Forestry tape all around

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Alex Treneff
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Post by Alex Treneff »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Hooter</i>
<br />Sorry Alex...

But "No Sticky + Dennecrape = MORE MIDAIRS!!!!

We have seen this in our club flying, when you have to depend
on prop cuts...the mid airs go up!!

All these guys that travel around all over the country to compete, are
very serious about winning!!!! They will do what it takes to win!!!!

So if you put this down to the prop cut level, these guys are going to go home with two or three trashed planes, then they are going to think twice about if they are travel 400 or 500 miles to the next event!!
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Jimmy,

Mid-airs are lower with no-sticky. First of all, getting rid of sticky doesn't raise mid-airs, because you are still in the same spot behind the target plane, you just have a smaller area (8") with which to easily cut the streamer.

Also when flying with no sticky you fly a lot more pursuit flying. Ever notice how the furball diminishes when not using sticky stuff? Guys know that the sticky is a big cause of furballing, which is a big cause of mid-airs. Some would just rather have mid-airs and points than ban sticky. It's just a trade off either way. Either mid-airs or big-point rounds.
Lee Liddle
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Post by Lee Liddle »

I might get a little sloppy with the spray on oil that I would need to use on my motors before every heat.
mad
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Post by mad »

Alex, I can tell you from experience. If you take away the sticky, Instead of getting behind another plane and flying through the ribbon or raising a wingtip, people will come at ribbons from much sharper angles. They won't try to use that 8 inch prop they will change their tatics to make that 64 inch wing work. and if it means more and harder midairs, so be it.
Alex Treneff
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Post by Alex Treneff »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by mad</i>
<br />Alex, I can tell you from experience. If you take away the sticky, Instead of getting behind another plane and flying through the ribbon or raising a wingtip, people will come at ribbons from much sharper angles. They won't try to use that 8 inch prop they will change their tatics to make that 64 inch wing work. and if it means more and harder midairs, so be it.
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Why don't they go for sharper angles now? Even with sticky, sharper is better. We all get those dreaded drapes.

It's kind of hard to aim for a streamer when you are headed a whole different direction! Experience and physics have shown me that pursuit is the best tactic with no sticky (or with it for that matter).

I guess there is to much opposition to eliminating sticky, it was just a good-intentioned idea.

Now are we to assume that if we use flagging tape all year round, people will use those same hard angles of approach?
AIM
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Post by AIM »

I still don't see the advantage to crepe other than posting high NPS scores. What makes the difference wether you place 1st with 10,000 points or 1000 points. If it's done nationwide then the scores will still reflect the better pilots.
Ban sticky (FINE)... But it still doesn't solve the high speed OpenB problem... Damp humid weather problem... Stocking two different kinds problem...
And even I can snag a crepe streamer with a lucky turn without sticky...
mad
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Post by mad »

Alex, I pitted next to the Fl guys and watched them use some two sided tape very effectively. i don't think what they were using is available on the open market but there has to be something close.
I plan on having something like that before my next meet. I am not a big fan of the mess of the bird repellent.


Aaron,

Advantage 1.crepe will degrade in a couple days with a good dew. One rain and its gone.
There are many fields I have been to where we fly over hayfields, corn, soybeans, wheat, trees. Flagging tape is not a viable option as a full time material

Advantage 2. weight and drag. crepe is 7/8 inch flagging tape is 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inch wide. Flagging tape is much heavier. put a couple of 30 ft streamers on on the wingtip of a ssc plane and I bet it won't fly real well.

Advantage 3. We have a supply system for crepe.
Mike F. puts out his own money to purchase large quantities of crepe to supply EVERYONE around the country. and I assure you he is not making a big profit on it. Not only can you get the bulk crepe to roll your own but you can order pre-rolled streamers. I know for a fact he charges only the additional labor cost to the streamers. I get them rolled for him and ship them out and have never made a penny for doing this. and wouldn't want to. In the past three years since I have been helping Mike out I have shipped out over 10,000 pre-rolled streamers, Not to mention the amount of bulk material Mike has shipped out over the same time period.

SO... If you are the CD of an event and you want to use flagging tape. go for it. Every CD around the country has that option.

