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The Battalion
11
Remote-control enthu
siasts stand in a safe
place, and with a ra
dio, maneuver the
models of their choice
through feats that they
would never attempt if
they were in there
themselves. RC model
ers skillfully take their
crafts through danger
ous loops, rolls, dives,
jumps and — perhaps
not so skillfully —
crashes. But the only
loss to be found in the
pile of rubble is a lot of
sweat, a little pride
and some money. The
drivers always walk
away.
Remote
Q ontrol
To crash and live
By Thomas Boylan
ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
Radio-controlled helicopters, air
planes, cars and even motorcycles
are flying and driving around like
never before. They’re a rapidly
growing hobby and industry and a a
lot of fun, and if you want more than
fun, they also compete, internation
ally. Texas A&M just happens to
have some of the finest radio control
pilots around.
Radio-controlled (RC) vehicles
range from toy cars that do little
more than roll slowly to jet look-al
ikes that fly as fast as 180 miles an
hour. They range in price from a
few dollars for a toy to several thou
sand for a serious hobby machine.
The one characteristic that links
them all is their ability to move with
out visible controls.
Bill Bennett is an RC enthusiast
and the owner of Keyser’s Inc., a
hobby shop at 2021 Texas Ave. “I
was a stock broker for 10 years and
decided to get into something that
was a little bit more fun,” Bennett
said.
Helicopters
Bennett flies RC helicopters,
which he says are more expensive
and harder to fly than airplanes.
How much harder? He described it
as “ kind of like flying two airplanes
at the same time.” He has been fly
ing them for five years, however, so
he has had time to learn.
A helicopter is more difficult to
fly because it has many more de
grees of freedom than an airplane.
It can go forward, backward, up,
down, and in almost any combina
tion of directions. However, the
complexity can lead to some off-the-
wall benefits, Bennett said.
“You can actually fly the heli
copter upside down and bring it
down low enough to cut the grass,”
he said. It works, too — he has tried
it.
The field of radio control has
changed rapidly over the last five
years, Bennett said. “Technology
has brought the radios down to mi
cro size,” he said. “The receiver used
to weigh five pounds, and now it
only weighs a few ounces. It carries
five channels instead of one.”
In the past, a one-channel radio
cost about $1,000, but now four
channels cost only about $100, he
said.
Each channel controls a different
part of the helicopter (or airplane or
car) — one channel for acceleration,
another for angle, etc.
One of the nation’s best RC heli
copter pilots is an A&M faculty
member. Dr. Dave Youngblood,
professor of physics and director of
the cyclotron, competed in Bern,
Switzerland in 1987.
He won his contests consistently
until the end. “I lost on the last one,”
he said. The last competition was for
the world championship, the end of
a battle between 36 competitors
from 18 countries.
The loss was to his son, a Univer
sity of Texas student and now world
champion.
“We’re often invited around to do
exhibitions, and I usually decline,”
Youngblood said. “(My son) is better
than I am, by a lot. After they see
him fly, they’re not even interested
in me.”
Youngblood said practices flying
his helicopters at least weekly. “You
get rusty if you don’t fly,” he said.
“The helicopters are particularly
bad because they have so many de
grees of freedom. . . .You lose
your edge.”
The Brazos Valley RC Modelers
Club has a flying field in Bryan just
off Old Reliance Road, and Youngb
lood occasionally flies there.
For RC novices, Youngblood does
not recommend learning how to fly
helicopters. “Don’t do it,” he said.
“Go learn to fly airplanes. When you
can fly an airplane at any attitude,
when someone can throw you a ra
dio while the plane is going in any
direction and you can gain control of
it, you can handle flying a helicop
ter.”
He added that it is a misconcep
tion that airplane flying is not rele
vant to helicopter flying. Like Ben
nett, Youngblood said flying
helicopters is more difficult than fly
ing two airplanes at the same time.
An airplane only goes forward, but
helicopters can go in any direction,
he said.
Airplanes
Airplanes are simpler and less ex
pensive than RC helicopters, and
they come in a broad range of prices
and styles. Linda Kirk, a Keyser’s
employee and former A&M student
said, “We sell the airplane kits and
some of them that are already built
up. With the kit you need a radio
transmitter and receiver, an engine
and then other accessories like cov
ering materials.”
