Radio-Controlled Gliders Edging Close to Mach 1

This stuff blows my mind:

The fastest remote-controlled airplane flight ever recorded took place in 2018, with a top speed of 545 miles/hour. That’s 877 km/h, or Mach 0.77!

What was the limiting factor, preventing the pilot-and-designer Spencer Lisenby’s plane from going any faster? The airstream over parts of the wing hitting the sound barrier, and the resulting mini sonic booms wreaking havoc on the aerodynamics. 

...Dynamic soaring (DS) was first harnessed to propel model planes sometime in the mid 1990s. ... But dynamic soaring is anything but new. Indeed, it’s been possible ever since there has been wind and slopes on the earth. Albatrosses, the long-distance champs of the animal kingdom, have been “DSing” forever, and we’ve known about it for a century.

...When wind blows over a hill, it has to go up and over, with emphasis on the “up”. Glider pilots have used this ridge lift to their advantage for a long time, and the model airplane practice of gliding around indefinitely in the ridge lift on the front side of a hill is called “slope soaring”. With an infinite source of lift, model gliders can do all sorts of fun acrobatics using very little power, as long as they don’t hit the hill or fly up and over to the back side of the mountain.

On the back side, the air pulls back down again, and there’s a strange turbulent zone between the moving air up-top, and the wind-shadow in the valley where the air is still. The back side was known to eat model airplanes, first pulling them downwards a little, then tumbling them around, and then leaving them to slowly sink in the still air. 

...Until one day, when glider pilot extraordinaire (and aeronautical engineer) Joe Wurts flew up and over. He realized that he couldn’t make it back against the strong wind, and didn’t want to hike down, so he aimed the plane at the valley floor. It picked up speed, crossed the turbulent zone, and entered the still air where he was able to fly it back to the crest of the hill because he wasn’t fighting the strong headwind. When it climbed and re-entered the wind stream, he noticed that it had picked up speed. Then he started doing it on purpose.

...And fast is fast. The progress in speed records stalled for a number of years due to the fact that there were no commercially available radar guns that would measure above 300 mph ....

When the sport was young, the highest achievable speeds were limited by the stiffness of the wings: Flutter is the wing-killer. If an oscillation in the wing starts up at high speed, there’s a lot of energy to keep it amplifying, and the result is that the wing tears itself apart or away from the body of the plane.

...When Spencer manages to design and build a plane that can approach the sound barrier, the next limiting factor may be the human in the loop. At speeds already in excess of 200 m/s, a human’s reaction and decision time of around 250 ms to 500 ms translates to 100 m of plane travel. If a plane hits bad turbulence at those speeds while only 20 m above the ground, it could be carbon-fiber dust before any meatbag even has a chance to blink. To quote Spencer, “With each new speed, you get this feeling like you’re in over your head and your brain can’t keep up with what’s happening.”

Eva Encinias Sandoval is Retiring

Eva Encinias Sandoval is retiring from UNM. I remember seeing the flamenco expert in the late 70s, at events sponsored by UNM's Ballroom Dance Club. She loves dance of all kinds. She was at these events out of pure curiosity:

“I’ve been eligible for some time and people kept telling me you can retire at any time. I had it in the back of my mind, but I love my work and always have,” she said. “When COVID hit, online teaching became really difficult. I’m not technically adept and dance has its complexity. I knew from the beginning it was not going to end in six months.”

Encinias Sandoval’s roots in dance are deep. Her mother, Clarita Garcia de Aranda Allison, owned an Albuquerque studio near Edith and Candelaria boulevards in Albuquerque and taught all types of dancing from ballroom to ballet. Influenced by her mother and brother, Allison also taught flamenco. Encinias Sandoval and all eight of her siblings danced too.

...Encinias Sandoval brought the Spanish dance form to the community as well as the university, founding the National Institute of Flamenco in 1992 with lessons for all ages, including children. The non-profit Institute was originally located on Central Avenue across from UNM buildings and passersby could watch the children in swirling skirts and hard-soled shoes twirl and stamp through their lessons. The studio is now located in the Sawmill Area. The Institute is a family affair with Encinias Sandoval as the founding director, her daughter Marisol as the executive director, and her son Joaquin as artistic director.

