Maukaonyx's "Life is GOOD!": February 2018

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!!!

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Kaos functional!

Finally the retracts on the Kaos are functioning properly! I remembered having a low profile retract servo NIB but purchased over 20 years ago for the Tigershark kit that i never completed. Found it where i thought i last saw it in one of the Craftsman cabinets in the garage! Opened her up and happily found it to be virtually the same size as the Hitec ones from Don. I don't know why both Hitec retracts had soft and weak splines on the servo output shafts, but they just spun inside the servo arms after very little use. I got the Futaba installed with new Futaba servo arm....the splines on the FUT retract servo are deep and sharp. The servo worked great today, and i had two flights with no retract issues. Man that Kaos looks great screaming low over the field with the Enya 60 full bore with retracts up, lol. Also had two good landings where the plane did not nose over on the LG, but could not taxi back over the grass. Just had to kill the motor and go fetch the plane.

Ken's Snapper(?) and Don's Pulse in background

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Kaos again

Flew the Kaos again and had the same issue with retract failure as last. But on the second flight i knew the prob was there so i just kept the gear down for the whole flight, no prob, lol. Flew great. Haven't been able to land yet without nosing over at the end of rollout in the grass, just like a warbird!

At home later i found a new but very old Futaba retract servo for the uncompleted Tigershark. Same mount pattern and case size as the crummy Hitec retract servo, so i will install it and hope to cure the issue of stripped servo output arm and servo arms themselves.

Thursday, February 8, 2018

Awesome Winter day

What Winter? While coolish at about 44F to start, the sun came out after some early light fog, and the temp gradually rised. Got to strip off the jacket after a bit! It was a great day with really no wind nor rain. Flew four flights on my SNAFU and two with the new to me Kaos! The maiden went really well with no issues. I think i put on a couple clicks right aileron and one of down elevator. Sweet plane! Groovy like on rails as it should be, fast, but it slowed down nicely for landings. The only problem was on the second flight , the retracts would not come down all the way and lock, so i landed with gear mostly up. Meant to land on the grass but ended up on centerline of the mat and then the Kaos slid down centerline about 70 feet, lol! That put a slight dent on the bottom of the wing between the retracts, but no other damage occurred! I came home and replaced the servo arm on the retract servo with a new one. The one i took off had stripped splines.

While there, the gravel truck with backhoe delivered a load of 3+ gravel then a load of 3/4”. He laid the gravel to extend our driveway to the shed. Very generous father of one of the young boys who flies in the club. I think Don and Cliff gave him $100 for the time and effort!

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Mild Winter day!

Got in five flights on the Yak 54 this morning, it was low 40F temps but quickly rised as the light fog rapidly dissipated. The OS 120 FS ran great like usual. Only Joe showed for perhaps 20 minutes to get his maiden on a small foam WWI triplane Fokker. Flew ok, no crash, he was happy.