Triple Treat

Had lots of fun this morning.  I call it a triple treat day, flying a glow plane, electric heli, and a hand launch glider!  I ran 5 packs through the Gaui X5, had 3 flights of the Intruder pattern plane, and launched the Apache discus launch glider about a dozen times.  It was a gorgeous day, with very little company.  Rudy came out for a few flights before going to have his teeth sharpened.  Dean flew his Yak-55 a couple times.  And that was it, just three of us.

The X5 continues to be a real joy.  Stick time is piling up, and I am feeling more comfortable with the big helis each time.  I did my practice move a couple times, tried some more inverted hovering, and executed many flips...back, front, left, right.  I am trying to prevent myself from favoring one direction like I do with planes.  No misorientations today!

The Intruder was its old self.  The OS 91 four stroke sputtered a little on the first flight.  With one click of the needle to richen the mixture, the engine ran nice and smooth for the other two flights.  Sure is fun doing slow rolls, point rolls, and large loops with this plane!

I caught a 5 minute ride on one launch of the Apache, but that is the best I could do today.  No boomers for me, shucks!

Great day of flying Bravata and Goblin 500 with my sons

Had a wonderful time flying with Tad and Jer today.  Tad had the Goblin 500 and 700.  Jer had his Warp 360, Blade 130X, and Colibri.  I flew my Goblin 500 and Bravata.  Really been dying to fly the Bravata again after a very long hibernation, so it was the first time in 2014.  I got in 5 great flights with not a single issue.  Even after the many months, the DLE-30 started up easily, and ran like a top.  No deadsticks, not even on the runway after landing.  I found out the Bravata can hover with this engine, with a steady vertical hover easily maintained, easier than with any other plane I own!  I landed all 5 times with full flaps, what a joy.  The plane gets so slow and hits the runway after clearing the sprinklers like target practice.  I gotta work on greasing the landing in though, as most times I had a bounce on first touch down.

Special visitor...KIMI!

She made good use of available shade! 

My preferred parking for the XB when I have the Bravata.

Beautivul Bravata flies as good as it looks!

Bravata has good company.

GeeBee R3 and Super Sportster beyond the Bravata.

The Goblin had 3 packs of joy today, no issues.  Have to feel concerned for Tad's Goblins.  Both had brown out or cut off issues, with the Goblin 500 having a rough landing in the north field, ruining the tail boom and landing skids.  Prior to that Tad made a great autorotation save when the G700 lost power to the main blades but kept all control functions.  He was about a foot off the mat when the power came on again, but he landed to check things out.  He still had good flights before that with both helis, showing solid inverted control.

Gaggle of Goblins...Tad's 500, 700, and my 500 (right)

Jer helping Harvey with new Fox powered glider.

Tad launching the Fox for Harvey and Jer...so graceful, lol.

Getting the 500 ready, my Pulse edition on left.

Jer flew the Warp like crazy, beyond my comprehension.  That thing moves quick and does not seem squirrely like other 450 machines.  Nice backwards flight too!

Flight Log 07/26/2014

Had a good morning of flying with Tad and Quang.  Good but slightly breezy weather, sunny, warm enough, yet only Dick Smith came out to fly.  Mike came out but did not even unload a plane, what the?

Flew my Goblin 500 for 4 packs, the X5 for 5, and the Factor 3D for 3 packs.  Not too impressed with the Factor, but I will work on it a little more...add wgt to move CG forward, and add more expo to make the plane less touchy.  Helis were great today.  Tad flew well for a month layoff...didn't miss a beat.  I am just continuing to build time and muscle memory, and therefore confidence.  I did my practice move more today, and it is getting less stressful!

Tues flight log 07/22/2014

Rats, I forgot the correct wrenches so could not assembly my Bravata on a perfect day at the field weatherwise and with no sprinklers on the runway either.  Oh well.  I had a nice 5 packs through the Gaui X5 though!  No mishaps, and I got in more practice at a manuever I am trying to improve on...pitch back to vertical nose up, hesitate, pitch back to inverted, feed neg pitch and hover, pitch back to nose down, hesitate, pitch back to upright, hover.  Brain kind of goes awry now and then, so I have to do it lots to get the move down up high, then later bring the heli down so I can do it at an altitude where I can see it better!  The X5 has been performing well since the crash and repair.  Good heli.

Factor 3D

Before the monthly meeting, I took four flights with the Factor 3D.  It is growing on me slowly, flying better.  I have found it prefers slow or medium speed, not balls to the wall.  It then behaves very obediently.  At WOT it gets a little squirrely and perhaps I need to add more expo to tone that down.  Could also be due to the rearward CG making pitch control more sensitive.  But it hovers so easily this way!

Toledo is Special again

My Toledo Special behaved badly at WOK yesterday.  Last night I re-plumbed the fuel tank with new fuel lines, repositioning lines, tightening the stopper, plus I reset the idle mixture screw on the Saito 82a to factory setting.  Today I had to retune the engine and ended up turning the idle screw in  or leaner at least a couple turns, so maybe it is back to where it was, but it ran good again.  With a little more fiddling of that screw, the high needle, and the throttle trim on the xmitter, it seems to be running pretty nicely...rich, smokey, and quiet.  Power seems to be ok but it has been peppier at times in the past.  I will take adjustments slow to fine tune it.  After one deadstick this morning, I had a couple full flights with power on landings, what a novelty, lol.

I ran just one pack through the X5 due to incoming showers.  Will use the other packs hopefully tomorrow before the monthly meeting at the field, wind permitting.

TOO Few "Wings Over Keizer"

The turnout of pilots today was deplorable.  Me, Mike, Brandon, and Ken.  At least Ken came and flew, gotta give him credit.  I flew as much as all of them combined.  And that was even with the Toledo Special not completing a single flight due to a funky running engine.  I would say Mike had two flights in two hours due to a balky engine in the Stearman.  He flew the UcanDo once and the Stearman finally once.  Brandon had two flights due to various things bad in their planes.  Ken might have had 6 flights.  I think I had over 10 on the T-28 and SNAFU, with two partials on the Toledo Special.  We never had four up at once with only four pilots, two of whom had bad engines or other issues.  What a farce, very disappointing club turnout.  My opinion is skip it next year, but that won't happen.  So then we need much stronger coordination and communication to ensure good participation.  And maybe the guys just don't want to support the event.  There are more guys on a regular day of weekend of flying.  Venting!  

Ken's planes.

Jon's planes.

Brandon's planes.

Mikes planes.

Noon show was electric jet by Brandon, Pawnee smoke by Mike, Radian crash on launch by Bob Ross, Pattern flight by Rudy's friend.  Only a half hour show.  Just ok. While the pattern flight was cool to me personally, I think most of the public would think it was way too far out and high.  That is the impression I got when I flew the demo in past years.  The overall noon show was too short due to a lack of pilots, two of whom bailed at the eleventh hour and left the whole club in the lurch as far as I am concerned.  On the other hand I do not know with certainty the level of coordination completed with these pilots.

Pat Harris and his 2m pattern plane.

Good crowd on hand and I felt bad for them to have to watch the same guys fly over and over and over, and that was mostly me and Ken.  I would have got bored and left if I was them.  

The hot dog lunch was not even free for KRCA members.  I slaved away and had to buy my own dog!  Lol, just venting.  The weather was good and sunny and HOT, the wind was light, and the crowd in Ron's estimation might have hit around 150.  We need to do better as a club to make this a hit with the public, and we need buy-in from our own members.  The apathy is depressing.

Display on the runway.

Display on the runway.

Display on the runway.