3+3+3

Gorgeous mild weather, sunshine, calm winds, 65F, and just one JB worker watering the sod farm.   That equates to much good flying.  I got 3 flights on the Toledo special, 3 packs on the goblin 500, and 3 packs on the X5.  All flew well.  My only issue was vision.   First flights on the Toledo special and goblin 500 were without my yellow sunglasses.  Even with sunshine, I saw blurry images, Arg!  My right eye seems to be getting worse vision, where it used to be clear.  I put my yellow sunglasses over my regular glasses and that helped immensely in seeing the plane and the Helis.  Somehow the yellow hides the blurry edges of the aircraft, and let's me fly with confidence.   I need to be sure to have the yellow glasses with me for all flying conditions!

New fellow came to the field today.  Rocky called me yesterday for info on the club, and help on getting membership and getting training and setup help.  Things worked out to where he got his AMA last night, and arranged to meet with dick smith for help.  Unfortunately, dick had control but the new Apprentice trainer plane got a radio glitch over an area over the west side of the north field, and the plane met terra firma there!  Nice of dick to offer to repair the plane for free, but with donations welcomed, lol.  Sorry to see a rough start for Rocky.  Actually he used to be a krca member about 14 years ago.

Yakkin and Gobblin

A perfectly beautiful Sunday with no JB workers and sprinklers brought out an overwhelming number of pilots today at the field.  Just Bob Ross and myself.  Crazy.  I got there early, before 8AM, and Bob was already putting away because he crashed his new Beaver on his 3rd takeoff.  Never have seen it fly yet.

I flew my Yak 54 for 3 flights, and my Goblin 500 for 6 packs!  When I prepped the Yak last night for today, I installed a new Tenergy 6V 2000mAh NiMh pack into it as part of my battery replacement cycle every 3 or 4 years.  Good thing I did so because I checked the old 2500 pack when I removed it from the Yak, and it was dead dead dead.  With the new packs I installed in the T-28 and P-47, this brings to 3 planes updated with new batteries in my squadron. The Yak flew great like usual, with the OS 120 Surpass III running like a top.

The Goblin flew fine although I keep hearing different sounds out of it that do not comfort me.  Flew the heck out of it anyway after checking for possible causes.  I got in much more inverted hovering than ever.  Only loss orientation a few times, lol, then I wore my yellow sunglasses after that and it really seemed to help me see the heli more clearly.  Gotta make that a habit I guess!  A good day of flying (more like 2 hours non-stop), even though nobody was there more the majority of my time there.

Warbird Saturday

On May 24 we had our warbird event, just an informal gathering of warbirds for the Memorial Day weekend.  Only 11 planes showed up, and their 4 owner pilots.  I took my T-28 Trojan and P-47 Jug/Thunderbolt as I always do.  One of these years I need to get a new and different warbird.  Seems though the interest in this event has waned considerably and it could be just a personal event after this.  Anyway, I got 3 nice flights with the T-28 and one with the P-47.  With irrigation pipes right on the 3 edges of our our runway, we really had a little aircraft carrier to take off and land on this year.  All went well for everyone with no incidents with the pipes.  Oh, my single flight with the P-47 was due to the risk with the pipes, but my one landing was totally greased on, tail high, with tail staying in the air for a good 30 feet till the plane lost speed and rolled to a stop straight ahead.

See the pipes with sprinkler heads lining the south edge, with JB worker.

Can still fly helis!

Finally flew again...I purposely layed off flying at the field with JB doing lots of work to till, smooth, de-rock, reseed, lay net, and lay irrigation pipes down in the last couple weeks.  So it has been about two weeks since last flying.  I only flew the Goblin 500 today, getting in 4 packs before quitting due to increasing wind and proximity of workers.  All went well, and I survived a couple hairy or hairbrain inverted maneuvers, lol.  All is good though, as my Gobby is still fine.

HO HO HO

Here are some fave pics of Youngtown, USA:

A vintage train car converted to a home with expansive deck

New Hawaiian style grill in town!

Wildlife in the country

An active farm

Part of the freight yard

Town park

Cabins for rent

Went NUTS on HO trains collection!