Part of the process of building the
model airplane is covering the
frame, which comes as a skeleton. Fi-
berglas, silk or heat-shrink material
— which Kirk recommends — can
be used. “Heat-shrink is easiest,” she
said.
Airplanes range in size, as well. “A
quarter-scale plane may have a five-
to six-foot wingspan,” Kirk said.
“Most of them are about four feet in
wingspan.”
Some planes come without motors
at all, flying like gliders. “A glider
may have an engine or no motor at
all,” Kirk said. “One (kind) has an
electric motor and a 7.2 volt battery.
You can either hand-launch it or use
a rubber band.”
The rubber band literally flings
the glider into the air. The glider
then catches rising columns of warm
air called thermals and continues
upward. On the gliders with small
electric motors, the motors can be
turned off after the plane is aloft.
Kirk is just learning to fly. She
said the most difficult part is taking
off and landing, but it is not so bad
once the plane is in the air.
“Normally you get someone who
knows how to fly and they take it up,
and then you fly it around,” she said.
“You really have to think about what
you’re doing.”
To land the plane, she hands the
radio to the trainer and lets him or
her bring it down.
RC flying is not a sport without
hazards. An airplane or helicopter
can come down for a variety of rea
sons, and a crash can be expensive.
Bennett described one case in which
a radio failed while the airplane was
about 150 feet in the air.
Because the plane was circling
slowly, the operator had time to dis
assemble the radio, find and repair
an electrical short and land the plane
safely, although only just in time.
The plane was losing altitude grad
ually as its battery ran down, sinking
lower with each turn.
A new and, for Bennett, partic
ularly exciting part of RC flying is
jets. “I have just gotten into jets,” he
said. “They’re one-fifth scale models
of just about any jet, and they use a
ducted fan that produces a thrust
similar to a turbine engine.”
I he jet was somewhere
between 180 and 200; the
car wouldn’t go any faster.”
— Bill Bennett,
RC enthusiast
Jets are considerably faster than
regular airplanes. Bennett said he
has clocked one flying at more than
160 miles per hour.
“We used a Porsche and flew the
plane beside the car,” he said. “Your
average trainer will do about 90
miles per hour, and a sport plane
will do 130 to 140. The jet was some
where between 180 and 200; the car
wouldn’t go any faster.”
Cars
Cars are the easiest way to get into
radio-controlled modelling. They
are inexpensive, fast and easy to
learn.
“The introduction of cars has-
Photo illustration by Dean Salto
boomed our business within the last
three years,” Bennett said. “The big
gest innovation is the nickel cadium
batteries — they hold enough juice
to make these little cars do 30 to 40
miles an hour.” Scaling the actual
speed to the size of the car, the speed
would be 10 times that figure.
Cars are less expensive than flying
RC machines. Kirk said, “Electric
cars range from $175 to
$800. . . .Our boss had one (an
$800 model), and it was a hot little
car.”
The average gasoline car costs
about $325, she said, not including
the engine and radio. A complete
RC car costs about $550-$600.
When it comes to customizing,
Bennett said, “You can hop these
cars up with different battery packs
and motors.” He listed of a variety of
available parts, including magne
sium wheels, graphite frames, ’57
Chevy bodies, gearboxes, and just
about any other accessories imagin
able.
Unlike airplanes and helicopters,
RC car controllers must deal with
obstructions, negotiating rocks,
curbs, cars, pedestrians and ditches.
The cars are moving fast while they
are being directed, so they do not al
ways swerve of turn quickly enough.
For accident repairs, Bennett
keeps plenty of extra parts on hand.
“We sell lots of parts because they go
fast,” he said, “but they’re easy to
fix.”
Forty miles per hour just isn’t
enough for some RC enthusiasts.
For them, there are dragsters that
will go faster than 70 miles per hour,
Bennett said. Those cars only go in a
straight line, but they do it fast.
But what happens if a car stops re
ceiving its radio signal? “If you lose
radio contact, the receiver is going to
pick up whatever’s out there,” Ben
nett said, “like someone with an
other car.” If the car fails to pick up
someone else’s signal, however, it is
likely to keep going until something
stops it. However, a car’s leaving the
radio range is unlikely, Bennett said.
As technology has improved, the
radio range of the cars has . in
creased, Bennett said. It is possible
to control a car for as far as half a
mile — so the car would be long out
of sight before it got out of control.