I as a CD do not want to roll my own flagging tape
I as a CD do not want the additional expense.
I as a CD do not want the added cleanup.
I as a CD have flagging tape with my contest supplies, I bought it years ago but have never had to use it. I also bring a couple rolls with me to any contest I attend.

If you still think it is such a great option, take a couple thousand dollars buy up a bunch of material. find someone to roll it so you can offer it pre-rolled. and put it out on the market.
Or do you just want to dump this responsibility on the lifeblood of our sport. Our CONTEST DIRECTORS.
AIM
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Post by AIM »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by mad</i>
<br />
Aaron,

Advantage 1.crepe will degrade in a couple days with a good dew. One rain and its gone.
There are many fields I have been to where we fly over hayfields, corn, soybeans, wheat, trees. Flagging tape is not a viable option as a full time material

Advantage 2. weight and drag. crepe is 7/8 inch flagging tape is 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inch wide. Flagging tape is much heavier. put a couple of 30 ft streamers on on the wingtip of a ssc plane and I bet it won't fly real well.

Advantage 3. We have a supply system for crepe.
Mike F. puts out his own money to purchase large quantities of crepe to supply EVERYONE around the country. and I assure you he is not making a big profit on it. Not only can you get the bulk crepe to roll your own but you can order pre-rolled streamers. I know for a fact he charges only the additional labor cost to the streamers. I get them rolled for him and ship them out and have never made a penny for doing this. and wouldn't want to. In the past three years since I have been helping Mike out I have shipped out over 10,000 pre-rolled streamers, Not to mention the amount of bulk material Mike has shipped out over the same time period.

SO... If you are the CD of an event and you want to use flagging tape. go for it. Every CD around the country has that option.

I as a CD do not want to roll my own flagging tape
I as a CD do not want the additional expense.
I as a CD do not want the added cleanup.
I as a CD have flagging tape with my contest supplies, I bought it years ago but have never had to use it. I also bring a couple rolls with me to any contest I attend.

If you still think it is such a great option, take a couple thousand dollars buy up a bunch of material. find someone to roll it so you can offer it pre-rolled. and put it out on the market.
Or do you just want to dump this responsibility on the lifeblood of our sport. Our CONTEST DIRECTORS.
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First off I wanna clarify that I am talking about "FORESTRY TAPE" which is biodegradable. Plastic flagging tape is not.

2nd / crepe is as you stated 7/8 wide. FORESTRY is 5/8" (not 1 1/4"+)
check the website if you think I'm wrong.
http://www.forestry-suppliers.com/produ ... sp?id=1136

3rd,, Supply system still intact.. Plus prerolled isn't such a big issue due to the fact that if it touches the ground it doesn't affect it and many streamers can be reused versus everyone just tossing them after each heat.

4th, Don't assume that simply because I don't have the "CD" designation behind my profile that I am dumping this on everyone else.
Alex Treneff
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Post by Alex Treneff »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by AIM</i>
<br />3rd,, Supply system still intact.. Plus prerolled isn't such a big issue due to the fact that if it touches the ground it doesn't affect it and many streamers can be reused versus everyone just tossing them after each heat.

4th, Don't assume that simply because I don't have the "CD" designation behind my profile that I am dumping this on everyone else.
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If you were a CD and were to CD a combat event, you would quickly find that pre-rolled streamers are very, very important. In the 2 weeks before the Mid-America Combat Championship, my dad and I spent all evening every night just getting stuff done for the contest. There were zero minutes left to roll streamers, no matter what they are made of.

A lot more goes into it than people realize. It was fun to have everyone in town to fly with us though!
mad
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Post by mad »

Aaron,
I looked at the link you posted and you are almost right about the width. It says it is 3/4x250 narrower than what they carry locally.
However it also say that it takes one year to degrade in the open.
It would be interesting to see how Hilltop would look after 4 events a year. I guess if we used lots of colors the trees would be real pretty. of course the club probably would not be there long.
I am also sure the farmer we rent our field from would not mind getting this stuff wraped up in his equipment.

I don't know if you are a CD or not, but I am and I have run many events, many of them large. and what I was trying to convey to you is there is alot of work that goes into what we do. and what you are proposing will increase that work load.

Maybe an airplane towing flagging tape is better than a plane towing crepe maybe not.but in this hobby its what happen the weeks befor and what happens after you pack your planes up and go home.

