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 This
Dremel Model 370 Moto-Tool
is one of my longest-owned tools. It was bought sometime around 1976. After 40 years of use,
it began exhibiting erratic behavior due to the motor brushes finally having worn down to
where they were not making good contact with the commutator. You can see in the photos how
the original brushes did not wear evenly, although the contact surfaces were clean and not
pitted at all. I decided that given the Moto-Tool's age, it might be a good idea to disassemble
it and do a good cleaning and inspection ...
 Having never been truly satisfied with the silence
of electric-powered model airplanes, I made a decision to start reverting back to glow fuel
models. Yes, electric power is clean, easy to set up, and consistent motor runs are the rule,
but I grew up with models I could hear flying as well as see flying. I've really missed the
sound and smell of glow fuel engines after a 15-year hiatus. I'm starting with .049 engines
mainly because of the high cost of fuel, but there's also a back-to-basics feel about them
since I, like most kids in the 1960s and 70s, learned to fly with the plastic Cox models.
As you might ...
 "Japanese
carmaker Toyota has announced its backing for a group of engineers who are developing a
flying car. It will
give 40 million yen (£274, 000) to the Cartivator group that operates outside Toyota city
in central Japan. The Nikkei Asian Review reports Toyota and its group companies have agreed
in principle to support the project. So far crowd funding has paid for development of the
so-called Skydrive car, which uses drone technology and has three wheels and four rotors ..."
 "The airport serving the capital of Canada's Alberta
province is to use a
robotic autonomous bird, mimicking a small bird of prey, to scare away
other birds from aircraft around the airport. Called Robird, the drone is the latest in a
suite of UAV systems that the airport plans to use to observe wildlife, inspect buildings
and take 3D measurements. The new device will be brought into service at the end of May. Robird
was developed by Clear Flight Solutions, a spin-off of the University of Twente in the Netherlands ..."
 "Aerial dogfighting began more than a century ago in the skies over Europe
with propeller-driven fighter aircraft carried aloft on wings of fabric and wood. An event
held recently in southern California could mark the beginning of a new chapter in this form
of aerial combat. In what may have been the first aerial encounter of its kind, researchers
from the Georgia Tech Research Institute and Naval Postgraduate School recently pitted two
swarms of autonomous aircraft against one another over a military test facility. While the
friendly encounter may not have qualified ..."
 "First flight tests of
stealth superdrone that can stay airborne for fifteen hours revealed and
is launched by catapult. Lockheed Martin is getting closer to unleashing Fury on the battlefield.
The Maryland based firm has announced that its unmanned aerial system, named Fury, has demonstrated
a flight endurance time of 15 hours, while operating with over 200 lbs. of payload and fuel
at an altitude up to 15,000 feet. But what makes this craft the ultimate warfighter, is that
it does not need a runway for takeoff, instead ..."
 The Semroc
V-2 model rocket kit was modeled after the original Estes V-2. The V-2 is one of the Estes
models that I always planned on building as a kid, but for some reason - most likely budgetary
- I never got around to it. What I liked about the Semroc kit was that it kept with the original
all balsa components rather than substituting molded plastic parts for the nose cone and tail
section. The building process was pretty straight-forward. The Estes Fin Alignment Guide was
used for attaching the fins. It was the first time I ever used the jig. Because of the way
the bottom of the Semroc V-2's body curved ...
 Henry Ford began production of the
Model T (aka
the "Tin Lizzie") in 1908, and his introduction of the moving assembly line commenced in 1913,
thereby reducing the assembly time of an automobile from 12 hours to just 2.5 hours. Prices
dropped to less than half the original cost and profits soared as a growing number of people
were able to afford a car. It is always interesting when reading these reports on airplanes
and automobiles which were published in the middle of the last century to remember that at
the time, the technology was less than 50 years ...
 "With electric cars breaking their way onto our roads,
it's only a matter of time until commercialised electric airliners take to the skies. The
world's fastest
battery-powered plane, which was created by Siemens, has hit a new speed
record for electric flight as it whipped through the air at over 210 mph (340 kmh).
The Extra 330LE plane's record is a big leap towards the eventual replacement of jet fuel
and combustion engines in aircraft. The record was completed at Dinslaken Schwarze Heide ..."