DAT heralds latest, greatest wave in music recording technology
By Chuck Squatriglia
CORRESPONDENT
Imagine Mozart in your livi
™om, conducting his Requk
as s. The brass and percussi
w ^ un ? through your hon
1 e m. 6 strings send shivers \
; 0 ur spine. It is all possible wi
dl gital audio tape.
igital audio tape is the ne
'an cement tPie c . ua jj t y
thl 1510 recor ding, but lawsi
f eats have kept the prodr
--achingthe mass market,
tal F re . cord ers allow the dij
. record * n g of music onto ct
itv eS ’ w ^ c h provide sound qu;
Hie cor ^P ara t , l e to that of comps
i es. The advantage of DAT
r , Can re cord on it, whereas y<
Record on a CD.
^ provides home recordii
as a | 10S W * t ^ 1 same advantag
intr record i n g studio, alio-
son a 601 t0 P roduc e high quali
C 0n n recordings, says Dav
corJ 3er ’o 0wner Brasswind R
ln g Studio in College Static
DAT has been available to pro
fessional recording studios for
several years.
“DAT is phenomenal,” he says.
“It’s convenient, reliable and it
provides a vastly superior sound
quality.” .
Because DAT would provide
the consumer with the ability to
make high quality tapes, several
record companies represented by
the Recording Industry Associa
tion of America are working to
prevent the release of DATs.
“DAT is a quantitative leap in
home taping because for the first
time, there will be no distinction
between the original and the co
py,” says Hilary Rosen, vice presi
dent of government relations for
the RIAA. “This increases the in
centive to tape one-hundred
fold,” she says.
If DAT is made available to the
public, consumers would be more
likely to record music at home,
resulting in lost sales and lost roy
alties to the musicians, she says.
“Home taping drains artists
and record companies from reve
nue they make when they sell re
cords,” Rosen says. “They don’t
get paid when it gets played on
the radio and they don’t get paid
when someone tapes it at home.
The RIAA says the record in
dustry loses $1.5 billion in roy
alties each year due to illegal
home taping. This figure is based
upon a survey of consumer tap
ing behavior, Rosen says.
She says she is unsure how
much more revenue could be lost
by the introduction of DAT.
While the RIAA is working
hard to prevent the relaese of
DAT, the Home Recording
Rights Coalition is working to de
fend the consumer’s right to use
home recording equipment.
“We support the consumer’s
right to tape at home for personal
use,” Phil Bangert, an HRRC
spokesman, says. “DAT is merely
another format by which a con
sumer can exercise his right to
tape at home.”
Bangert says the HRRC bases
the consumer’s right to tape on
two events: the 1984 Supreme
Court decision in the Universal
City Studios v. Sony case and the
1972 Sound Recording Amend
ment to the copyright law.
In the Sony case, commonly
known as the Betamax decision,
the Supreme Court said copying
television programs for personal
use does not constitute a copy
right infringement, provided the
copies are not sold or used for
other commercial purposes.
“Although the Supreme
Court’s Betamax decision was
talking about videotaping as op
posed to audio taping, we feel the
same theory could apply to con
sumers’ use of audio tape,” Bang
ert says.
. With the 1972 Sound Record
ing Amendment, Congress spe
cifically said it does not intend to
restrict or make illegal the con
sumer’s use of audio taping
equipment for home use.
Because of these two events,
the HRRC believes the RIAA’s
arguments against the release of
DAT are nullified.
“You have both legislative and
judical language stating that con
sumer use of recording equip
ment does not constitute a copy
right infringement,” Bangert
says.
The RIAA disagrees with the
the HRRC’s belief that the Beta-
max decision is an applicable
precedent.
“The decision is limited to vi
deo,” Rosen says. “From a legal
standpoint, the Supreme Court
said off-the-air timeshifting was a
legal use of the VCR. People
don’t tape a record to listen to it
at 8 o’clock instead of 4 o’clock
and then erase it.
“Every objective survey done
on taping behavior shows a dif
ference between audio and video
taping and the Supreme Court
specifically and puposefully nar
rowed its decision to off-air pro
gramming.”
Popular opinion on the validity
of the Betamax decision as a prec
edent for the DAT issue is di
vided.
David Cooper of Brasswind
says, “The Sony decision is per-
See DAT/Page 13
“Dat is a quantitative leap in home taping
because, for the first time, there will be no
distinction between the original and the copy.”
— Hilary Rosen
vice president of government relations,
Recording industry Association of America