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A Bird’s Eye View of SLAC
By Linda DuShane White
Steve Williams (RD) loves to fly planes. In recent years, he has used
his radio controlled plane to take spectacular photographs of the coast
and of the SLAC site. Williams is active in the Peninsula Aeromodelers,
a club with a runway located next to the ocean in Half Moon Bay.
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An aerial photo of SLAC taken from the
remote controlled plane. (Photo by
Steve Williams) |
Williams’ enthusiasm is catching. “I first got interested
in radio controlled planes back in 1967 when I was a graduate student at
Berkeley. I used to fly a little airplane with a one-button radio in
Tilden Park. Later on in the ‘70’s I built a Heathkit and I flew it for
many years down at Redwood Shores.” His current plane is called an ARF
or ‘almost ready to fly’. The kit is quick and easier than designing
your own.
Aerial photography came around recently due to the availability of
small, light weight high quality cameras. In the 1970’s heavy 35 mm
cameras or instamatics were problematic because they didn’t have
autowind and could only take one picture at a time. The advent of
lightweight digital cameras introduced the possibility of using the
radio controlled airplane for something useful since you can now take
one picture every three seconds continuously for 12 minutes.
Williams’ largest plane has a seven foot wingspan, a brushless electric
motor, nickel metal hydride battery 3AH (ampere hours) and 19 volts. It
uses an electronic shutter between the radio receiver and the camera. “I
bought it just for the purpose of flying high. It is a very gentle large
flyer that can be seen from far away with its bright colors.” He needs
to be able to see the plane when it gets up high enough (~1,500 feet) to
get dramatic shots, and this one is easy to see. A Sony U30 4.5 ounce, 2
megapixel camera that stores about 250 pictures was installed in the
plane.
Williams uses his photographs as way of sharing SLAC with others. “It
occurred to me that SLAC as a facility was pretty interesting. The
pictures make a good way to communicate with people, to let them know
what SLAC is all about.”
Williams also owns several smaller electric-powered planes mainly to fly
aerobatics: rolls, loops and snaps. Picture miniature Blue Angels,
unmanned and navigated by radio! His collection has a few park flyers,
including one that looks like a ladybug. “I used to fly alcohol-powered
engines planes,” says Williams. “They are banned in many parks and
ballfields because of the loud noise they make and they are messy
because of the castor oil in the fuel.”
Although they have a lot of power and fly quite well, Williams has sold
his nitro-alcohol engines since electric planes have virtually the same
performance without the mess and noise. “The advent of brushless
electric motors and excellent high-capacity batteries that were
developed for cell phones can power a plane for a long time, 10 or 20
minutes.”
Williams came to SLAC in 1966 while working on his thesis for Berkeley.
In 1969 he returned as a PostDoc, and has been at SLAC for a total of 34
years. He was away for four years for two separate forays. He went off
to work in a medical research environment and found doctors got all the
credit. He went off to industry and found out the financial people got
all the credit there. “I’m glad SLAC keeps hiring me back. I came back
to SLAC in 1988. SLAC is for physicists and that’s where I want to be.
It’s run by physicists for physicists. I’m not leaving again.”
For more aerial views, see the Picture Gallery:
http://www.pam-rc.org/
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