We have to protect our field and our Cd or we will lose them.
sgilkey
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Post by sgilkey »

You guys make too many assumptions. Aaron knows a thing or two about CDing combat meets, he's run quite a few at his home field and he helps run ours when Don V and I are flying, since he does not fly all the classes that we do. So he's been around the block, paid his dues, and all those other cliches. Too many red herrings being thrown out here. When's the last time any of us have been to a meet where we left the field draped in streamers, be they crepe or forestry? Any meet I've ever been to, there is a field sweep and most debris is cleaned up. Of course there are the odd streamer bits in trees, unfound in the brush, etc but if several guys in the field sweep don't see 'em I doubt it's going to be an environmental catastrophe or an eyesore. And the forestry does degrade, admittedly not as fast as crepe.

You leave crepe sitting around in dry weather, it's not going anywhere. Even if it's moist, it lasts awhile and bleeds all over. Some giant scale guy lands on a leftover crepe streamer and gets a black smudge on his purty wheelpant, or it locks up his axle and he noses over and breaks a $30 prop, he's gonna be POd. (At least that's what he'll claim, it's NOT his inability to land properly, it's some flimsy crepe paper that tripped his 40 pound plane...really! Even though we all know scale guys can build but can't fly....JUST KIDDING, scale dudes...) So even the crepe gets picked up, right???? So no difference....

Considering the rarity of rogue streamers left on fields, compared to the main issue of how the streamers behave during the heat and whether they are more effective during combat, I'd qualify this argument as a red herring.

As to prerolled, who says you can't preroll forestry??? Aaron, myself, and several others have rolled a few (streamers) in our day and in general you gotta roll fewer forestry streamers than crepe! So if you want to make the point about how important it is to have prerolled streamers, you are actually siding with Aaron since you would need to preroll fewer!!! LABOR AND TIME SAVINGS, can we a get a HECK YEAH! How's that for mercy on our CDs???

On the other side, I will gently scold Aaron for assuming that you can just roll out forestry during the meet. That works ok at smaller and more casual meets, but lengths of unrolled streamer all through the pits is not the most desirable scenario, especially when the pits get more crowded. As the recent victim of a (stupid, self-inflicted, moronic) accident brought about by being wrapped up in a streamer, I'd advocate for prerolled when possible, esp. in bigger meets. But it is nice to be able to reuse a streamer when you land with it intact, which happens much more often with forestry. So in some cases you'd still want to preroll a bunch of streamers, but generally less than crepe, and certainly never more!

As to stranding Hat with a bunch of Dennecrepe, I agree totally that we would not hang him out to dry, he has made that point before, he has invested, on behalf of RCCA, a bunch of money in streamer inventory and I for one would not vote for a change that did not allow for that stock to be exhausted first, or the RCCA buys the material from him. If we can't figure out how to do that, that for me would be a deal-breaker by itself.

So, IMHO, these peripheral arguments are minor compared to the real issue- what goes on during the five minutes of combat.
Alex Treneff
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Post by Alex Treneff »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by sgilkey</i>
<br />As to prerolled, who says you can't preroll forestry??? Aaron, myself, and several others have rolled a few (streamers) in our day and in general you gotta roll fewer forestry streamers than crepe! So if you want to make the point about how important it is to have prerolled streamers, you are actually siding with Aaron since you would need to preroll fewer!!! LABOR AND TIME SAVINGS, can we a get a HECK YEAH! How's that for mercy on our CDs???

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Scott, without the ability to buy pre-rolled streamers, there would have been no streamers at the Mid-America meet. I am not kidding 1% when I say we had zero time left to roll streamers. If they can't be bought pre-rolled, they aren't of much use to a CD!

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by sgilkey</i>
<br />
Considering the rarity of rogue streamers left on fields, compared to the main issue of how the streamers behave during the heat and whether they are more effective during combat, I'd qualify this argument as a red herring.