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 "As air-launched munitions get smarter, the Air Force
is creating a new class of weapon—a combination of
drones and missiles. But can they be advanced enough to work, yet cheap
enough that it's okay to lose a few in battle? It has advanced radar, forward-looking infrared
cameras, and laser rangefinders—all used to help the 13-man crew direct a barrage of lethal
fire to the ground from 12,000 feet. But for all of this advanced technology, the vision of
the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command gunships can be thwarted by the threatening
adversary known as a cloudy sky. The USAF has a solution ..."
 "NASA managers have ruled out putting a crew on board
an
Orion capsule atop the agency's huge Space Launch System rocket for the
gargantuan booster's maiden flight in 2019, citing technical risks and higher costs, up to
as much as $900 million, agency officials said Friday. Earlier this year, the Trump administration
asked NASA to look into the possibility of either adding a crew to Exploration Mission 1,
EM-1 for short, or moving up the launch of EM-2, the flight NASA already earmarked for the
SLS booster's ..."
 Thanks to the efforts of the Academy of Model Aviation
for its efforts! From the AMA website: "Friday, May 19, the federal appeals court struck
down the FAA's
registration requirement for recreational model aircraft. The Court ruling is
effective immediately. As such, if you have not registered with the FAA, you are no
 longer required under the law to do so. For those of
you who have already registered with the FAA, you may be wondering what this means for you.
We are currently working to obtain answers from the FAA and will share more information as
it ..."
Could this be part of
Trump's 2-for-1 regulation reduction mandate?
 Here are a half dozen more tips and ideas that might
make your aeromodelling hobby a little easier -especially if you ardently adhere to doing
things 'the old way.' Most of the homebrew schemes presented in this and the many other "Sketchbook" postings are
these days available in pre-made form, with higher reliability, made of inexpensive materials,
and low in cost. The converted hand drill-cum-rubber-winder is a good example. In 1954, most
workshops had such a drill, but now everyone has a battery-powered, variable speed drill that
would make the job much ...
 "The research unit at AT&T is working to combine
two of what are perhaps the hottest buzzwords in the tech industry:
drones and artificial intelligence. Specifically, AT&T Labs is researching
ways to take video footage from a drone flying around an AT&T cell tower and use AI to
analyze that footage for signs of rust, corrosion or other defects on the tower. The result
would save AT&T the time and money it takes to have engineers physically climb cell towers
to do inspections (thanks to the drone), as well as the time and money it takes to have engineers
review video from a drone inspecting a tower ..."
 Indoor airplane models covered with microfilm seem
to have always been for a very particular, dedicated group of modelers who possess the patience,
steady hands, and eyesight to build and maintain very delicate structures. A directed sneeze
can literally blow them to pieces. It is an aspect of aeromodelling into which I have never
ventured.
Mr.
Joseph Bilgri, AMA #4393, was a contest-winning pioneer of the craft. The
AMA History
Project has a biography of Joe that is worth reading if you have an interest in indoor
modeling. Of course today, with the advent of nano-size ...
 The
O.S. Digitron DP-3, 3-Channel
Radio Control System was my first radio control system. After watching eBay for an affordable
set, I finally found one in January of 2017 for a little over $100. It is in pretty good physical
condition, but I have not tried to power it up to to see whether it works. My plan is to buy
a modern spread spectrum 2.4 GHz radio and swap out the electronics in the O.S. Digitron
DP-3 transmitter. I will have to rig the trim tabs to be spring centered with switch contact
on each side of center since analog (potentiometer) trims are no longer used. The 2.4 GHz
antenna will ...
 "Verizon conducted its latest engineering flight tests
using a 'flying cell site' aboard a drone, and while it didn’t share specific results,
it's another indication that the carrier is progressing with the prospect of using drones
to supply an LTE network if severe weather knocks out more traditional cellular network components.
The 17-foot-long drone was piloted by American Aerospace Technologies Inc. (AATI) during the
trial run at Woodbine Municipal Airport in Woodbine, New Jersey, on April 5. The test
was designed to simulate ..."
 This back-page advertisement by
Model Rectifier
Corporation (aka MRC) appeared in the January 1972 issue
of American Aircraft Modeler magazine. Note the cool collection of
[now] vintage test equipment shown in support of testing the
R/C system. The advertisement shows a rhombic antenna, the Dana 8015 RF frequency counter,
Tektronix 7904 oscilloscope, HP spectrum analyzer, RF communications synthesizer RF generator,
and an Anritsu precision field strength meter. I was 13 years old at the time, and anxiously
watched for it in the mailbox each ...
