GNT Productions

Archive for June, 2010

You’ve heard so many people claim a GPS navigation device is the next best thing to sliced bread, but you haven’t gone out and gotten one yourself yet. Sure, they sound awfully handy, but the also sound pretty complicated to use. After all, don’t you need to understand longitude and latitude, complicated formulas and all kinds of mathematical stuff to use one to its full capacity? Actually, using a GPS navigation device is a whole lot easier than you thought.

Let’s start with location. After all, the most basic question when it comes to navigation is, “Where am I?” When you first turn on your GPS receiver, you will get best performance and most accurate information if you are in an open area. This is particularly important if you will be heading into a densely covered area. The more satellites your receiver can access, the more accurate your information will be, and the best access is in a wide open area away from as many buildings as possible. Obviously if you are using your GPS in your vehicle, for an in-town trip, this may not be possible, but if you are using the device for rural tracking, begin in an open area.

Start by marking your starting point, known as setting a waypoint. Simply go to the Map page and selecting the Mark icon, highlighting the name icon and typing in a name for your first waypoint. Highlight OK and select enter. You can use the Find page to search for previously stored waypoints, cities, or points of interest such as restaurants, lodging, freeway exits and more, depending on the type of software you have.

To find directions to get from one place to another, create a route. This will give you straight-line directions for point A to point B or you can create a route with several destinations. You just go to your Routes tab and highlight Route, and then add your waypoint or destination via your mapping software. Save the destination and voila, you get turn-by-turn directions directing you right to where you want to be. Most GPS navigation receivers allow you to add several destination points so you can plan your entire trip at one time. Many will even line up your destinations according to location so you can save time and miles. Find the perfect GPS navigation receiver and software for your needs and start making your life less complicated today.

Lowrance introduced fish finders onto the market over fifty years ago. Since that time, fish finder technology has continued to improve. Today there is a wide variety of features to look for and choose between. Before you invest your hard-earned money in a fish finder, learn what is available, what you really need and what is worth paying extra for. Here are some features that are worth considering:

Frequency and Power

A fish finder is only as good as the fish that it can find for you. To determine the right frequency for your particular purposes, the rule of thumb is that higher frequency transducers show better detail at greater depth but cover a smaller area while lower frequency transducers cover a larger area and are good in shallow water.  Power is measured in watts. Higher wattage units are able to penetrate deeper waters and provide better results, but if you are on a budget and you primarily fish in shallow water, a modest power supply could be more than enough.

Display

There are two important considerations when choosing your fish finder’s display. The first is resolution. The higher the resolution, the better quality picture you will have and the more clearly you will see the details that the fish finder is able to interpret below the surface. The second consideration is how well the display holds up in strong sunlight. LCD displays that are poorly backlit will not be easy to see out in the middle of the lake with a lot of glare from the sun and reflection off the water. So look for well lit screens that offer high contrast ratios. If at all possible take a look at the unit you are thinking of buying outside in strong sunlight before you sink your hard earned dollars into it.  In general, a higher quality display is well worth extra dollars.

Integrated GPS

If your fish finder is integrated with GPS, it will help you locate your exact position and mark waypoints so that you can record places where you find fish accumulations but also trace routes to getting there so it is easy to go back another time. If you tend to fish in the same location regularly, such as on a single lake, and know your way around the lake, this may or may not be a useful feature. But if you like to venture into new territory, explore new coastlines, or visit new lake locations, this can be a handy feature to invest in.

Other obvious considerations in choosing a fish finder include how it will mount on your boat, and whether or not you will be able to self install or require it to be professionally installed. It is also worth looking at its waterproof rating, whether the controls are intuitive to use and whether it integrates with your other marine electronics. Some fish finders also offer upgradeable features so you can invest a little now and upgrade to a higher frequency transducer later on.

Counter-Rotation Vs Contra-Rotation

One thing that people often get confused with is the diffference between “Contra-Rotation” and “Counter-Rotation”. The terms are used incorrectly more than you could possibly imagine in books, manuals, and on web sites. I wanted to take this opportunity to clear up the difference between the two.

Jerry Airola Helicopter Pilot :“Does the ability to get into Vortex Ring State make the V-22 unsafe?”

