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The TRUMPF Group is one of the world's leaders in the field of production technology - machine tools, material processing, high power lasers, electronics and in medical technology.

TRUMPF took a natural interest in the Power Beaming challenge, and they are providing their 8 kWatt top-of-the-line laser system for use by teams KCSP, USST, U Michigan, and NSS.

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BJC are continuing their 2-year project of documenting the games, now in its third year. Find out all about them at www.BitterJester.com

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For the games, we had to assemble a special helicopter station-keeping system that will allow the pilots to position the helicopter accurately even when flying at 4300' AGL. Dynon components were our first choice, and are doing the job beautifully.

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Snagged again

PERMALINK Filed under: Timeline — CrazyEddieBlogger on July 25, 2009, 11:01 am
The flight ops crew (back to front) John Kelly, John Piatt, Mike Kapitzke

The flight ops crew (back to front) John Kelly, John Piatt, Mike Kapitzke

Taking off..

Taking off..

The Kelly Kage (TM) - when the two crosses align, Kelly knows hes looking straight up. The circle represents a 15-degree half-angle vertical cone.

The Kelly Kage (TM) - when the two crosses align, Kelly knows he's looking straight up. The circle represents a 15-degree half-angle vertical cone.

Frangible link - body

Frangible link - body

Frangible link - pop-out disk, with swivel link below it

Frangible link - pop-out disk, with swivel link below it

Things were going too good to be true until this point…  and when something is too good to be true, well, you know what happens.

The helicopter flight started off well, and we clearly took care of the problems we saw last time – the re-designed pulley was working very well, and the operation was proceeding smoothly.  We got through cable deployment ok, (though pull-out was still too fast) but then just as we were entering the station-keeping portion of the flight, the helicopter exited the prescribed “box” it was supposed to be in, and also dropped the tension to the point where we had slack forming on the ground.

The procedure at that point is for the winch operator to spool in the slack in a controlled manner (since the pilot cannot see how much slack is on the ground) but before Michael had a chance to do so, the helicopter picked up the tension too fast, causing a release of a safety device at the top of the cable. That “breakaway link” is placed at the top of the cable to ensure that in such a contingency the cable separates in a controlled manner.

Not what we wanted at all.

I attached two pictures of the two parts of the link, after they separated. As you can see, there are three leaf springs that hold a small disk (the small part) in place, so in order for the small disk to extract, it has to force the springs open. Since the unit is reusable (in contrast to a single-use break-away link, which actually breaks) we can replicate the pull to figure out the force that it separated at.

So, again, we’re delayed. We need to look into why the helicopter exited its box, and why tension was lost – a process which will likely take at least 4 weeks. At this early stage, the best and only advice I can give you is – stay tuned!  We’re working on it, this is very fixable, and we’ll be flying again soon.

Friday laser testing are going to go forward as planned, hope to have a better day than today was :)

Ben

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