Friday

Flew yesterday/Friday again.  Got in three flights on the X5 and three on the 7HV.  Had more packs but ran out of time, needing to get home to help babysit the grandkids, lol.  Did not take any planes for this reason.  Dick returned my repaired miniStar on Friday..I just crashed it Thursday!  Gave him $35 for basically parts:  new orange receiver, new rudder servo and one new aileron servo, new nylon wing bolts.  He had to repair the fuselage behind the wing.  It was all kinda misaligned/twisted, but I did a quick job of twisting it back and heating it with the heat gun to hopefully hold the fuse in place such that the wing and stab are parallel.  Wrinkles show up due to counteracting the wood and carbon fiber desire to return to glued in stability.  Not pretty like before, and it should fly ok.  Might sell it after a bit.

Fun and ouch!

FUN:   A fine day like today requires flying, flying, flying!  Got out to the field by 9AM and the temp was near 60F already, how great is that!  Calm, sunny per the pics, very little wind.  Flew the X5 four times, then the 7HV five times!  That required and consumed all 14 of my 4000 mAh packs.  Felt really comfortable and tuned into the helis today, with not a single misorientation.  My eyes are too good for that if I just don't get too far away.

OUCH:   Also flew my miniStar sorta.  I checked it out and all surfaces moved properly.  Throttled up and took off to the east, and then had no elevator control at all!  Maybe even aileron was gone.  The plane just did a very gradual dive into the sod farm grass, lol.  Oh well.  Fortunately for moi, Dick showed up not much later, and I told him he missed my crash of his plane, haha.  He took pity on me, and he took the plane home to repair for me.  He said he is between plane builds anyway, and that the damage doesn't look so bad.  Looks bad enough to me!  HE said it would be free but I need to pay him something for his trouble.

Well, I still had a couple flights left on the 7HV at that point, and got back in the air quickly and still enjoyed the flying immensely.

It was a busier than usual day there as far as I am concerned.  Dick, Mike, and a new guy named Jeff were there to fly.  Chris and Stan came to kill time with no planes.  And as I departed, Don showed up.

Tuesday Tuesday

Got in some flying on another exceptional Spring day.  Only one there again.  Flew the Goldberg Ultimate again.  Had a great flight.  Tried to fuel up for the next flight, and the plane refused to take on fuel.  Something in the tank or line has clogged and it has to be checked and fixed, durn it! So I flew the X5 for 4 flights, sweet ones.

Brilliant Saturday

Saturday was yet another perfect day for flying at the field.  Tad and I flew.  He had his G570 for 4 flights.  I took my G500 for two flights and X5 for 4.  Made a mistake due to a distracting visitor, of flying the X5 twice on the same battery, so it ran down in flight.  Luckily I heard and felt the motor drop in power and was nearby, so I switched to normal mode and made it for a landing safely.  At the end I had full positive collective and the  X5 bounced barely more than a normal landing.  Closest I have come to auto-rotation landing!  I had a full complement of 4 batts for each heli, but called it a day early to go home and eat Roth burgers with the fam and friends.

Oh, I had the Goldberg Ultimate with me.  Got in one flight to make sure the OS 120 FS still ran, which it did fine.  Had to work to get it started with mid throttle to get the engine started and stay running, but after a couple minutes of running like that, the engine was able to throttle back and run slow again.  I wanted to fly it for guests but by the time they came, the JB guys had two vac tractors running all around the field and I could not fly it.

No pics cuz I forgot to take my cell phone/camera to the field today!

Goblins day

Could not pass up the good weather today so I flew my G500 and G630.  4 flights and 3 respectively.  Good conditions of calm wind, mostly sunny skies, and about 50F at first.  I got fooled into busting out a hand warmer at home, then did not even need it at the field as the temp rose to 60F fast.  I got to do many flips to inverted and practiced keeping it level, moderating the speed doing, pyros, and pulling out with different flips.

Finished up with 3 flights of the Aerostar 40.  Decided to decrease timer time on the xmitter to 8 minutes from 9.  Seem to be coming down with under 15% battery, too low.

Another sunny sonny day!

Tad and I were the only ones at the field today, a very cool morning at first, but soon the sun made us comfortable.  Flew about two hours.  Tad had his G500 and G570 for four flights each.  Flew with his usual smoothness and skill including inverted and backwards flight.  I had my X5 for 4, and 7HV for 3 flights.  Followed that up with 3 flights on my repaired Aerostar40 (the ESC overheated and caught fire last time, but I averted fire to the whole airframe by running to the plane and tossing the flaming ESC out of the plane, whew.)  Also had a new (third) battery for the Aerostar today.

It was great fun flying the helis and progressing in comfort level with inverted situations.  I can feel good progress coming this year in inverted flight!  It is all thanks to being able to see so well now after cataract surgeries.

Fun in the sun with a son!

Oh boy, a glorious day finally with no rain or wind or cold.  Tad and I flew yesterday for a couple hours at the field.  I went earlier than him since I had all my packs for helis, plus two for the Aerostar 40.  I got in 4 flights each on the X5 and G500, plus 2 on the 7HV!  Actually forgot to charge one of the packs at home, so I did not get another flight with the 7HV as planned.  Tad had 4 nice flights with his G500, looking as solid as ever.  His last flight was a long speed run, and it was fun to watch it fly more like a plane than a heli, with long swooping dives and passes.  I have never pushed my heli that fast with almost full collective.

Tad doing low inverted hover!

Ended the flying with one partial flight of the Aerostar 40.  After a few minutes in the sky on the first flight, the engine screeched.  I cut throttle and reapplied like normal.  It did not come back on, so I landed flat in the grass of the north field.  No harm done I thought.  Then Tad said the plane is smoking!  I ran to it and the esc was flaming and smoking.  I thought the battery was afire, nope.  Yanked the esc out, wow it was hot and totally blackened!  Stomped it and it was really just ashes, lol.  A hole was burned in the covering on the side of the fuselage, and there is still a light carbon stain in the fuse up front, but otherwise no real harm done. Shopping for a new esc now!

Was pleased to have a call from Tad later in the day that he just wanted to compliment me on how well I flew my helis today!  Lol, made me happy to hear.