Hello Charlie, so glad to meet you and welcome to our group.
I do not think it will cost much and be more labor intensive getting it all
setup.
This is really going to be fun.
Larry Carbaugh
On Thu, Sep 2, 2021 at 2:52 PM Charlie Tomberg <charlie@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I would be happy to help pay for the drone race gates if we do move
forward with this.
It was nice meeting some of the other members of the club yesterday.
Best,
Charlie (The New Guy)
On Sep 2, 2021, at 9:54 AM, Tom Speer <me@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We had some discussion last night about setting up a drone race course in
the area south of the building at the end of our runway. There was some
question about what the obstacles should be made of and how large they
should be. AMA Air today has some info on the MultiGP International Open
that was just held, and when I went to the MultiGP site, I found some
information on race gates in their store.
The store has three sizes of gates:
Mega sized, 12 ft x 12 ft
Chapter sized, 5 ft x 5 ft,
Micro sized, 48 inches x 40 inches
If one were to buy them from MultiGP, they'd be pretty pricey. But I think
one could make them cheaper from local materials.
The gates appear to be constructed of fiberglass rods, like folding tent
poles, on the outside with fabric banners forming the actual gates. That
way a drone can hit the fabric and not be seriously damaged. The
fiberglass rods make it convenient to take down and store the race course.
However, since the course can stay up on our field, more substantial frames
from cheaper material (1/2" PVC or treated 2x2's?) could be used. The
frames could have feet instead of being stuck in the ground so they can be
moved around, or tipped on their side when not in use to keep them from
being blown about.
The cloth banners for the chapter sized gates look to be about a foot wide
if they are 5 ft long. There may be a cheap fabric that could be used,
such as Pellon 830. This is a non-woven polyester that looks like dryer
sheet material. It's currently on sale at Joann's for only $12.50 for a
45" wide by 10 yard long board of material! Say each upright banner was
cut to 61" x 15" to allow for hemming and pole pockets, and each arch top
banner was cut to 85" x 15", there would be enough fabric to make 10
gates. Or fewer gates with some hurdles. Graphics could be done with
markers or painted on.
I'm not proposing the club foot the bill for the drone course. But i think
it could be affordable if a bunch of drone pilots wanted to get together to
do it. I'd certainly be willing to help pitch in to help make it, and I
suspect other club members might as well. If we had a course at our field,
it could attract local drone pilots to join ORCA in addition to the drone
club in Kingston. And that could lead to younger members getting
interested in fixed wing flying as well as drones.
Cheers,
Tom
