Watching Ron Wanttaja's Tail Rise

On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 10:07:53 -0600, "JohnT." wrote:

Ron, That was a pretty cool video, and that prop effect was just plain
weird!

I liked Carlos' explanation. It's too bad the effect is there; now that I know
the setup can work, I could probably spend a few more bucks on a decent camera
and duplicate it without the squiggle. But now that I've done it, the urge is
off. I haven't even touched the camera since I put it on the axle for the
Arlington fly-in back in July. I'd like to do a wing-tip mounting (pointing
towards the cockpit) but I'm not too confident on the whether the wingtip light
mount could take the drag load with the camera pointed sideways..

Where do you fly from? I'd hate to have to find that field among all the
industrial buildings the first time!

I fly from Scobee Field, Auburn, Washington (S50). It's located in
~2.5-mile-wide valley, with, as you note, industrial buildings all around. One
saving grace is that the airport is located directly next to the Emerald Downs
horse-racing track, which has a large grandstand building painted bright green.
They light it up nicely at night, too...here's a picture I took from the west
side of the valley with about ~75 feet of ground fog on the valley floor:

http://www.wanttaja.com/nighttime1.jpg

The green splotch to the left of center is the race track.

Two other points of local interest from the video: During the takeoff, you can
make out a set of large powerlines about quarter-mile north of the runway (ahead
of the plane on takeoff). These are the powerlines a local student flew through
about ten years ago:

http://www.wanttaja.com/avlinks/wire.htm

(BTW, the airplane was repaired and is still flying from Auburn.)

The second point...when I turn from crosswind to downwind, just for a
moment...you can see my house. :-)

Ron Wanttaja