Lemonade!

The JB fellas left their long irrigation wheel system on our runway on noon Saturday through Sunday.  Nice of them.  Bob Ross and I were first to the field today, so we set up pits on the runway, and flew south of the pipes, using the pipes as our imaginary safety fence.  We just taxied back and forth under them.  It worked well, and all who arrived later set up the same way.  Thus we all made lemonade out of lemons given to us.  I flew my SNAFU for eight flights, probably the most ever in one day on one plane for me.  It died only once on an early flight when I did a snap towards the end of the tank.  It ran fine all the other flights, and I think it will be reliable for the coming Valley Challenge this Saturday at our field.  The stick time was good prep for the event.  It was overcast and grey all morning, and probably a comfortable 65F and rising slowly.  Best of all it was nearly dead calm the whole time.

Flight Log: 07/28/12

Had a great day flying the 50cc Extra 330L.  I had 3.1 flights, and Jer had a full flight with it too.  The DL-50 started the day well, then ran rough at the end of the 3rd flight, and for next partial flight.  It started running rough, like there was air in the fuel right after I did some hover attempts.  Tuning it more at the field did not work. I brought it home and returned the needles to 1.5 and 1.25 (H and L) open per the manufacturer's manual.  Then I ran it on the side patio, and it ran okay, but needs some fine tuning after flying at the field.  It did not however sound like it did at the field when it went burbly.  Tad had a flight with his Extra after returning his needles to these original settings.  The engine almost cut out on his first partial flight.  After tuning, his ran fine.  Jer flew my Showtime and crunched it, but took it home to fix as best he can.  No big deal!!  Before that happened, I had one battery on the Showtime.

Flight Log: 07/27/12

Wow, today was more Springlike weatherwise than Summery!  Don't think the temp got much above 70F while at the field today, but it was comfortable and NOT raining, which is what matters.  Light wind was mostly from the West which made landings nice.  I flew the CG Ultimate 10-300 four times, and used three battery packs on the Showtime.  One of the four packs had a bad cell, so it is not recharging anymore, and I am thus down to 3 packs for the Showtime and Blade 400.  The Ultimate was its usual self, in other words lots of fun.  It's always a treat to fly that plane with the reliable OS 120 FS in it.  Just looks good AND sounds good.  Dean came again today, with his Yak 55, and Rudy showed up later too with his electric pattern plane.  Dean's DLE-30 is now running reliably with a replacement carb given to him by Tom at Valley View...makes for a great flying Yak 55!

Sbach x4

Flew the Sbach four flights today in just gorgeous Summery weather...clear skies, 70F and climbing, light breeze.  The workers placed irrigation pipe across the very north end of the short runway, so that did not affect use of the E/W runway at all.  Dean flew his Yak with 30cc.  We were the only ones there.  The Sbach flew fine with the new throttle servo that hopefully will not fail like the last one did.  The Sbach is pretty but as far as I am concerned flies no better than some of my glow powered planes such as the Giles 202, Intruder, Imagine 50, and Yak 54.  It can likely do more 3D than the others, but just does not wow me a lot.  I do like how clean it stays and how cheap it is to run on regular gasoline, and how it fits under the tonneau cover of the truck.  That gives it a transportability edge over my 50cc gassers.

WOT after WOK!

Went flying today, the day after our WOK event.  Today I had a WOT event!  WIDE OPEN THROTTLE!  On my second flight with the Sbach, shortly after gaining altitude after takeoff, the DLE-30 got stuck on WOT.  Throttling down for any purpose did not work.  I was stuck with full throttle, but not to worry because on this gasser I have a kill switch, so not once did I panic.  Well, not a lot, haha.   My only decision was to situate the plane correctly for when I wanted to kill the engine.  I did it on a downwind leg with ample altitude, and made a good touchdown on the runway, with generous clearance over the irrigation pipes in the field...WHEW!  Upon investigation I found that the servo output shaft broke just below the screw holding the servo arm to the shaft.  Joe surmises the screw bottomed out on the shaft and caused a tension crack.  It  looks to me that there is a bubble in the molding of the shaft.  In any case, it's a simple fix to replace the servo.  I might contact Tower Hobbies for a replacement...it is worth an e-mail.

I also had fun with the Showtime, making 5 flights with my own 4 packs, and one of Joe's.

WOK 2012

My club, the Keizer RC Association (KRCA), held our annual Wings Over Keizer (WOK) event today.  Great weather, great turnout, great FUN!  Flew my Toledo Special and Imagine 50 at the event.  I think I had two flights with the Imagine during the 2 hours of basically open flying with 4 planes in the air almost all the time, and one flight with the TS during that period.  Then I flew the Imagine with Jeremy and his Extra 300SP for our duo performance during the demo hour from noon till 1PM.  I think we did pretty good and the main thing is we did not midair each other, haha.  Flew the TS one more time after the formal event was concluded.  Great turnout of spectators...I counted about 70 people there at one time.  Probably had 200 at least for the whole event.

Extra Extra, read all about it!

Tad and I took our 50cc Extras to the field today.  Albeit a bit breezy, we flew the planes and had fun.  I think we flew in under 10mph.  My DL-50 acted like it had a problem at first.  It took something like nearly 100 flips to get the first cough out of it, and that was only after I tilted the plane nose down on the ground, and pumped the prop back and forth to encourage fuel to go to the carb.  I think it was just too dry in there due to not running for probably half a year!  After that first cough though, the engine started right up and ran fine.  With more expo dialed in the, the Extra 330L sure flew smooth, like my smaller planes, and I did not have any twitchiness like I remember from previous flights.  Today was the first time flying with the dual 1100mAh LiFe batteries and dual switches, which gave me more confidence that I would not run out of servo and receiver power.

