Aloha and Welcome to my small speck of cyberspace! Dec 8, 2010 is the birth date of my blog. Never had one before, but my son encouraged me to have one, and it seemed like a good way to at least keep a log of my RC airplane building and flying. With the initial design kicked off by my son, I'll carry on from here and have fun with it. Now that I have it, I will use it to also keep track of my oil painting efforts, and any other ideas, hobbies, travels, or whatever else that come up. LIFE IS GOOD!

Update on 02/25/2011. It's been a few months since I began this blog, and I am enjoying creating and having it! I like documenting the things I have done in my hobbies, and sharing with my small family. I think Jer and Tad actually view it fairly regularly, as a means to see what I've been up to lately. At worst, it serves as a reference for my own use.

Update on 12/22/2011. This blog stuff is habit forming. My blog is a year old now, and I make an entry about every other day or so as that seems to be the frequency of doing something in one of my hobbies. Like my hobbies, this blog is a lot of fun, and it has become in itself another hobby that I enjoy.

Years are flying by...update on 01/11/2013. Still enjoying maintaining this blog even though hardly anyone sees it. I don't advertise it anywhere or to anyone, and it is mainly just a way for me to keep my own notes and thoughts on my flying, painting, and cars. If a stranger happens upon it, I think it is by pressing NEXT at the top of the current blog they are visiting, lol. It's a great device for me.

August 2014: still here! Took up flying RC helicopters one year ago and got hooked. Had flown micro Helis up to then, but got serious with 450 size for a couple months, then bought the Goblin 500 and Gaui X5 . Also got my Boxster in April 2013. Most importantly, Ariel was born 12/02/12 followed by Skylar 07/20/13, and they are little beacons of joy in our lives. Life is indeed good!!!

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Goblin Gaggle!

Today was a Goblin day with 4 at the field.  Tad, Anthony and I brought our 500's while Quang brought his 700.  I only got two flights on mine, two on the X5, and another two on the 450's (one each) due to the need to take turns flying.  It was inspiring to see Tad and Anthony fly sport big sky while Quang did extreme 3D and big sky.  I have to accelerate my progress to try to catch up a little bit to Anthony and Tad.  Those guys are flying/improving on inverted and backwards (upright), so I need to grow some cajones and try those too.  So scary with a big expensive heli!  I can do some on the sim, but it is a completely different ballgame with the real thing due to the high value of the helis.  I demonstrated the shudder in the X5, and Quang recommended reducing the tail gain, so I will try that.  They seem to like the X5 enough to be talking about the range of sizes offered by Gaui wowee.  Good fun, should be a great Summer coming up as we get to fly our gaggle of helis more often.
Goblin Gaggle.  Pic by TAD!
L to R:  Anthony's 500, Tad's 500, Jon's 500, Quang's 700

UPDATE on tail gain:  I hooked up the laptop to the mini VBar unit on the X5, and also did some research on the HF forum.  As a result I learned that I had set tail gain to 70 on my Futaba transmitter...this was a setting that lots of folks reported was typical for the X5.  When I opened up the VBar software on the laptop, which was hooked up to the VBar, with battery power to the unit on, the slider image on the laptop showed some crazy high gain number like 115 in the VBar unit itself. My research confirmed that the slider is supposed to be set around 70, with the number on the transmitter being whatever it has to be to get the slider in the right spot.  Turns out the number on my Futaba transmitter is around 20 when the slider is at 70!  Since I have a 3-position switch on the transmitter for gain, I set it for 20, 33, and 60 on the transmitter, yielding about 70, 80, and 100 on the VBar slider image.  This way, I can switch among those gain settings in the air, decide what one works best, then later at home again reset the settings to what I have concluded works best.  Live and learn.
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