SNAFU Fun!

I almost did not go flying when I observed fairly windy conditions at home.  Decided to go anyhow but instead of taking the Sbach that was charged, I took the SNAFU.  I put it on a fast charge, but the xmitter was full from a couple days earlier.  The SNAFU loves playing in the wind.  Turned out not that windy when I got there, but the SNAFU was fun anyhow.  Mike had his new UCanDo, and we floated around together up high and on down low slow passes.  Landings and takeoffs were to the South on the N/S runway.  I got in 5 flights.  Lots of fun with Joe and Rudy there too.  I honestly was surprised anyone else was there.  I went with the desire to put up a new vinyl address label on the frequency control box after botching up the hand painting yesterday when I used a foam brush.  It did not flow as needed for good free style lettering.  I also put up a new laminated club member list in the box.

SBach 342

On a totally glorious and sunny day with over 70F, I flew the Sbach 4 times at the field.  The winds were negligible.  DLE-30 sure started up nice and ran really steady, no hiccuping at the high end.  While Mike says it sounds rich in the middle range, it runs so fine to me that I will not try to adjust what ain't broke.  Mike brought his new UCanDo while Dave and Don brought their electric Cessna and Cub.  Great day of flying and comraderie.

Flight Log: 04/25/2013

The RV-8 took to the sky again in glorious 70F weather today!  What a beautiful Spring day.  I had 5 flights, non-eventful, just pleasurable all the way.  Most takeoffs and landings west to east due to  wind out of the East for a change, but it was ever so slight.  Plenty of company today:  Mike with a new UCanDo, Rudy with his big Osiris, and Dave with his foam Cessna.  I love the main gear landings with full flaps on the RV-8.  Looks so real and gentle.  Bob B showed up to scrape the bleachers in prep for staining on the workday this Saturday, so I helped him a bit.

Epic Delivery of Fraternal Twins!

On Thursday April 18, 2013, Tad, Becky, Sandy and I left Salem around 9AM  for the epic event...delivery of my 981 Boxster and his 991 Carrera S in Beaverton! What a day!! We arrived just after 10AM to see our smiling SA's waiting for us at the door of the showroom. We were going to do my delivery first, then his at noon, but my son's was able to go on concurrently for the most part because not many customers were there at the time. 

Both cars were displayed in the showroom, but my son's 911S seemed to have priority because it was in the primo display spot for deliveries, while mine was in the batter's up box, haha. There was just lots more room to move around his car than mine. I remember one customer brushing his fat arse against the right side mirror while he bent over a counter on that side. 

My delivery took over 2 hours and I missed my son's, while he was still able to pop in and out of mine, and help me look over the car.  He had done a delivery before with his 2012 CR, so he was able to walk through his pretty fast today. Being a newb to Porsche, I took it all in and welcomed the explanations of all the equipment and controls. I was happy my wife, daughter-in-law, and another son were there to take lots of pics of both cars for us! BTW the SA's can't think of another time where a father and son took delivery of 2 Porsches at the same time...they seemed pretty excited too.

The first thing that caught my attention when we entered was that the mahogany metallic is darker than I anticipated. Whoa nelly, I never wanted a black car (sorry to those who have black). While just walking around the car the first time, I could see scratches from the "detailing" done to prep the car. I am pretty sure the fellas out back are not real pro detailers. I can picture them using the same towel all day long to clean the cars. It is pretty obvious where they ran their towels, and in fact there was one guy still spraying and wiping my car when I arrived at the showroom. Note the car just arrived late the previous afternoon via truck. There was also a more noticeable abrasion on the front bumper where those blue foam tubes are affixed during transport. Well, my SA had the bumper buffed out before we left, and my son said he would help me detail the car ourselves. He is very adept at it after caring for his CR and is sure we can remove the scratches caused by the untrained human hands that unwrapped my Boxster. I did not even mention it to the SA because truthfully I did not want to let them touch it anymore than they already had. 

