Divergent Phugoid,

I understand your feelings entirely. That has always been my reaction to anyone raising money for such ventures - why should I fund their holiday? I shouldn't, and neither should you or anyone else.

However, perhaps you should have read the first post of this thread:
I figure £800 will cover the costs of the trip. In fact, having travelled in that area, and knowing flight costs and living expenses and so on, I'm almost certain it will. I decided to do that in advance for exactly the reason you mention. I'm no saint; I'm doing it all because I want to ride a camel across the Gobi. But I'm not expecting you or anyone else to fund that for me.

I tried to make all of the above perfectly clear. I asked people to give me things they no longer needed, rather than waste them. I can sell them to people who want them, and give the money to a good cause. Everyone gains; no-one loses. But if anyone doesn't want to, that's absolutely fine with me. I'm in no way saying they SHOULD give me stuff, or complaining if they don't. Someone did that on another forum, and I was the first (and loudest!) to complain about it.

I hope that makes things a little clearer.

BTW way, hate to show my ignorance, but what's a divergent phugoid?

Whirly - I'm a computer eng, but my basic understanding of a phugoid (from 7 yrs involved with flight testing of military aircraft avionics) is that it is a way of assessing the long period longitudinal instability of the aircraft. The aircraft is set up and trimmed in S&L flight and the control column is pushed / pulled to upset the pitch stability of the aircraft. The length of time taken to recover to S&L flight (and the number of pitch oscillations) is a measure of the stability of the aircraft and the graph of the pitch characteristics of the aircraft describes a phugoid. A divergent phugoid is one where there is negative stability and the amplitude of the pitch oscillations increases (as I say, I'm not an expert and this is just my basic understanding of the subject - Geng the Eng is your man for a detailed techie description!).

The closest equivalent analogy I can think of is the shock absorbers on your car - if you depress one corner of the car, the correct response (assuming good shock absorbers) is a decaying sinusoidal pitch oscillation.

Phugoid diagram

Detailed mathematical analysis

[Edited to add URL for mathematical analysis]

C B.. Thank you, you have saved me having to explain.

Another everyday way to describe it albeit not an exact anology is a 'Tank Slapper" on a motorcycle. (and no thats not what to call DP's Lady Friend!);)

As for my post, sorry for venting my annoiance on you... I have just funded a "mates" trip to the desert on a similar jaunt.

He was raising money for a charity to save Orphoned protected species, elephant calfs and the like and had raised around the three thousand five hundred pound mark pound mark. When we asked how the funds were going to be handed over, the thinking was there was going to be an event held on the base where the monies were going to be presented in style and his reply was 'Oh didnt I tell you, Im going over there for two weeks (with wife in tow) and the cheque will be presented then'

And Yes his trip was funded out of the monies raised. Total donation?? around 900 pounds!

Guess the feeling of the other donating individuals when this little bomblet was dropped!!


:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: or something like that!!

:ok

CB,
Thank you for that.

DF,
I can understand your annoyance. And your "mate" hadn't told you either!!! That sort of thing gives charity fundraising a bad name. I recently helped fund a friend's charity trip to Madagasgar, but she'd helped me a lot, so I didn't mind too much. But otherwise my first question to people tends to be: "How much are you contributing?" And if they aren't, I won't either.

Whirly, I am just going to unstick this for a week whilst the fly-in vote is up there. Hope that is ok. :)

Whirly,

Hadn't forgotten that I said I would send you some old charts, honest.

Just got round to digging them out the loft and I think I will need to get a very large box to put them in !! Plus a new mortgage for the postage :ugh:

Have managed to find over 100 (yes one hundred !!!) RAF Low and High Altitude Nav charts and about half a dozen sets of US DoD Low Altitude Europe/North Africa/Middle East chart sets (about 11 charts in each I think).

All around 1998-2000 vintage I think. We carried them in our Operations room and they were replaced several times a year (AIRAC changes) so I always grabbed the old ones for flight simmer friends instead of seing them go straight in the bin.

Probably be a few weeks before I can get them to you as I'm off out and about for the next few weeks and literally only home for about 12 hours each week to change laundry and stuff. Sometime in mid February suit you ??

For interest, the full list is here with the chart number and the copies I have of each in brackets at the end. Maybe if someone on PPRuNe is interested before I get them to you they can make a bid direct to you before they appear on e-Bay and once you have tied up the details I can then send them out direct ??

