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 Yesterday we decided to take a trip to the medieval fortress in Rasnov, Brasov county. The compelling reason for me was the presence of Tritonic Publishing House and of its general manager, Bogdan Hrib, who decided to organize an airsoft shooting range in the area. A must see, for me…
Tritonic is the organizer of the book section of the Historical Film Festival in Rasnov. The movies are displayed mostly in the city movie hall, save the last two each day. These last two are projected on a large inflatable screen in front of – and, maybe later, in place of – the scene. This scene is where the children participating at the first edition of the international children canto contest “Liga Campionilor” (“Champions’ League”) perform on. This contest is taking place in the same area, the fortress main yard, as I write this post, although it is not a part of the film festival.
Continue reading The Historical Film Festival in Rasnov
 Like I said in a previous post, I came in contact with a very nice outdoor leisure activity called “airsoft”. 16 years ago I had my last shooting session (with LIVE ammo), as a student at the Romanian MTA, and I’ve been searching for ways to try this practice again ever since. Given that in Romania it is forbidden to own firearms (except for certain categories of people such as hunters and those in the military, police or other special services) this was a difficult task, to say the least. Yet it proved to be possible in the form of a non-lethal copy of a real weapon, a copy that fires 6 mm plastic ball bullets (BBs) at velocities up to 160 m/s. Continue reading Operation Black Thunder – 2010
 About one year ago I bought a very, very cool foamie. Expensive as hell for a foamie, but it flies heavenly. I’m talking about Multiplex‘s Acromaster, a very well engineered (German, d’oh…) air model. While the technical specs are rather common (around 1010 mm – 1,01 m – wingspan, 1120 mm length, powered by a 3536-class electric motor developing almost 1,3 kgf of thrust when using an 11×5,5 in propeller and powered from a 11,1 V (3S) 2200 mAh, 20C Li-po battery pack) the plane is wonderful to fly. The first time I flew it (during this contest) I’ve been amazed by its fantastic agility and very good aerobatic capabilities but also by its ability to react calmly to inputs (in a different setup, of course), which makes it both a great 3D plane and a very good second plane. I’ve been witness to this usage, when Romulus dared to fly it after only three months spent with R/C gliders. Continue reading Vivat Acromaster!
A while ago a friend of mine was telling me that he plays “airsoft”. Air+soft… not necessarily a self-explanatory syntax – or is it?
(For the record, when I was a kid we used polyethylene pipes – the rigid tubing used to build the cable ducts in concrete walls / floors / ceilings – cut 80-120 cm long to shoot paper cones by blowing HARD. Some idiots would put needles in the cones’ tips, which was rather dangerous, but most sane kids would not. Definitely, by the end of the day the areas around our blocks were white from the “used ammo”, cones of paper all over and, naturally, all parents and neighbors outraged by the insane mess we left behind. Those devices were using “air” and the ammunition was indeed soft. But it required a lot of effort to blow hard through an entire day, and ammo was scarce and difficult to make out of notebook sheets. Eh… those were the days…)
The game of “airsoft” has been played for the first time in Japan, around 1970. Since the Japanese law forbids or dinary citizens to own/use firearms (a pretty decent idea, the same is valid here in Romania as well) people started using tiny (6 mm, 0,2 – 0,3 g) plastic balls to shoot each other with. Around this leisure activity an enormous industry has grown in a very short time, since this game provides good entertainment and lets people get close to military-grade combat – as close as possible within a given set of safety constraints. It allows them to carry military-style equipment (suits, vests), protections (elbow- and knee-protections, helmets, safety goggles – by the way, the safety goggles are MANDATORY in an airsoft-playing area / complex!), comms systems (radios, groovy!) and, most important, “WEAPONS”. Ok, ok, not the real “iron” but a close enough replica, made of better – or less better – materials, like iron, ABS, aluminum or plastic. These devices are usually powered by a separate power supply like a gas tank (as is in paintball) or an electric battery. There are bolt-action devices as well: sniper rifles, shotguns and pistols. A lot can be said about it, but I’ll let you parse the Wikipedia article where you’ll find more details and links. Continue reading Airsoft
WARNING: this post is in Romanian. For certain personal reasons, I chose this approach. If you’d like a translation, let me know and I’ll try to provide one.
