The drive for Roy and I was great. Smooth and uneventful. No cops and no deer. We left Calgary Friday after work and drove [mostly] in rain to Swift Current. Saturday morning at 6:45am the van headed east. At 11:15 Saturday night, the van stopped in Missouri Valley, Iowa. By the time Sunday morning arrived we were fully in sunshine and dry roads. The temperature and humidity was beginning to rise.
We picked up Delbert at the Indianapolis airport at about 5:30 local time. By this time it was 29 degrees and very humid. We arrived in Muncie at 7:00pm. No problems.Today was a great day of testing and trimming for local conditions. Fortunately, it was cooler today and less humid. I think it only reached 25 or 26 today and no that humid. It was really quite pleasant. We each put in seven or eight flights today across all of our models and things are running well. The pylon site is coming together nicely with Pete Bergstrom and his crew doing a great job to get the grass cut and pylons set up by mid day today. We didn't run into any trouble with equipment and everything is running well.
Many of the international teams showed up today and began their own test flying and trimming. We had dinner with three of the guys from the team from the UK tonight and Roy was in fine form once again. A good time was had by all.
The most notable technical item today was an incredible propellor design from one of the guys on the Swiss team. It difficult to explain so I have two photos of it. It's a carbon fiber folding propellor. Each blade is about six inches long. The leading edge of the blade has a saw tooth profile. Delbert claims it is modelled after the flipper of a hump-backed whale where the edge of the flipper is serrated. It is powered by a low KV motor of unknown spec fitted with a gear box. It is incredibly quiet and it is fast. Time will tell how it works out but, if nothing else, it is a technical marvel.
Randy
Thats one hell of a prop!
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