Full details of the RAF charts, their coverage, etc can be found here


RAF 1AIDU En Route Charts

RAF High Altitude En Route

UK(H)2 British Isles (7)
UK(H)6 Atlantic Transition (2)
EU(H)SP1 UK to Mediteranean (16)
EU(H)6 Iceland & North Norway (5)
EU(H)7 Iceland & South Norway (7)
EU(H)9 Iberian Peninsula (19)
EU(H)12 Baltic Sea (11)
EU(H)13 Central Europe (9)
AT(H)ST1 UK to Ascension (2)
AT(H)1 Polar (1)
AT(H)2 North Atlantic & North Canada (4)
AT(H)3 North Atlantic (4)
AT(H)4 Atlantic & Caribbean (7)
AF(H/L)2 Central Africa (3)

RAF Low Altitude En Route

UK(L)SP1 Channel (4)
UK(L)2 British Isles (6)
UK(L)3 Faroe & Shetland Isles (3)
UK(L)4 Southwest Approaches (3)
UK(L)5 North Sea West (3)
EU(L)1 North Sea East (7)
EU(L)6 Iceland & North Norway (5)
EU(L)7 Iceland & South Norway (15)
EU(L)9 Iberian Peninsula (12)
EU(L)10 Mediterranean West (7)


US DoD En Route Charts

North Atlantic Route Chart (4)
Europe, North Africa & Middle East En Route Chart Set (11 charts = 22 separate maps) (8 sets)


Another space in the loft for more junk now :)

BRL,
No problem. I much appreciated it being stickified (is that a word?) in the first place.

PPRuNe Radar,
Many thanks, and mid-Feb is absolutely fine. I really hope you don't have to spend a furtune on postage though! Maybe it's worthing sending a dozen or so first to see how much they make. Unless of course someone on PPRuNe wants to buy them - any takers?

I now have Keef's bag of goodies, so they'll be going on Ebay as soon as I get time. Also a couple of flight guides from PPRuNers, which may wait a while, as putting them on one at a time is a good idea so I don't split the bids.

Fundrasing now up to £2100, though I have a small fortune in Ebay fees to pay out of that later this month (exaggeration; more like £30-40). Less than £500 to go!!!!!!!!!!

Many many many thanks to you all. :ok:

B.T.T.T..........................

Whirly - this had disappeared onto Page 4, so felt it needed to come back to the top!

Will be posting you my 2003 Pooleys today / tomorrow - sorry, as I'm taking after the natives of my adopted homeland, I've held onto the binder for my 2004 issue!! ;)

It was a close run thing - I generally like to have a Pooleys in my desk at work (for dreaming with!), but felt that your need was greater than mine! :D

CB, many thanks. Old Pooleys are making less than they used to since lots of other people have copied my idea and flooded Ebay - but they still sell, so it's worth it.

I've now just passed the £2200 mark, so only £300 to go! :ok: Keef's big bag of stuff did very well, and Airbedane's big box - which cost him a small fortune to post - looks set to do even better.

If anyone wants to buy any of these - and Airbedane's ex-RAF stuff has some really interesting and useful items - they're all in "pilot gear" in the aviation section of Ebay -
http://listings.ebay.co.uk/aw/plisti...x.html?from=R4

Only £250 to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

Circuit Basher and Airbedane,

Thanks for the 2003 Pooleys. I'll put them on Ebay as soon as I've sold the 2002 one which I have there at the moment.

Only £250 to go, nearly there, but....almost nothing left to sell. :{ If anyone would like to help me get there, please send donations, aviation items to sell, non-aviation items to sell, junk and utter rubbish and things-no-sane-person-would-want to sell...I can use anything, practically!!! PM me for an address if you can help.

And, again, many thanks to all who donated, to BRL for stickifying this thread for a while, and to everyone else for putting up with this thread. :)

DONE IT!!!!!!
 

I've now raised over £2500!!! :)

Many thanks to everyone for your help.

Big box of maps on the way tomorrow as well ;)

Hope your letter box is at least 2' by 1' :)

PPRuNE Radar,

I don't want to seem ungrateful, but unless they've already been sent, please don't!!!!! I only needed to raise £2500 - and I've done it. And to be honest, I'm sick of packing and sending out parcels - around 200 so far.

If you've already sent it though, no matter, and the Blue Cross will be very grateful for the extra, I'm sure.