 Stiu ca blogul asta e in engleza. Ma rog, l-am migrat eu la engleza cu oarece timp in urma. Dar bucuria pe care am simtit-o azi ma face sa doresc sa scriu in romana. Asta pentru ca s-ar putea sa citeasca postul asta si anumite persoane, care nu sunt neaparat foarte bine familiarizate cu engleza.
Astazi am avut parte de “materializarea” unuia dintre cele mai mari dintre dorintele mele. De mai bine de 20 de ani, de cand unchi-miu Sergiu mi-a pus prima data o radiocomanda in mana – pentru un velier cu radiocomanda, nu va inchipuiti avion din prima  – mi-am dorit sa ies si eu cu el, sa zburam impreuna, fiecare cu “pasaroiul” propriu si personal. Continue reading Un vis devenit realitate
It is one week – or even less – until this year’s Aeropower Indoor Challenge event, which takes place, as usual, in the Concordia sports hall in the nice village of Chiajna, near Bucharest. Given that Milady has bought me an indoor flying model – Malibu F3P – as a Christmas present (on the condition that I go there to fly, and given that my indoor flying time was absolute nil, zero, nada, I decided to take the opportunity and join my friend Allen in a trip to Buzau, 120 km off Bucharest to the NE, for an indoor air models contest to be held there. So we loaded everything up around 06:40 this morning and we left for Buzau. The trip was more than ok, despite the -23 degrees Celsius on the road, and though the news reported the evening before that the road was closed due to snowstorms we found that the tarmac was dry as in hot summer. The only difference was in the snow on the roadside – and on the plains along the way… Continue reading First indoor RC flight attempts
I like taking pictures. It’s already stated in my profile, if I remember correctly. And so far I managed to take quite a bunch (over 20k) with my old Canon EOS 300D (Digital Rebel) – and boy, are they some nice memories! Still, the camera’s early technology was annoying me by the day, and despite the fact that I bought an extra battery (the original one, now around 6 years old, would give up rather soon especially when I would make heavy use of the Tamron 80-210 mm “gun”, let alone several flash fires) it was still annoying me when it came to downloading the pictures to the computer over the snail USB1.1 link. I had to replace the battery a couple of times in order to “persuade” it to download all 880 photos shot by Milady at the maiden flight of my new Extra 300S.
Now, my old Tamron, bought in 2001 during a trip to the Netherlands (just a mere months before the lift of the visa requirement for Romanian citizens traveling to the Schengen area) is a decent lens for its price tag, and I bought it together with my first SLR camera, a Canon EOS 3000 (film camera) since I always dreamed about such a camera paired with some reasonable telephoto lens. Until yesterday this lens did its job, although it’s possible that it got some dust specks within (they may be on the sensor as well, but I dare not get my hands on the sensor neither have I the knowledge and tools required to disassemble the “gun”) and the shots against the sky tend to emphasize them. Continue reading More – and better – photos
Mai mult carat de doamna (care e cu masinutele, eu sunt ala cu avioanele) am zis ca “hai, dom’le, sa mergem la Renault Roadshow, ca la cat tam-tam i-au facut poate chiar o fi ceva de vazut”. Ok, intrucat ieri la 11 noaptea eram chiaun de somn, azi ne-am trezit pe la 11 si intr-un final apoteotic pe la 12:30 eram spre Piata Constitutiei, o picatura din suvoiul enorm care se bulucea prin preajma zonei de spectacol, ca sa zic asa.
De vazut, ce sa zic… am cam avut ce vedea. In apropierea zonei centrale – unde practic incepe acel enorm semicerc ce descrie Piata Constitutiei – am avut o deschidere destul de buna, si in ciuda faptului ca nu vedeam capatul dinspre Piata Cosbuc, de unde veniseram, am avut o perspectiva interesanta asupra zonei centrale, unde am putut urmari niste evolutii incantatoare. Continue reading Renault Roadshow Bucuresti
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Yesterday we decided to take a trip to the medieval fortress in Rasnov, Brasov county. The compelling reason for me was the presence of Tritonic Publishing House and of its general manager, Bogdan Hrib, who decided to organize an airsoft shooting range in the area. A must see, for me…
