Top Off Cruzn!

Just got back from a 63 mile jaunt in the Corvette with the top off.  It was about 65F+ but with wind it felt pretty cool at times, so I put the heater on now and then.  I drove east on Silverton Rd all the way to Silverton, then south from there through the beautiful forests of Silver Falls State Park.  Came down through Sublimity and onto Hwy 22 to return home.  The 63 miles probably took about an hour and a half.  It was a very satisfying drive, just listening to the wind and the engine.  Did not play the radio once.  Home by 11:00AM.  Gave a wave to one mag red C6 on Glen Creek as I returned home, but I don't know that he saw me.  Maybe it was Oh Al.

Talk About Quick Study!

Tad and I took Alex out to fly the Alpha 40 trainer today.  He took off for several flights, but get this...he did more loops, his first rolls, some were even two point rolls with controlled inverted flight, AND he had his first landing.  The landing was entirely on the runway at that!  I mean it would be great to accomplish just one of those things in a day at the field, but he had multiple accomplishments.  Yup, I AM proud, lol!  We had Spencer along, his roommate, because Spencer wanted to see Alex fly, and he enjoyed the experience.  (Later in the day they played with my Real Flight simulator at home.)  Rudy was another witness to the awesome events and progress.  CONGRATS ALEX!!!

I had my Stinger II along, and got two flights with it.  The engine was hard to idle, and it seems the idle mixture screw got loose and vibrated downwards.  I just guessed at how far to bring it out, and the YS 63 ran pretty good after that.  I need to find a way to get the screw to stay where it is set.

Update on YS 63:  I got the idle mixture screw out with the cowl still on (could not remove it due to stubborn muffler that would not come off engine).  It needs a new O ring.  Hard to find those...I cleaned the screw and added a very small drop of blue thread locker on the threads.  Re-inserted.  Hope that holds.  My next idea is a small bit of plumbers tape.  If that fails too, then I will try ACE, and next ordering an official O ring, lol.

Relaxation

It is the day after the Valley Challenge, so I got to fly very relaxed today with my Sbach 342 and Toledo Special.  I got in 4 nice flights with the Sbach and am getting more and more used to how it flies.  Today I mixed in a little more up elevator during right KE, when left rudder is top rudder.  That straightens the right KE a little better.  I find flying with low rates is most smooth and relaxing, but I flip to high rates for trying hovering and harrier rolling.  Needless to say, I rarely use high rates.  The Toledo Special was its groovy self and I got in 3 flights with it.  Tad came and we had a good time together.  He flew his big Extra thrice with all good landings and flights.  Both of us had no probs with the DLE engines.

I was able to fly Rudy's Osiris electric pattern plane once when he asked me to see if it was pulling left or right on up lines.  I think it was fine and my only change was one click of right aileron trim.  Did not touch rudder.  That plane flies nice.  I did some slow rolls and point rolls and that plane just does them so smooth and at a nice pace.  One beauty of the modern electric pattern plane is the ability to fly slower but with great authority.  Maybe someday I have to consider getting one...you feel good about that Rudy?  :)  It was a nice day at the field as usual.

The Spoils of Victory!

The Valley Challenge Finals today was hard fought among Joe, Brandon, and myself.  It matters not that none of the other 5 clubs invited by Bob to compete bothered to show up.  That meant the top three finishers were the 3 KRCA pilots who qualified for the finals by winning our KRCA flyoff two weeks ago.  It was a tough battle with Brandon finishing 3rd with about 1355 points out of 1600.  Joe had 1502 and I eked out the win with 1508!  Holy Moly that was just by a whisker, but a win is a win no matter the margin (sorry Joe).  The pic shows the fine awards for 1st place...$50 cash, the H9 Katana 50 (valued at $250 and donated by Horizon Hobby), and the very important trophy for a year and BRAGGING RIGHTS as VC champ for a year, lol.  I wonder what Bob has in the back of his devious mind for next year!  It was good fun among a bunch of good guys today.  Here is a link to the "awards ceremony" courtesy of Chris: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMSStibd2Fc&feature=em-share_video_user