HOHOHO, for the last month I have been reviving my love for my old Lionel HO trains by adding to the collection via eBay.  I then decided to put a small oval track with sidings on the pool table just to test the new locos and train cars.  Once that was up, oh well I decided to put a few of my old buildings and people out, and soon they were ALL out on the table.  As I got my fill of rolling stock, I felt I was spending enough and should slow down, but just get a few cool buildings.  So I did.  As I received the new buildings, there was space enough on the table at first, but as vacant lots disappeared, I soon began removing my old buildings, many of which were rather crude ones I built from scratch or plastic kits in my childhood years of maybe 10-13.  My thirst for nicely built, detailed, and weathered building did not wane, and I then I needed trees since I had none at all.  At the same time, I needed more town folk to roam "Youngtown"!

I think I am pretty satiated now, but still on the lookout for unusual buildings at reasonable prices.  Of course this all does not end because I need better trucks to wend the narrow streets and to add to the realism!  I could have had a new large RC helicopter by now, but this HO train hobby has a special place in my heart since I was a child, and it keeps me out of trouble and in the house on those long dreary days in Oregon's Winter and Spring.

I need to add pics but the early ones are buried in e-mails, and more recent ones are on my iPad, so I need to hunt them down to show the evolution described above.  Tally HO!

It started this simple!

Soon  it became this.

It burgeoned into a town with lots of trees and people...

...with more cool and realistic buildings!

Flying with Tad

A little breeze at home with forecast for possible thunderstorms almost stopped us, but we decided to go fly and were happy we did.  The wind was maybe 4mph as forecast and the rain never fell except for a few drops.  Tad and I both had 4 packs today; his were on his Goblin, and mine were split even between my Goblin and X5.  Tad is progressing steadily with inverted flight and flipping back and forth to upright.  Good big sky flying too.  I did more inverted hovers up high and am getting better at not panicking and bailing out fast, haha.  Great fun and I feel like progress is happening steadily.  Upright is pretty reflexive at most times.  We were done in two hours or less!  The only other person there was Ken.

Tad took this cool pic of me with the X5.
Thunderstorms threatened to the West!

Wed, May 7 report

Flew 10 packs today, with 4 on the Goblin, 2 on the X5, 2 on the 450 DFC and 2 on the 450 FBL.  All good, but of the 450's, I prefer the FBL feel and might sell the DFC.

Very nice weather

Arrived in nice weather to find Dick traipsing around in the north field of tall grass searching for his plane.  He found it easily, and trudged back.  It's a new ugly stick design of his.  Seems it lost an aileron in flight, and the other one had a bad horn attachment, so it was loose.  Said he spiraled in.  Hardly any damage due to the tall grass.  Just needs new ailerons and firm control horn attachments.

Flew 5 batts through the Star, 4 through the Goblin, and 2 through the X5.  All fun, flying great, no hassles.

Mixing it up

I never flew this combination before...the Goblin 500 and the Toledo Special.  Both flew well after maintenance chores were performed on them.  The TS sounded like a tractor not long ago, due to shot bearings in the Saito 82a again.  So I pulled the engine out of the airframe and replaced it with another Saito 82a that I keep for this purpose.  Whenever one needs new bearings, I pull it, replace it with the one on the shelf that has new bearings, and then I order new bearings and install them, and put that engine on the shelf.  This helps keep the plane flyable rather than laid up awaiting bearings in the mail.  The engine today just needed some needle valve adjustment, and I probably still have it rich, but it ran strong and smooth, and did not produce much oil residue at all.  All good.

The Goblin made weird noises in the air the last couple outings.  Since then, I went over it with allen wrenches, seeking loose bolts and finding none really.  I took apart the tail rotor assembly due to seemingly too much play/flex between the spindle and shaft.  Turns out Tad's is exactly the same and flies great, so I reassembled and packed the bearings with new grease while at it.  I oiled up the bearings in the motor, and greased the gears and also the main and rear shafts for assemblies to traverse them smoothly.  And I tried adjusting the rear belt again, but sort of gave up after rereading that as long as the belt is not loose, which mine is not, that a too tight belt can do no harm other than rob some battery power over a flight.  Something worked, I suspect the oil and grease, because the Goblin sounded back to normal.  I proceeded to fly it like normal.  Nothing went awry.  Even got in some inverted flying for a short period.  Still love this heli!