Andrew Fernie
2009-03-08, 08:04 PM
There was a request for a description of the clock we use for our indoor sessions, so here it is...
The gym can get pretty crowded for indoor flying - it is only available for a couple of hours and everyone wants to get in as much flying time as possible. With the advent of 2.4GHz there is not as much need to control frequencies, but fair allocation of flying time is still a challenge. On of our members, Xavier Moraux, described a system that he had seen at another club and we adapted it to our needs.
The key element is a clock - ours came from Wal-mart. It was removed from its case, and a 1 inch wide ring of 1/8 inch masonite was glued along the clock's circumference. This allows colored clothespins to be clipped at regular intervals around the clock - we use two of each of six colors of clothespins, dividing the hour into 12 five minute slots.
The clock is mounted in a box (ours is from a LCD computer monitor box), with three divisions on each of the two side flaps. Each division corresponds with one of the clothes pin colors. We have split the colors giving four to airplanes and two to helicopters (that matches our typical split of pilots, but we have also used three and three when the split was more even). At the start of the night we put six clothes pins of each color on the corresponding divisions. As each member comes in he is permitted to take two pins - two airplane, two heli, or one of each. Then, you just need to wait for the minute hand to come around to your color of clothes pin to fly. It helps if someone with a loud voice watches the clock and yells out the colors (e.g. "BLUE HELI") as they come up. With our split, each pilot can fly in four five minute slots per hour.
We have found that having six planes in the air is very busy, but typically someone is fixing their plane or talking, so most of the time there are only five up.
A few other hints:
1. make sure that the colors are clearly different - we had to paint some of our clothespins to make them work well.
2. Paint the inside of the box white so that the colors stand out.
3. The number of colors, clothespins per color, and number of clothespins each pilot can take are flexible according to number of pilots, but try to stick to combinations of minutes per slot and number of clothespins that divide evenly into an hour. Otherwise, someone has to stay by the clock all the time and keep moving the clothes pins around. (five colors with six minute slots would be good, six colors with six minutes would be a pain).
4. Remind everyone to put their clothespins back at the end of the night.
5. Find out who in your club has a loud voice and get them to yell out the changes.
6. Remind everyone to be reasonable with changing colors. If some slots are packed, and some are lightly used, go ahead and change colors, but do it in the spirit of equalizing the flying time, not to grab some extra slots for yourself.
The gym can get pretty crowded for indoor flying - it is only available for a couple of hours and everyone wants to get in as much flying time as possible. With the advent of 2.4GHz there is not as much need to control frequencies, but fair allocation of flying time is still a challenge. On of our members, Xavier Moraux, described a system that he had seen at another club and we adapted it to our needs.
The key element is a clock - ours came from Wal-mart. It was removed from its case, and a 1 inch wide ring of 1/8 inch masonite was glued along the clock's circumference. This allows colored clothespins to be clipped at regular intervals around the clock - we use two of each of six colors of clothespins, dividing the hour into 12 five minute slots.
The clock is mounted in a box (ours is from a LCD computer monitor box), with three divisions on each of the two side flaps. Each division corresponds with one of the clothes pin colors. We have split the colors giving four to airplanes and two to helicopters (that matches our typical split of pilots, but we have also used three and three when the split was more even). At the start of the night we put six clothes pins of each color on the corresponding divisions. As each member comes in he is permitted to take two pins - two airplane, two heli, or one of each. Then, you just need to wait for the minute hand to come around to your color of clothes pin to fly. It helps if someone with a loud voice watches the clock and yells out the colors (e.g. "BLUE HELI") as they come up. With our split, each pilot can fly in four five minute slots per hour.
We have found that having six planes in the air is very busy, but typically someone is fixing their plane or talking, so most of the time there are only five up.
A few other hints:
1. make sure that the colors are clearly different - we had to paint some of our clothespins to make them work well.
2. Paint the inside of the box white so that the colors stand out.
3. The number of colors, clothespins per color, and number of clothespins each pilot can take are flexible according to number of pilots, but try to stick to combinations of minutes per slot and number of clothespins that divide evenly into an hour. Otherwise, someone has to stay by the clock all the time and keep moving the clothes pins around. (five colors with six minute slots would be good, six colors with six minutes would be a pain).
4. Remind everyone to put their clothespins back at the end of the night.
5. Find out who in your club has a loud voice and get them to yell out the changes.
6. Remind everyone to be reasonable with changing colors. If some slots are packed, and some are lightly used, go ahead and change colors, but do it in the spirit of equalizing the flying time, not to grab some extra slots for yourself.