Model airplanes and more, for the masses

Watching DVB's TV program on radio-controlled model planes a few days back, I have this nostalgia for my high school days when I frequently did my round of window shopping at one particular shop on the east side of the then Latta (now Latha) street in downtown Yangon. So far as I could remember, it was the only place where they display a miniature diesel engine for a model airplane for sale at that time. I remember it as a sleek 0.5 cc engine and the price was a bit over 40 kyats. Those days, it was indeed a steep price for a school boy from a home which was struggling to make ends meet. The brand of the engine I remember was “Frog”--yes, that's right, I just confirmed it from the Web!

Those days too, I wasn't able to afford to buy even a kit of model airplane made of Balsa wood with its propeller powered by a rubber band. Yet I could save enough to buy a solid model kit of the famous American Jet fighter Sabre, cut and shaped it, assembled, painted, and polished it and manged to win a second price at an aeromodel competition. No wonder, of my many ambitions one was to be an aircraft designer and again like most of my ambitions this also had to be dropped after I completed high school.

Like in the old times my heart still throbs as I watched radio-controlled model planes fly in the DVB program. But the fact is that you not only need to have a stylish model plane that could fly, but you also need good radio-control equipment that alone would cost you something like five to eight hundred thousand kyats. Moreover you'll need a car to take you and your equipment to a big enough free space to fly and which also comes with some piece of paved road to use as a runway. No wonder it is an exclusive rich boys' club about twenty strong, though I spotted one gentleman in his forties or fifties who is also a drone enthusiast.

I looked up about them on the Web and found Myanmar RC Builders & Flyers Club here from where these pictures were taken.

It's good. But what about those pitiful admirers including the ko-yins in saffron robes? Well, here's what they could do.

That was from instructions for making Foam Plate and Plastic Straw Gliders available here.

There is a lot of webpages available for how to make foam plate gliders, but a lot of them ask you to use an electric glue gun and when I looked for the price at a supermarket I found that it would cost a bit over 5000 kyats and a piece of glue stick about 14 inches long will cost you 200 kyats. However, the above source gives instructions on making foam plate gliders using tape for gluing, so that is the one you may prefer.

Well, that is not the end of my story. It is always good to have high enough ambitions I suppose, especially for ordinary folks. So I'll pretend that the straw and foam gliders and paper gliders are nearer to micro air vehicles (that is a biiiiiig leap of faith, but decide for yourselves) than the radio-controlled model airplanes which are nearer to real airplanes at our service and so that's nothing new.

How about this:

“With no motor and only about 10 parts, the Cicada resembles a paper airplane with a circuit board”. See what I mean!

While different nations have been doing all-out MAV research, the Black Hornet MAV first used by UK troops in Afghanistan in 2012 is yet to be beaten. It has been described as the spy plane that fits in the palm of your hand.

However it doesn't come cheap; the price is 20m pounds for just 160 units! But it is said to be considerably more advanced than anything that would be found on a remote-controlled aircraft; the motors, servos and sensors are smaller and more efficient; the radio-link is more advanced, the system has fully integrated GPS, as well an autopilot system, and is far more robust.

“Developed by Norwegian firm Prox Dynamics — which began life developing devices for the remote-control plane market — the tiny vehicle weighs just 15g and measures around 10 by 2.5cm. … Launched by hand and controlled via a tablet, the device is equipped with a tiny video camera and video downlink that it uses to relay real-time footage to its operators.”

But the most interesting research currently is the development of flapping-wing vehicles that mimic bird and insect flight. It is commonly believed that micro fixed wing airplanes and helicopters outperform MAVs at the size of birds, but become inferior to flapping MAVs at the size of insects. As for the flying insects they have refined their flight over 300 million years of evolution so their method is exceptionally power efficient, silent and allow them to be incredibly agile. By mimicking them researchers hope to create a new generation of tiny air vehicles capable of operating in confined spaces and inside buildings.

As for me, one of these days I am going to show you my paper glider that kept me thrilled (for a modest few seconds to be frank, because that's the limit of their flying time) and you only need some smooth and rigid enough paper, a scissor, and some cooked rice soft enough to use as paste. But I can't promise. So it will be better to start your own project right now, and … happy flying!