We signed papers, wrote a fat check, and headed to lunch nearby. We parked where I could park next to an island, son next to me, and his wife's car next to him so both our cars were protected from being parked next to, haha. Had a good table in the restaurant where we could see the cars and ensure nobody was keying them, lol. Ate well and then we headed home. We live about 50 minutes south on I-5, so it was mostly just a straight drive home. I never needed to go over 4200rpm in any gear, and the car felt peppy and smooth. On I-5, I just shifted between 5th and 6th every few minutes to avoid prolonged runs in one gear at one speed. My son was doing the same between 6th and 7th. My wife rode home with me and she played with the radio and air for us. Stock radio seems fine for us, and especially me since I know my hearing ain't what it used to be.

Parked at Pho Hung with Q5 protecting the new twins!

We got home fine, and noted the splattered bugs on our cars. They definitely show up more on mahogany metallic than on his agate grey! One thing I remember was getting hit by a small rock on the windshield, thwack. I did not find a chip but did not look real good in the garage. I just hope it did not go off the hood first. We intend to wash the cars tomorrow when the weather is good again, and I can then inspect the Boxster better and hopefully get started on removing the scratches created by the dealership. Those scratches BTW are all fine and mostly in straight lines along shere the long edges of the protective plastic sheets used to lay. 

While the color is darker than I anticipated, my wife and daughter-in-law are impressed by the color. I do agree it looks richer than a browner and lighter brown would be. What did impress me right off the bat was the espresso leather. Holy cow, it is like being enveloped in this warm, loving, and inviting caress, and it just smells so darn luxurious too.

Now to tell you the truth, everything feels somewhat anticlimatical right now...after so many months of waiting and anticipating, and just being on a really prolonged HIGH, there is a letdown. Son and I were both exhausted after getting the cars home then talking and sitting and gazing and cleaning them up a little till last night. I think it's just fatigue. I did get some energy back and managed to find $200 worth of detailing goodies on AutoGeek for myself just now, lol. And if it was sunny, I would be driving that dark brown Mocha Latte (my wife's suggestion) right now.

RV-8 X 5 = FUN

Looks like a math equation!  I had  5 more flights with the RV-8 today and had a ball.  All landings were with flaps and just so realistic with the tail staying up at touchdown until speed burns off.  The plane is a real fun machine.  The flight times are longer than I expected with the barely 9 ounce fuel tank.  Some flights were 7 minutes, some around 5 minutes.  For the last flight, I connected the pull pull wires to the inside hole on the rudder to get more throw for stall turns.  It helped a little but the plane could still use more rudder throw to get the tail to kick over easier.  I am already at full end points on the rudder servo.  I adjusted down trim by one more click today, as I get more accustomed to the plane's flight tendencies.  Had a good day with company this time.  Rudy flew his bigger Osiris, a very impressive machine in his good pilot hands.  Wow, I better not watch him too much because it makes me want a plane like that too!

AV8R/RV8R

Get it?  AV8R=aviator.  RV8R=RV-8 aviator  I maidened the Hangar 9 RV-8 today and had a total of 4 flights with it.   Very nice flying.  I needed just a few clicks down trim and a couple of right trim for straight and level.  Also needed more expo on the elevator, and more throw on the rudder.  On the latter, I will need to go in on the control horn on the rudder to get more throw than the full servo end points would give me for quicker stall turns.  This also helps for smaller turns on the runway instead of taking half the width of the runway to turn around.  Elevator was sensitive at 50% expo and I am now at 75% expo.  The plane does KE pretty good with little desire to roll out, and just a slight push to the LG.  I will program that out in the future.  CG seems good.  Aileron rolls are slow, so I will increase that in the future.  Takeoff is very controllable with good rudder control.  Landings are a piece of cake with flaps on and off...either way the plane slows down and has good response to all controls.  Flaps do not cause the plane to pitch severely up or down at all.  Flap activation causes the whole plane to rise but smoothly and gradually.  Very easy to manage.  The new used Saito 82a seems to run well and just needs some fine tuning for a good low idle and transition.  It is reasonable as is after today's fiddling over 4 flights, but the engine sometimes dies just after leaving the pits when the engine is cold....I think it loads up.  The new glow plug clip works perfect in the hole in the cowling, with its longer reach than my old one.  I ended the day with one lost canopy bolt and washer.  I think I need lock washers to prevent this from occurring again.  Need to do same on the wing bolts!  The RV-8 is going to be lots of fun, a nice addition to my airforce!