Oh, I flew the SNAFU all day today.  It performed flawlessly.  I did not hit any balloons or fly outside of them on takeoffs and landings.  Ron said I got extremely close on one landing, but the fuselage was inside the white balloon.  My point deductions were something like 1 on task one, 27 on task 2, 52 on task 3, 1 on task 4, and 10 on task 5.  My big blunder on task 3 was getting rattled when Bob announced my mid loop time.  I thought I was running behind schedule, but Iwas really just slightly ahead.  The mid loop time was just under 3 minutes out of the 6 minute target, BUT I was basically done with 3.5 steps out of 6 at that point.  I needed to slow down at that point, but my brain at the time said I needed to speed up.  BRAIN FART!!!  I should have ignored Bob's midpoint time and just flown at my own pace, trusting my instincts, but I got rattled and recalculated what to do, doing so the wrong way, haha.  Oh well, it made the margin of victory smaller, and made the task 5 flight very exciting when Joe only got 6 deduction points!  At that time I was between 10 and 20  points ahead.  All I could do was fly task 5 at the same pace I flew in task 1, and hope for the best.  Whew, I flew task 5 at just 10 seconds longer than task 1, and narrowly won by the 6 point margin, good grief!  I'll take it!

Practice Practice Practice

Hope it makes perfect!   Took the SNAFU out for practice for tomorrow's VC fly off with the other clubs, if any even send participants.  Actually I had the Showtime with me too for the primary purpose of testing to see if it can do the deadstick loop.  It can.  But I went on to check the SNAFU out for that task again, and found I can do it IF I dive long enough and most importantly pull up elevator gently, and increase the amount throughout the loop, giving full up just around the time the plane goes vertically up.  For some reason (calm?) the plane climbed very high today and it is ample altitude to both execute the loop and then glide down for landing in 60 seconds from the kill engine command.  My trouble on other days was inability to climb as high in 30 seconds...either the engine was weaker that day, or the wind really killed the climb on those days.  It was seemingly easy to gain lots of altitude in the calmer air today.  So today I had to cut the glides short where other days I had to try to prolong them, which is tougher to do.

My timing in my head always seems to be less than the clock.  I routinely had 50 or 55 seconds when counting in my head, vs 60 seconds on the watch.  Tomorrow I shall adjust by adding another 5 count (one thousand and one, one thousand and two, etc) for every 60 seconds I count in my head!

Oh well, ready or not, I'll try to be calm and fly proficiently tomorrow.

Alpha 40 and SNAFU

Alex flew his Alpha 40 today, 5 flights!  After Tad took off the first one, Alex made takeoffs on the next three flights.  With the strong crosswind, this was no small accomplishment.  The first two suffered from not enough left rudder, so he had S curve takeoffs to the right toward the fence, with recovery back to the left, thus the S.  On his 3rd takeoff he compensated a little too much resulting in a takeoff over the left edge of the runway, and as he put it, the ground dropped off rather than him lifting off with up elevator, lol.  I took off for the 5th flight.  Alex showed really good and consistent control of the plane at all altitudes, making both left and right turns, and many passes of descending altitude in prep for landings someday.  Awesome!  Tad had lots of fun training Alex today.  I also flew my SNAFU a number of times in prep for the Valley Challenge flyoff this Saturday.  Almost biffed the plane up good on one taxi practice when I dropped the xmitter and the throttle went up, as I was checking a stop watch.  I quickly throttled down when I righted the transmitter on the ground, and the plane stopped short of any accident out on the sod farm.

Ultimate & Shoestring

On some days the flying just feels right, like an extension of yourself, kind of effortless and in rhythm with the brain and fingers.  Today was like that.  I flew the CG Ultimate and the Shoestring, three times each, and just enjoyed both immensely.  Both engines ran good enough, but it seemed the OS 70 Surpass II in the Shoestring started to go off tune on the last flight, probably due to the rising temperature...when I got home at 1:30PM it was 90F, and it was probably under 70F when I started flying at 8:30AM.  Still a great day of flying.