Penultimate Flying Day with Ron

Flew again today, in better conditions....light wind at first, sunny skies, and temp near 75F.  Got in one flight on the X5, two on the 7HV, two on the G700.  Three flights on the only plane i brought...the Osiris.  The great thing is all aircraft used the same battery size...6s 4000mah.  Everything flew great.  Very pleasant flying the new Goblin 700!  I just at this time fly the G700 for 4:00 vs 4:30 on all other helis. Another observation is that the Osiris flight time needs to be about 3:45 or else the cells check out at about 3.5V when flown 4:30.  Will try the 5000mah pack i have next time out; that pack was intended to be used in a pair in the G700, but one pack went sour, thus the need to use 4000mah packs in the G700 instead.

Also need to report we flew yesterday at Dallas.  Due to the winds not many flights were taken by anyone.  I just had one flight on the Osiris and two on the 7HV.  Ron had two on his Slick but busted one side of the main landing gear due to a rough landing strong crosswinds.

Goblin 700 maidened!

The Goblin 700 maidened today...Ron took her up for me and said she flies good, so I flew her the next three flights.  She handles light, much lighter than the 630, and she also runs quiet.  I used 4000mah packs today because i discovered when charging this morning that one of the 5000 packs has a bad cell...five cells were up near 4.2V one was at 4.05V.  That will be dumped.  With the 4000 packs, the batts were reading about 3.82-3.85V per cell after each 4 minute flight.  That is ample and i might be able to go to 4:15 easily.  Normal for all my other helis is 4:30.  NICE HELI!  Thanks Tad for selling it to me real cheap!

 I also flew the X5 once and the Aerostar 40F twice in breezy and very grey conditions today.

Lotsa flying!

Been flying super lots since last posting, especially the last five days with cousin Ron here on his annual visit to fly , fly, fly.  We have flown everyday so far but will skip tomorrow for the annual Spirit Mountain trip with him.  Not much to say except I have flown lots of Ultimate, Dirty Birdy, etc.   Over the weekend we flew lots of Battlewing missions...with Jer and Alex on Sunday, with Tad and Quang on Monday.  At least a few heli flights everyday with Ron, but six today...two each on the X5, G500, and 7HV.

Today Ron set up the G700 on my transmitter for me.  Now it is ready for me to fly after having it about two years.

Dirty Birdy

I need to document completion of my first new ARF in a few years...drum roll...the Dirty Birdy by Great Planes, their rendition of the famous design from the 70's or 80's by Joe Bridi.  I bought this thing perhaps five years ago and finally got the desire back to keep it and actually finish it a few months ago.  In the interim period I lost interest in it because I had wanted to power it with a four stroke engine, but that would entail replacing the stock tank with a larger fuel tank to feed the thirst of a four stroke engine.  That hurdle turned off my interest and i actually even tried to sell the ARF as NIB!  Lucky I had no takers.  Then a few months or so ago, I traded Don for a beautiful Kaos that he had finished but decided not to fly.  That bird rekindled my interest in the DB, and so a few months ago I started assembly of the ARF.  Of course I am horribly slow, so it took me til just a few weeks ago to complete the DB.  It is powered with a brand new OS 65AX two stroke engine so that I would not need to replace the stock tank.  I kept the fixed LG for simplicity.  The servos came from my T-28 that died last year.  I had a new 617 Futaba receiver.  Pics follow.

I maidened the plane a couple weeks ago.  It only needed about three clicks right aileron for straight and level flight.  Balance is per the manual mid range with 1/2 oz lead weight on the tail.  Wings are balanced with 6 nails buried in the light wing tip.  AUW is 7.5 pounds dry.  Still running slightly rich as the engine has just 5 tanks of fuel through it.  Knifes like a dream right now with no obvious tuck to LG or canopy.  Just flies straight and true.  Does arc to nose down when I do KE on a slight climb, so might be nose heavy a tad.  While I can try to trim that more, right now I am just having fun with it.  For me it is just an excellent sport plane...I am not pattern contestant.