The Free State of Socorro

1953 was a weird time in Socorro::

It all began in early 1953 with a simple traffic ticket issued on the dusty streets of Socorro, population 4,300.

A 60-year-old plumber named Elmer Brasher had been drinking too much and made the serious mistake of trying to drive. Police officer Lorenzo Lopez stopped Brasher and cited him for breaking the local ordinance against Driving While Intoxicated.

...Judge Fowler dutifully asked to see the Socorro city ordinance regarding DWI arrests. After a considerable search of the courthouse, the original ordinance could not be found, although a reference to it was discovered in the back files of the local newspaper, the Socorro Chieftain. Someone wrote out the reference in pencil and brought it to the judge.

...And if Socorro’s DWI ordinance lacked authority, what about the city’s other ordinances? Did they have any more authority than the DWI ordinance? A March 19, 1953, Socorro Chieftain headline announced the disturbing news that “Socorro Laws Probably All Are Null and Void Says Judge.”

Without city ordinances, some local residents questioned the legality of not only the laws but the city itself. The Chieftain’s editor, Ed Stanton, went so far as to declare, “Nobody’s done anything legal around here since Oñate” and the Spanish conquest of New Mexico in 1598.

...Maybe they could create a whole new state, if not something much larger. According to newspapers in many parts of the United States, “The more Socorro people thought about it, the better idea it seemed just to secede from the United States and start all over again.” 

By April, the Socorro Chieftain reported “a serious but small group of patriots” had spent much of an evening drafting a Declaration of Independence.

RIP, Richard Newman

Ah, Black Sheep Richard, the sole liberal in a conservative family (my brother-in-law's brother), and a fan of this very blog! I'm glad your suffering is over, but I will miss your sense of humor!

Fireball XL-5, Back In The Day

I was six years old in the summer of 1963, and felt like I was playing catch-up. I had only recently become interested in the space program and felt starved for information. I had watched on TV the launch of astronaut Gordon Cooper in May, but his was the last of the Mercury flights and it would be a long, long while before the Gemini flights commenced. Where could a young boy turn for assistance? 

Fireball XL-5 was the Saturday morning show for me! At last, I felt I was getting useful data. I would soon be disappointed - the British show lasted only one season - but at least I finally felt a connection to the Dawn of the Space Age!

   

 Jamie O. mentions "Thunderbirds" too, which was apparently the follow-on series I never saw:

   

 And "UFO" too, which I never saw:

 

Cat Scratch Fever

Ted Nugent has Covid, but no worries, he's still dead-set against vaccines:

"I was tested positive today, I got the Chinese shit," Nugent added. "I've got a stuffed-up head, body aches. My God, what a pain in the ass. I literally could hardly crawl out of bed the last few days… So I was officially tested positive for COVID-19 today."

RIP, Fritz Mondale

Best President we never had:

When Walter Mondale — the pioneering vice president under President Carter — ended up on the losing end of Ronald Reagan’s landmark 49-state landslide in 1984, he fretted that it would dominate, even warp, his legacy.

But in reality Mondale, who as a senator was a spokesman for racial justice and an opponent of the Vietnam War, was a fiery reformer who selected the first female member of a national political ticket; an introspective populist who tried to rally Americans to care for the poor during the Reagan-era ascendancy of industrialists and bankers; and, in retirement, a beloved senior statesman of the Democratic Party and sober-minded prairie practitioner of common sense.

“Many politicians look for personal advantage,” said Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who counts herself among the many Mondale proteges in his native state, “but he always wanted to do the right thing.” 

Known simply as Fritz to both friends and foes, Mondale died Monday at age 93, his family said in a statement. No cause was given.

Make It Make Sense

Mirage?

Sacramento hit a record-high temperature for the date on April 18th (91 F), and yet the weather models have been teasing rain in a little more than a week, for at least the last week. It's like Lucy with the football. People in other places don't worry about stuff like this. No one in the UK posts excitedly about the mirage of some rain in a little more than a week. 

And yet, the mirage is there....  It does look like it will rain on Sunday....

Cleanliness is Next to Dogliness

Just washed Jasper. Afterwards, he raced outside and rolled around in the dirt. Goes to show, cleanliness is next to dogliness.