Shoe-fly!

Only Dave and I were there again this AM, a rather typical OR Winter/Spring day with totally grey skies but light wind and cool temps near 50F.  Atypical, the wind was from the east, requiring takeoff and landing from the opposite direction than prevails here.  I took the Shoestring 60 out today, and the Saito 100 purred along, and made flying fun.  It's a good sport plane that looks prettier than most!

Flight Log: 04/11/2013

Took my Blade 130x, Blade 400, and Toledo Special out today, finally having a good day of weather!  Flew the 400 first, and it seemed to be doing what it wanted on its own a little now and then.  On the 2nd pack it just sorta went nuts and I recovered enough to land upright hard, stripping the main gear but not seeming to do much else. Main blades and tail blades were ok, as was the landing gear.  Fly bar rods were bent slightly but I just bent them back as best I could.

Next up was the 130x and it flew pretty nice.  I had one hard unexpected landing in a turn and that damaged the tail rotor thing that holds in the blade and connects to the tail with a ball joint.  Anyway, I found the damage after one tail rotor thing flew off on the next windup.  Took awhile to find it, but I did, however it did not matter since the piece is broken.

Decided what the heck and flew the Toledo Special anyhow.   I had 3 good flights and all is well with it.

Choppers are too delicate and just kind of suck!  :)  Something always seems to break sooner than later, and always has to be purchased and replaced.

RV-8 Non-maiden Day!

I went to the field to maiden the new H9 RV-8 but was foiled by 15 JB workers setting about to hand weed the 80 acres of sod farm!  Holy moly, what a task.  Glad I don't have that job!  It was not a prob for me today though, because I really wanted to bench run the  new used Saito 82a in the plane, and then take photos on the very lush green runway.  I was able to taxi the plane too, and don't see any nose over tendencies.  I did note that the rudder/tailwheel throw yields a pretty large turning radius, so I upped the end points on the servo.  Regarding the engine, it started right up but would die on low idle.  I started with 2.5 turns open on the needle and probably turned it in just 1/4 turn.  Because transition was boggy, I tried opening the mixture screw and that made response quicker, while also improving the idle.  While fiddling the engine, I found that I had not set up the throttle kill, so I just killed the engine by lowering the trim on the throttle, like the good old days.  Next though, I set up the throttle kill, rather intuitive with the Airtronics SD-10G menu.  Upon opening the menu for throttle kill, it has default of -100%.  I changed that to -110% and also left the switch assignment on the little button on the top right of the xmitter which always returns to popup position...depressing it activates the kill control.  Release and the switch is off again, so no need to remember to flick it so the engine will run next time.   It was a rather fun outing even though I did not get to fly the RV-8.  Here are some pics of the pretty new bird:

You can see the workers weeding in the background!

WOW Day!

Every day flying is a good day, just like every day of retirement is a GOOD day.  But some flying days are just regular while others are exceptional somehow.  Today was one of those.  I first flew my Blade 400 through two battery packs and had fun with it.  I challenged myself to fly it further out and also to make some almost semicircle turns, but never headed the 400 at me.  Got the chopper out to the SW corner of the runway and made it back several times by just turning to face out, and then back the chopper home to me.  Never did panic or get any serious trouble.   Wind was southerly maybe up to 5mph at times.  Then I took the Sbach 342 with DLE-30 up for 3 great flights.  It flies better than my 50cc Ultimate, so clean in KE, and just floating in (sometimes too much in the past, but I am getting more comfy with it) on landings.  Nearly maxed out the 10 minute timer on each flight.  Engine ran well with the new throttle servo installed, haha.  Did a bunch of hover practice and some rolling harriers.  Both are coming along slowly.  Like I said, an EXCEPTIONAL day out!