WARBIRD SATURDAY @Dallas Field

28 Warbirds for the Dallas Warbird Saturday!

That was a lotta fun, 7 hours of flying, friends and food at the Dallas Field for Warbird Saturday.  We had 28 planes for the kodak moment on the runway, from WWI dawn patrol bipes to a Phantom jet.  Most numerous were the WWII warbirds.  I flew my P-47 to my delight, lol, and hopefully it was equally entertaining to the guys.  Four of my fellow krca pilots participated, which was welcomed and appreciated by the Wingdingers.  They really enjoyed the 3d printed Spitfire that Dave brought, and after his retract issue was resolved, Dave and the plane flew well.  His T-28 with engine sound system was also enjoyed.  Jerry’s electric glow lil stick got a good laugh from everyone when they realized the motor was plastic and just a decoy over the electric motor, lol.

Loved the fat Hellcat that Don flew...just one flight and he made a great landing except 50’ too long.  In other words he landed in the mowed rye grass with no damage.  I helped Bob carry his new P-51 Blue nose P-51 for its two flights.  Very sweet plane with a strong Saito 125 up front.  Has cool keleo scale exhausts...nice but they sure spat fuel all over my arms and t shirt each time the Saito started up!

Couple of crashes.  A bad one was an AT-6 Texan that landed dead stick in the  rye grass, snapping the wing off.  Maybe it was just the wing bolts...i did not inspect it.  The other was Joe’s Phantom EDF.  He had assembled it just for the photo shoot, without wing tubes.  Then he flew it that way...yikes!  The wing collapsed and the jet dethermalized to the ground in a real flat spin with motors still running.  Not much damage due to the very slow flat spin into the rye grass.

Food was great....hot dogs, hamburgers, beans, pasta salads, desserts, cookies, chips, pop.  What a great day.  What more could an RC addict ask for!?

I quit flying RC!

Hahahahaha, no way Jose!  I have been flying lots since early June when i last blogged here.  I have just been too awful lazy to make entries. I have flown at least a couple times each week, and often 3 or 4 times.  Been flying the pants off my planes, very little on helis but enough to avoid completely rusting out!  I cannot be too rusty because Ron comes in a week formthe annual visit of ten days or so t fly, fly, fly.

So today i flew the CG Ultimate three times.  Love that old bird, now 26 years old!  A few weeks ago it would not take on fuel. The old Robart fueler was plugged.  This is the second one to go bad in that plane.  While i got the plug out, i decided the design is poor and just chucked it.  I ran the fuel filter externally on the bottom of the cowl, and it is now a simple matter to unplug the line, fuel up, and reartach the fuel line to the filter.  KISS METHOD WORKS BEST!  Also, the bearing replacement is working fine...the engine is hauling butt like it used to.

A couple weeks ago, i completed my first new ARF in years, the beautiful Joe Bridi design,the  Dirty Birdy!  I maidened it with two flights the first day.  Took it out yesterday and had three flights.  On maiden day it only needed a few clicks of right aileron.  With no changes yesterday, it flew great again.  Even knife edge is real satisfactory right now, with no obvious tuck to either the LG or the canopy.   It is very much a joy to fly.  Landings are cool with a nose high touchdown.


One last update!  I sold my AeroWorks 50cc Ultimate to Joe a few weeks ago for $900!  He had fun with it a couple days then during a low roll the plane just failed to respond and it demolished on impact.  It always flew fine for me.  Joe thinks the battery packs may have slipped and disconnected.  I do not think so as he said he used servo safety clips like i did, and what are the chances of both unplugging at the same instant?!  I would investigate his receiver.  That is the only component inside the plane that changed with the change in ownwership.  I kept my Airtronics receiver and he installed a Futaba.  Of course the other diffs are the transmitter and operator.  C’est la vie.  I am sad it is no more.