No. Almost every helicopter ever made has some unique characteristics. If the pilots are not aware of these characteristics, if they are not properly trained to recognize situations and do not adjust their procedures accordingly, then they could end up in a very serious situation. For example; The UH-1 Iroquois (Huey) had major issues when it first went into production. The UH-1 had then (And still has) a rotor system that pivots at the mast. If the pilot unloads the rotor system by performing a negative “G” maneuver, excessive violent blade flapping can occur. When this happens, the hub of the rotor system will contact the mast and it will make a “thump” noise (Referred to as “Mast Bumping” in the operators manual). It will bump once or twice and then the rotor system will separate from the aircraft. A lot of pilots were killed before they figured out what the problem was. The official fix (According to the operators manual): Do not perform negative “G” maneuvers. The aircraft flew for almost 30 years before they created a modification to the mast which included rubber covered springs to help reduce the severity of a mast bump, but they still do not eliminate the problem completely. Is the Huey unsafe because of this situation? No. It is one of the safest helicopters ever produced. It is just a situation that any Huey pilot knows to avoid. The same goes for the V-22. If I were a V-22 pilot, I would avoid rapid descents and hovering in excessive crosswinds. I would also avoid the downwash of other aircraft. This may require the need for loose formations on landing, which is always a much safer situation for any multi-helicopter operation.





The number, size and type of engine used on a helicopter determines the size, function and capability of that helicopter design. The earliest helicopter engines were simple mechanical devices, such as rubber bands or spindles, which relegated the size of helicopters to toys and small models. For a half century before the first airplane flight, steam engines were used to forward the development of the understanding of helicopter aerodynamics, but the limited power did not allow for manned flight. The introduction of the internal combustion engine at the end of the 19th century became the watershed for helicopter development as engines began to be developed and produced that were powerful enough to allow for helicopters able to lift humans.

Early helicopter designs utilized custom-built engines or rotary engines designed for airplanes, but these were soon replaced by more powerful automobile engines and radial engines. The single, most-limiting factor of helicopter development during the first half of the 20th century was the amount of power produced by an engine was not able to overcome the engine’s weight in vertical flight. This was overcome in early successful helicopters by using the smallest engines available. When the compact, flat engine was developed, the helicopter industry found a lighter-weight powerplant easily adapted to small helicopters, although radial engines continued to be used for lager helicopters.

The CRT screens that I described before serve several purposes. Not only are they for video viewing, target designation, and aircraft instrumentation, but they are also capable for being used for navigation (INS). The new “R” model aircraft manuals refer to it as “EGI/INS” (Embedded Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System). EGI now updates the INS, unless EGI isn’t functioning, then manual updates must be performed over surveyed waypoints to correct for gyroscopic drift in the INS. By inserting lattitude and longitude information, and initializing the aircraft position, the navigation system will tell the pilot where he is if GPS information is not available. On the older models, before the GPS was available, the pilot had to periodically update positional information manually over known waypoints to keep the system accurate, and the navigation system could help him to accurately navigate at low levels. Now EGI will make those updates if available. It now gives even more accurate positional information critical to the adjustment of artillery as well.

In 1906, two French brothers, Jacques and Louis Breguet, began experimenting with airfoils for helicopters and in 1907, those experiments resulted in the Gyroplane No.1. Although there is some uncertainty about the dates, sometime between 14 August and 29 September 1907, the Gyroplane No. 1 lifted its pilot up into the air about two feet (0.6 m) for a minute. However, the Gyroplane No. 1 proved to be extremely unsteady and required a man at each corner of the airframe to hold it steady. For this reason, the flights of the Gyroplane No. 1 are considered to be the first manned flight of a helicopter, but not a free or untethered flight.

The number, size and type of engine used on a helicopter determines the size, function and capability of that helicopter design. The earliest helicopter engines were simple mechanical devices, such as rubber bands or spindles, which relegated the size of helicopters to toys and small models. For a half century before the first airplane flight, steam engines were used to forward the development of the understanding of helicopter aerodynamics, but the limited power did not allow for manned flight. The introduction of the internal combustion engine at the end of the 19th century became the watershed for helicopter development as engines began to be developed and produced that were powerful enough to allow for helicopters able to lift humans.

Early helicopter designs utilized custom-built engines or rotary engines designed for airplanes, but these were soon replaced by more powerful automobile engines and radial engines. The single, most-limiting factor of helicopter development during the first half of the 20th century was the amount of power produced by an engine was not able to overcome the engine’s weight in vertical flight. This was overcome in early successful helicopters by using the smallest engines available. When the compact, flat engine was developed, the helicopter industry found a lighter-weight powerplant easily adapted to small helicopters, although radial engines continued to be used for lager helicopters.