So, IMHO, these peripheral arguments are minor compared to the real issue- what goes on during the five minutes of combat.
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The biggest red herring of all, is that you guys are perfectly capable of using forestry tape at the contests you run right now. You aren't. Why not? If it's so great, then run it. We'll run crepe. Problem solved. [:)]
AIM
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Post by AIM »

1rst off,, "if" I understand the current supply chain ( Mike buys the crepe/ sends the rolls to "Mad"/ He gets them rolled and either sends them back to Mike for shipping to buyers or sends them direct) Either way wether it be crepe or FT,, prerolled is still possible..

Furthermore I've made the guys roll their own on event day and although not desirable it works. (guys got so used to this that they all started bringing their cordless guns to our events, (but they still came))

Prerolled is great but it's not a make or break deal.

2nd,, We used ALL FT at our late Sept event and just a few months later I ran my bird dogs in the field around it and saw NO remaining tape. Crepe dissolves faster but FT doesn't hang on for long..

3rd,, Yes I do have the option of running FT but lets get real here. Guys wanting scores for NPS aren't going to be real interested in flying FT when everyone else in the nation is flying crepe. Suggesting that I run what I want is RIDICULOUS!!!

4th,, Banning sticky will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING... Guys will simply come up with an alternative. (woops I got carried away with my 3M 77)

5th,, Ok so FT will slice and dice a leading edge. So we work on reinforcing the LE just like we work to reinforce the entire plane. Not a big deal . Tape / glue/ some sandpaper or other similar material to the LE and your done.

6th,, One material for all weather conditions.

7th, (not last but I'm getting tired) One situation that has been talked about is the fact that the really good pilots snag up all the crepe in the first 60 seconds and the lesser pilots are simply left chasing a shred hanging from a superior pilots wing for 4 minutes. I'm not in any way condemning great pilots for superior skill. Regardless of streamer material they will still win in the end. (as they should)
The simple fact remains that FT will leave more targets in the air for a longer period of time than crepe. (NOBODY CAN DENY THAT)
I personally feel that the allure to crepe is HIGH point scores. No matter wether you claim NPS champ with 4 zillion or 4 thousand. 1rst is still 1rst. I'm gonna finish dead last no matter what is flown but to simply buzz around with nothing to chase for 3 minutes is pointless.
sgilkey
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Post by sgilkey »

I'll second what Aaron said, why in god's green earth can't FT be prerolled just like crepe? WHAT AM I MISSING? Why can't Doc Evil, if he chooses to be so kind, continue to get streamers, and MAD continue to roll them, if he chooses to be so kind, but with a different material that we all agree to use????

Alex, we do use FT when weather conditions push us to. As Aaron says, to propose that we just switch for all our local meets is a pretty silly argument, come on. That would be a bit of a hindrance for NPS when others are using crepe. The idea is to equalize everybody so we're all working to the same standard material. That was the idea behind making dennecrepe the standard.

Do you mean to tell me that you've never been to a meet where the last two minutes of several (many?) heats is a couple of guys with little bitty bits hanging off their wings, and that's IT for targets? You don't get that with FT, usually. It's a more target-rich environment that is better/more fun for the less-able. It's a good equalizer. Stop and think about it for a second rather than crossing your arms and trying to figure out every way possible to say NO.
Rabbit Leader
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Post by Rabbit Leader »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The biggest red herring of all, is that you guys are perfectly capable of using forestry tape at the contests you run right now. You aren't. Why not? If it's so great, then run it. We'll run crepe. Problem solved.

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My thoughts exactly..
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Ed Kettler
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Post by Ed Kettler »

http://www.forestry-suppliers.com/produ ... sp?mi=1136

is the link to what we use. It comes in 250' x 0.75" rolls. 8 streamers per roll, sometimes 9. I use a 1/4" dowel with a slot sawn in it chucked into my variable speed drill and I can roll a streamer in about 30 seconds. So, it is fairly easy to "roll your own" for about $0.30 per streamer; all it takes is a little time, so get several friends together over beer and pizza and have a "streamer party".

I roll all of the local streamers (except for LSN, where we use Mike & Mike brand) using 2" party crepe paper rolls, then split in my bandsaw, which end up costing about $0.10 each.

Unless RCCA leaders pass a rules change that redefines the use of forestry tape as the streamer material, then your chance of making this change happen voluntarily approaches zero asymptotically. In order for that to happen, you need to submit a Rules Change Request and get it in the queue for both RCCA and AMA consideration. The ball is in your court.
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