Tad's Extra flew well.  It died on the first landing, after pretty much coming to a stop on the runway.  Subsequent ground tuning showed the DLE-55 dying after some seconds of full throttle.  He opened the high needle just 1/8 turn, and the engine ran steady and strong after that.

We both flew the Showtime in the high winds at the end of our stay.  I dorked the last landing and stripped the gears in the HS-55 servo.  Actually, the battery power was too low on the landing, and I tried to get more power, but the battery would not respond, so I had to try to stay level and set her down.  The rudder must have hit too hard and thar she blew!  I found a Cirrus 21 servo in my parts box that looks like it will fit and be adequate!  :)

SNAFU almost FUBAR!

Flew the SNAFU twice today.  After landing for the 2nd flight, the plane got locked in left rudder as I taxied back.  Ok, broken rudder servo, or linkages?  Turns out all channels went dead except for throttle.  Further analysis concluded that my NimH battery was very low, only 2 to 3 volts!  Weird since I charged it this morning before going to the field.  In any case, I replaced it with a new 6V 2000 mAh NimH pack and it is ready to go again.  I was so very lucky that the battery browned out just after landing rather than in the AIR!

I also had the Shoestring with me, so I burned some holes in the sky with it on three fun flights.  Nothing like bank and yank with that thing!  Just looks cool with its rather odd looks.

Back to Sbach!

Very nice day for flying today, with summery weather but not yet 80F when I flew in the AM.  Had 2 flights with the Sbach 342, but had to quit when I performed a routine check for anything loosening on the plane.  Sure enough, one bolt for the Jtec muffler was missing, and the other was holding well, but the muffler could swivel.  Upon inspection at home, even the gasket was totally gone...and I am guessing it got shredded by vibration once the bolt came out.  I cleaned the muffler out well, found replacement bolt and lock washer at ACE (got an extra pair for future use), and made a new gasket out of a playing card.  Will bolt it back on with red (permanent) thread locker, and should be good for the next day of flight.

Also flew the Showtime twice, but quit after seeing how low the xmitter battery was dropping, down to 9.4V.

Sbach Time!

Flew the Sbach 342 thrice today.  It starts well, flies well, but I suck at landing it.  Tried to practice about half a dozen landings on the third flight and none were nice.  At least I did not damage the plane at all today, I think!  Prob is I am landing with too little speed, so I sped up the idle and landing speed, but am not there yet.  It will come in time.  The plane flew real nice.  Still gotta get used to how little down pressure it needs on the stick for inverted maneuvers.  Flies real BIG too, but that might be due to flying on low rates.

Flight Log: 07/08/12

Flew the Toledo Special 3 times and the Imagine twice today, also the Showtime once.  It was kind of an off day for me, timing wise, so practice for the duo routine with Jer was limited and will be continued next weekend maybe.  Flying was still fun with all the planes!  Tad joined us again with his big Extra and made two nice flights.  Temp hit 80F by noon and everyone was getting tired early!

BTW Jeremy filmed the TS a bit with my camera, and here is the vid that I posted on You Tube:

Practice

Jer and I practiced our routine for the noon hour demo of WOK in two weeks.  Not bad.  Can only get better.  At least we did not midair each other!  The Imagine and small Extra make a good flying duo.  I had 3 flights with the Imagine today.  I took the Shoestring too, but managed to bring along the wrong wing tube for it, so could not assemble and fly it, lol.  It was a Summery day, great for flying!

Giles 202

I got the Giles 202 out again finally...it's been many months since its last flight, but the engine started easily and ran well with no flameouts.  Very happy about that even though we have the whole sod farm full of grass to land on again, as of a couple days ago when all irrigation pipes were removed.  Wow, I forgot how well the Giles 202 performs, and how fast it is.  Rolls were on a string.  Stall turns are still weird with the plane falling over funny if I hold full rudder for too long.  Had 3 nice flights with it.

Ultimate Fun!

Oh wow, Summer has begun in Salem for real.  It was very sunny, blue, calm, and warm.  Didn't need to wear my long sleeve shirt for cold, but for sun protection.  Had 3 enjoyable flights on the Carl Goldberg Ultimate, and 4 battery packs for the Blade 400.  Amazingly,  Anthony and Quang were there flying choppers, Strykers, and the hex-chopper.  How cool that thing is.  Anthony demonstrated how the hex can fly itself back to almost exactly where it took off from, using GPS.  He can just set the xmitter down and the hex returns on its own.  Totally high tech amazing stuff!

Lake Reflections

Here is #67, a creation out of my own grey cell.  Sandy was more complimentary than usual, and did not tell me to fix anything, so I must have done better than normal.  She did say it looks like her style, one of her own paintings, haha, thus the lack of criticism.  :)  I tried HARD to make the mountains different than my usual pointy ones, and I think I came up with something more natural looking.  Also had fun making reflections on the lake, and putting some real big evergreens in the foreground.  The few bushes in the foreground also came out better than ever after many repetitions.  That is what it takes, just like flying my planes, doing things over and over to get better feel and technique!  Secret on the bushes is to be sure to thin the highlight color (the color of the bush, not the dark background that must be laid in first) with either liquid white or very little thinner, and then to daub it on with the brush fairly lightly, and to leave bottoms dark.

Ultimate Day!

I took the Carl Goldberg Ultimate out to play at the field today.  Got in 3 flights when I could, watching the whereabouts of the 2 JB guys who were gathering irrigation pipes.  The plane flew well and happily did not have any deadsticks.  I was reminded how scale-like the speed and sound of this plane are, and how much fun it is to fly slow and 4 pt rolls on a string.  Also got in 3 battery packs on the Blade 400.  Mowed the field after I was done...nobody else flying today.  I seem to have an Ultimate itch in me, and I want to get the AeroWorks Ultimate out again soon too!