Good rare day with Tad at the field . He flew his Avanti S twice...did it well, all good takeoffs and most importantly landings, with good stuff in between such as many rolls and low passes. Should have brought more than two packs! I flew my 7HV and Kavalier three times each. Most of the core group came in later in the day...we missed them.
So easy to forget to post my flights!
10/16: Sbach once after enough morning fog lifted. Also once in the compass 7HV.
10/17: once on the Goblin 500 and once on the Kavalier. It was a great day because Jer came and brought Ariel (7) and Jack (4) who were anxious to fly a real RC plane after playing on the flight sim at home. They flew my Aerostar 10 electric plane and really did well! They flew parts of three battery packs with Jeremy’s arms wrapped around them from behind. Awesome!
10/18: flew the G500 once and the Aerostar 40 F once. I spent the majority of my time helping Gary and Dougie prep their new Blade Fusion 480 helis, stretched to 550. They did real well but both helis drifted left, especially Gary’s one, which I hovered a few seconds. His also was really insensitive near center stick, too much so, so he will try to program for more response eventually. It was great they both had successful maidens and went home with whole helis!
Great day of flying with Tad yesterday. It was foggy at first, mostly on the East half of the field. We flew anyway, mostly on the west side! Tad got in three nice flights with two great landings and one slight bouncer on his Avanti S, sporting the new fuselage replacement. I had three flights on the Ultrastick, ending with a busted Xoar prop (there goes $27.00) when I somehow made a bouncy landing with the fuselage horizontal to the ground which means low prop clearance. This plane needs slow nose high three-point landings to save the prop. And this is with 5” dubro tires instead of the stock wheels of maybe 3”. Also am using a 20” prop instead of 21” recommended for the VVRC 40cc twin. Came home and put on a new VVRC 20-10 prop cuz I don’t have another 20-8. Also had two G630 flights yesterday.
I can’t believe I haven’t added RC updates to this blog since Dec 2019! How delinquent is that!? I have had a good flying season in spite of COVID-19. We have been flying and trying to maintain distance at the field. Most guys fail to do so, and I am usually the only one to wear a mask. None of us in the small group I fly with have got sick, so we continue to fly, trusting that each guy is taking care to stay well.
Wow, I can only summarize the last almost ten months since I sure cannot remember everything that’s happened in my RC world.
First, I got some new planes! My Stinson Reliant is completed and flying wonderfully. It’s been out to the field several times now. I think it might be a wee nose heavy given the way it seems to lower its nose in tight turns. It rolls so axial to the right that it reminds me of a pattern plane, lol. So I am still working on flight trim, might try a little tail weight. Power is a DLE-35RA that runs great.
I’ve been converting all the gas tanks in the gas planes to the clear ones sold for $25 by VVRC. I just had too many gas tank probs in the season with the white tanks provided in the ARFs. The clear tanks have nice aluminum fittings , felt clunks, stiff fueling/defueling fittings that eliminate fuel tank issues. I’ve been using only the 12 ounce tanks since the larger tanks were always too large for my flight times...I always land with more than half a tank left.
I sold several planes to make room for the new ones! Gone are the Hangar 9 RV-8, the 76” Aerostar, and the small 50” Aerostar (Starstreak in my flight log reports). It turns out I don’t miss them at all.
And lastly, today I did some small things for next flights on some of the planes. I added another ounce of lead to the tail of the Ultrastick, as noted earlier for moving the CG back. I changed the gas tank in my Sbach 342 from the old white tank to the new clear VVRC 12 ounce tank. And I programmed more exponential into the RV-4. The plane is sensitive in pitch and roll so that should help both. If it is still sensitive in pitch, i might actually need more nose weight.
That’s the best I can do to catch up after the long absence. Been flying a lot but just too lazy to post! suffice to say I have flown every plane and heli in the fleet with just a couple exceptions, and I have been enjoying the heck out of them all.
