The Invincible Part 2

Our narrative thus far: Willie Watson, a middle-of-the-pack competitor suddenly started winning every contest he entered. His sailplane the Invincible with a bulbous nose, four trailing edge control surfaces and a strange polka dot color scheme, was always guarded by a family member and was an object of much curiosity among contest competitors. Sam, Joe and Bill hatched a scheme to get a closer look at the Invincible. They watched until Willie retired to the woods to commune with nature and his daughter who was guarding the sailplane went into the van. Sam picked up the sailplane and took it to a prearranged spot where Joe and Bill were waiting. With some difficulty they removed the hatch and looked inside the fuselage .......

There was a bird in the nose! A semi-naked bird. The feathers had been removed on parts of its wings and it had no tail feathers at all. It had electronic sensors attached to its wings, rump and legs. The wires from these sensors ran to a small black box which was attached to the receiver servo receptacles. The servo wires were plugged into the black box. Other wires from the black box ran to small sensors on the outside of the wing and back to the tail. The sensors were round spots that accounted for the strange polka dot appearance of the sailplane. The hatch was a one way mirror so that the bird could see out but nobody could see in. Sam, Joe and Bill looked at the bird and at one another incredulously. The bird looked back at them and chirped. It seemed happy and not at all frightened. Later, Willie, allowing that he knew his secret would come out sooner or later, confessed all.

Willie's Uncle Albert was Professor Albert Watson, a renowned ornithologist at the local university. He had gotten his PhD for an extensive study of soaring bird flight and how raptors and other soaring birds sensed lift to maximize the soaring element of their flight envelope to minimize energy expenditure. For years he had continued experiments, attaching sensors and tiny transmitters to birds to study bird flight. He published his results and became the recognized expert in his field.

Willie became interested in RC soaring and often discussed his efforts to find lift with his uncle to try to get some input that might give him and advantage over his fellow contestants. This didn't do much good for Willie until his uncle came up with the idea of wiring up a bird so that it received sensory inputs as if it were in flight, and other sensors would monitor the birds responses.

Professor Watson had a rare South American species that was intelligent and docile. Uncle Albert had raised several of these birds from chicks in his laboratory, ensuring that they would be friendly and cooperative in what he regarded as an important experiment that would further his knowledge and his reputation.

So Willie built a sailplane based on current design standards so he knew it would fly well and be competitive in its own right. He modified it to accommodate the bird, and, to take advantage of the bird's total wing configuration flexibility, he split the trailing edge into four segments that looked like four ailerons/flaps to observers. He simulated the bird's tail by a V tail having the ruddervators split as well (Sam, Joe and Bill hadn't noticed this). Control surfaces were operated by twelve miniature servos connected to a special circuit (the black box) which routed the bird's sensory responses to the right servo to emulate the movement of the feathers. When the bird sensed lift it just did what was natural to it and circled in the thermal. Of course the Invincible could not flap its wings, so Willie was able to override the birds input with his computer transmitter to bring the sailplane back to the field and land. The bird turned out to be smarter than they thought and after a few landings got the idea and guided the plane to the spot, which was a bonus and really helped Willie win all his contests.

Willie asked Sam, Joe and Bill to keep his secret to protect his Uncle and they agreed if Willie agreed to compete henceforth on an equal footing with everyone else, namely, to forego the bird. The word of Professor Watson's experiments with live birds did get out somehow, not through the Soaring community, though. Somebody wrote a nasty letter to the New York Times about this being another example of cruelty to animals, even though the bird had bonded with Uncle Albert and seemed quite happy with its life in the laboratory and in Invincible. However, Professor Watson, ever mindful of his reputation, discontinued his experimentation with live birds and Willie went back to placing in the middle of the pack.

Recently the good Professor met with an unfortunate accident. He was studying birds in the Congo, slipped into a river and was eaten by a crocodile. So, being the Bill of the trio who made the Invincible discovery, I now feel free to tell the story, and you are the first to know the truth.

by Bill Cavanaugh
From the November 1996 BASS Newsletter
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