And don't be selfish. Let the kids have your glider and better still, share your design secrets.

Beyond all reason

I was in our local dama-yon, the community hall for Buddhists this afternoon, the fourth day of our water festival. This place has been our polling station for the landmark general elections of last November. On the same gray board that carried the name of the candidates for the election, I saw two calendars. The wind has changed. I see it flutters the leaves of time. You'll need to tear off the old ones to keep up with the present so as to be ready for the future.

I haven't seen Padauk, the seasonal flower of the water festival yet. They mark the transition from old to the new Myanmar year and Padauk should be here any time soon I guess.

We all are hoping to welcome a Myanmar new year full of peace and promise. Yet for the present, we may soon see problems on the table that threatened to suffocate and swallow us bit by bit like a constrictor. Some, like the Myitsone Dam problem would not leave us alone until it has been resolved one way or another.

It is perfectly legitimate for you or me or anyone to say YES or NO to the Myitsone Dam. But it has to come from the bottom of your heart and with a clear conscience. Clearly it is our birthright to have a say. Then allow me to refuse to listen to any arguments for or against the Dam because I won't be able to understand them anyway, or else choose not to understand and that won't make a difference for me. With a problem of such scale, no analysis would be broad enough or deep enough to best serve the peoples of our land or our future generations. In such a situation, all the fine analysis, faultless arguments, and intricate logic won't do. For, what is more justifiable than the genuine will of the people?

Beyond all reason has been a phrase meaning idiocy that is unthinkable and it would have been used here and abroad for condemning “such blind denial in the name of will of the people”. I take that differently. In fact, the will of people is over and above all reason because no amount of reasoning will be good enough to resolve a problem big enough to be resolvable only by people's genuine will.

Anyway, let each of us exercise this right by ourselves and then let me point out that the burden of proof against the primacy of people's will rests on those who disagree. And now, Myitsone is in distress. Because we are fed and sheltered by this land, these waters, and this sky, shouldn't we be sensitive to their woes? If we can't express our gratitude decently and repay this debt in our life time shouldn't we let our children and their children and their children do it in their times and beyond? Shouldn't we better leave the hardest part to the future generations with their better knowledge and more advanced technologies and in doing so reserve finer rewards when, where, and for whom these are rightly due?

Nevertheless beware of this dirty device: When reason fails, the Devil helps. That means “When all the usual, sensible, known methods or procedures fail to get you out of a jam; you take whatever measures needed to force a solution”. We need to be constantly on the alert for such foul play and endure!

Myanmar Trivia

In Ya-da-na-bon, the academy award wining Myanmar movie, one of my favorite scenes was when the heroine’s young nephew asked the hero's name and U Tun Myat the advocate answered the child: “Uncle's name is Maung Tun Myat”.

Quite a while ago, I was surprised and annoyed when a younger coworker I've known for years called me up by phone and says: “Are you ahkogyi? I am U Doe!” (အကိုကြီးလား။ကျွန်တော် ဦးဒိုးပါ။). In our language the pronoun “I” has a number of variants depending on the occasion and on who you are, and your gender. For males ကျွန်တော် which literally means “a king's subject” could be used to refer to yourself in addressing a superior, or used among the equals as a humble gesture. On the other hand, the prefix to a name U (ဦး) is used for addressing a male considerably older than yourself or a male of respectable social status or with some official position. We have similar usages for the females also and that's how we grew up with our Myanmar language.

So I may be excused for being annoyed when I hear this combination of “I” and “U”. So irritating to my ears (နားကလောပါတယ်). I think the correct way should be to use “Are you ahkogyi? I am Maung Doe!” (အကိုကြီးလား။ကျွန်တော် မောင်ဒိုးပါ။). Here ahkogyi means “big brother”. And here's some references:

Well, in real life we keep on hearing this combination of “I” and “U” regularly at least for the last five years and still today when I tuned in my favorite channels on radio or TV. It has been virtually institutionalized!

If I am not mistaken, the fact was that I wasn't aware of such misuse of Myanmar language throughout my career as a government employee until I left it in the early nineteen-nineties. When has this “official” culture of self-esteem (over)developed? It's so much unlike our humble and polite manners.

I wish I could show you the movie clip of U Tun Myat the advocate telling his name to the child!