coon. I can let you have him real, Real cheap. My hat is off to you tho. Any man who likes cats can’t be all bad. Best to you and yours
Bud
|
|