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 - Archives -
Drone Rules That Never Became Law
So Much for Those New Drone Registration Rules
Elon Musk Explains Why He Thinks Flying Cars Are a Really Bad Idea
Cash Awards Offered
After Drones Disrupt Flights in China
Breakthrough in Battery Charging Technology
Canada Imposes Strict New Rules for Recreational Drone Use
NASA Selects >100 Small Business Projects to Advance Space Innovation
Walmart to Use Drones in Store to Assist Shoppers
NASA Selects Over 100 Small Business Projects to Advance Space Innovation
Women of AOPA Offer Advice to Future Female Pilots
 Declaring any kind of straight LC tank circuit to be
high stability is a bit of a stretch when compared to the Q available simply by adding a crystal,
even in 1958. Tone modulation was an early method for achieving remote control of model airplanes,
boats, and cars. The number of channels with these
tone modulation systems is two times the number of modern proportional systems in that
moving the rudder left took one channel and moving it right took another. Up and down elevator
likewise took two channels. Therefore, this four channel system is only two channels by today's
terminology. Technology evolved into fully proportional ...
 "Officially known as the XV-24A
Lightning Strike Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) XPlane, the 20%
scale craft completed its planned flight test program in early March at Webster Outlying Field
in Southern Maryland. Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the
SVD successfully demonstrated key technical features the full-scale XV-24A will perform, including
outbound and inbound transition flight. The SVD aircraft is a 325 pound, Lithium battery ..."
 "Air Force weapons developers expect to operate hypersonic
intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance drones by the 2040s, once scientific progress
with autonomy and propulsion technology matures to a new level. The advent of using a
recoverable drone platform able to travel at high altitudes, faster than Mach 5, will
follow the emergence of hypersonic weapons likely to be operational in the mid-2020s, according
to the Air Force Chief ..."
 MG's Magnette was produced 1954 and 1958. It was a
fairly large, 4-door family car with rather posh features like leather seats, electric windshield
wipers, safety glass, and rustproofing. The price tag of $2,675 in 1954, when this article
appeared in Air Trails magazine, is equivalent to $27,148 in 2017 dollars per the
BLS Inflation Calculator. You cannot buy a car in the same class today for that amount. Modern
cars are loaded with many more creature comforts and are heavily burdened with regulatory-mandated
environmental and safety features that add ...
 Models of Frank Smith's Miniplane have been built and
flown by scores of modelers over the decades. Homebuilt planes are popular scale projects
partially because the level of detail necessary to faithfully reproduce the full-size airplane
is less that with a production plane. Sig Manufacturing introduced a radio controlled kit
model of the
Smith Miniplane back in the 1970 that is still available for purchase on their website
today. This article from a 1961 issue of American Modeler includes plans ...
 AMA president Rich Hanson published an editorial column
in the April 2017 issue of Model Aviation titled, "How high can I fly?) Ok, more
correctly it should have asked, "How high may I fly?" since it addresses the oft-asked question
about what altitude limit is imposed on model aircraft. Mr. Hanson does a great job explaining
the situation, and points out that the current
400-foot limit has been on the books with the FAA since at least 1972. He refers to a
full-page notice to model airmen on page 49 of the November 1972 issue of American Aircraft
Molder, the AMA monthly publication that preceded Model Aviation ....
 "Supersonic planes without the Earth-shaking sonic boom could arrive by
2023. When the Concorde first hit the skies in the 1970s, it could fly from London to New
York in just under three hours. But despite being able to travel at twice the speed of sound,
the futuristic supersonic jet failed to attract passengers and was sent into decommission
in 2003. Now researchers claim that Concorde-style jets could be making a comeback, and are
working ..."
 "Flight tests have resumed on subscale aircraft that
could one day observe the Martian atmosphere and a variant that will improve collection of
Earth's weather data. Work on the shape of the aircraft and the systems it will need to fly
autonomously and collect data are ongoing for the
Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design to Land on Mars, or Prandtl-M
aircraft. Student interns with support from staff members at NASA Armstrong Flight Research
Center in California are advancing the project ..."
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FAA Registration Requirement
Struck Down 
