Hello RCPRO Members,
This is the first newsletter for RCPRO. For those of you who signed up early on, you may not be aware that we now have discussion forums at http://www.rcpro.org/net/Forums.aspx and we have a home page at http://www.rcpro.org. If you have received this email, you are signed up. However, you may not have a Login Name and Password if you signed up in the first year. You can go to the Member List at http://www.rcpro.org/net/MemberList.aspx and look yourself up. If the Login Name is blank, you have two options. You can send me your preferred login name which should be the first and last name that you go by (such as Don Stegall), and a password. If your information is out of date, or if you want immediate access, just join again for free at http://www.rcpro.org/net/nologin/MembershipApp.aspx. A password retrieval system will be online soon for those of you who have forgotten your login information.
There have been a lot of changes to the RCPRO web site. One addition is a "Calculators for Aero-Modeling" page at http://www.rcpro.org/rccalc/Main.aspx which currently has calculators for Pitch Speed and G-Force. I know a lot of the Electric propulsion programs have a pitch speed feature, but this calculator is convenient for quick calculations. It can also take a propeller pitch and speed in miles per hour and give the minimum required RPM to achieve that speed. New calculators are coming soon.
We also have an Articles section at http://www.rcpro.org/html/articles/articles.htm that is a collection of pages and links to threads that have information that is timely and timeless.
The AMA Racing page at http://www.rcpro.org/html/ama_racing/ama_racing.htm has the AMA Radio Control Pylon Racing rules from the 2002-2004 cycle in browser and printer friendly formats. There were very few changes for 2005 and they will soon be incorporated. There are selections for the AMA Event-Specific Rule Formulas which have the rules for that event and links to the PylonWorld.com pages that contain information about the sources for those events.
The RCPRO forum software is being custom developed to meet the needs of the RCPRO organization. One feature that was missing until recently was photo uploads. Photos and other documents under 3 megabytes in size can now be attached to messages. You can attach as many files as you wish. Allowable extensions are: jpg, gif, bmp, txt, doc, pdf, htm, html. Each attachment can also contain a description so that photos or documents can be annotated with titles and other information. The "Show us your racing planes" thread at http://www.rcpro.org/net/ThreadView.aspx?threadid=363 is just waiting for photos of your racing planes.
One feature unique to the RCPRO forum software is that forums can be accessed via phone web browsers and PDA web browsers. Just point your device to www.rcpro.org and you will be redirected to a version of the web site that is appropriate for your device. I carry a PDA phone and love being able to keep up on happenings even when I can't get to a computer with web access. There are actually 3 different versions of mobile access. WAP enabled phones can go directly to wap.rcpro.org, while other mobile devices can go directly to mobile.rcpro.org. Pocket PC and other limited HTML browsers can go directly to html32.rcpro.org for a mobile experience that is more like the full forum software. You can read more about mobile access at http://www.rcpro.org/net/ThreadView.aspx?threadid=362.
That brings up another topic worthy of mention. There are now forums for announcing changes to the RCPRO.org and the PylonWorld.com web sites. Visit the RCPRO.org News forum (http://www.rcpro.org/net/Forums.aspx?forumid=5) and the PylonWorld.com News forum (http://www.rcpro.org/net/Forums.aspx?forumid=6) for the latest information about changes and new additions to the web sites.
The first RCPRO Warbird Race was held at SpeedWorld in Phoenix, Arizona in September of 2004. The RCPRO Warbird Rules are a refinement of the warbird racing rules that have been used around the country in various formats over the years. Visit the RCPRO Racing page at http://www.rcpro.org/html/rules/rules.htm to see the RCPRO Warbird Rules.
The RCPRO Racing page also has two proposed events that may be of interest. Formula 1 Sport is based on planes that are approximately 1/4 scale models of real Formula 1 planes. QM-40 Sport is based on the AMA Q-40 event, but with the same types of engines used for Sport Quickie.
There are a lot more RCPRO happenings that I could talk about, but I'm going to leave them for a future installment.
Thanks for joining RCPRO and participating in the sport of R/C pylon racing regardless of the type of aircraft you build or fly.
Don Stegall
RCPRO - Chairman of the Board
http://www.PylonWorld.com
http://www.rcpro.org
704-968-2881