Eight was Enough

Got in 8 packs on the helis today...4 on the Goblin 500 and 4 on the Gaui X5! Conditions were great weather wise with calm air, blue skies, and mild temperature.  There were workers on the field adjusting irrigation and mowing, but I stayed over the north field and they did not affect me much.  For flying today, I tried to fly slow and make many, many small controlled circles left and right, while maintaining level altitude.  Good practice.  Also tried just slow and easy reverse flight in a straight line while up pretty high.  Slight turns are up next.  Bailout move was to pyro 180 to be heading forward again.  Satiated and tired when out of packs!

Not quite mayhem yet!

Quang brought his friend Dan down, and both brought Battlewings to do air combat with Alex and me.  Great fun, but not as many hits as one might expect.  There might have been 6 hits at most in 6 sorties.  Nobody incurred significant damage.  Worst damage was done by rough landings on the north field, haha.  It's exciting and I think we got Brandon/Bruce interested, lol.  My personal highlight of the sorties was one of my hand catches.  I had to stretch as high as I could with my right hand, caught the wing, then lost my balance as I came down on the dirt road.  Almost fell flat in the dirt with xmitter in the left hand and wing in the right, but I regained my balance and footing.  Whew, lol.

Alex flew his Trex 450 DFC twice and I got in 4 packs on the Goblin 500.  I had the X5 and as many packs but did not get to fly it.  I think Battlewings tires us out!

Failure to launch

My main bird was the AW Ultimate 50cc today, but it did not want to run right, so it never got off the ground.  The DLE-55 would start, idle, then would not take almost any increase in throttle.  The engine would continue to run, but unsteadily and sort of like at about 1/2 throttle.  It never died.  I tried various high needle settings and none worked any better.  So back it went into the truck, and I flew my Goblin 500 for two packs, all I had charged for it because I anticipated flying the Ultimate.

Later in the day at home, I figured I have either a carburetor problem or a gas tank problem.  Since the gas tank is an easier job, I went that way, and removed the tank.  I found that the Tygon tubes inside the tank were all as stiff as hard plastic!  I replaced all the inside tubing, and also the line from the tank to the carb.  Other tubes seemed flexible enough.  While this might be the cause of the situation today, I am not sure.  Only trying to start the engine will tell either way.  Probably will do that tomorrow in the backyard.

Beautiful day but....

Only Rudy and I were there to fly!  Ridiculous level of inactivity in our club, lol.  It was gorgeous with very light wind, one guy working on the field that did not bother us, nice temperature.  Oh well.  I flew my Goblin four packs, and X5 two.  THe sky rapidly filled with clouds and overcast so I lost orientation a few times over the north field, same orientation each time...chopper facing west generally , me facing north, sun rising on the right/east.  That typically gives pretty good silhoutte conditions and I see the chopper profile the same for either NW or SW orientations of the nose!  Kinda scarey.  Hoping for better prescriptions for my glasses this Friday when I visit the optometrist to really fine tune to minimize the astigmatism effects...I see too many double edges on objects.

Also took my Battlewing up for 4 packs and had a ball just zipping it around.  Good practice for future battles!

Note to self:  I lowered the gain one point last night, so it is now at 42.  Seems just right now, rock solid tail, with no tail wag sounds.  That doesn't make sense, but the tail wag was not visible, it was audible.

Heli Sunday

Great time today flying with Tad, Quang, Allen.  Latter is Quang's good friend visiting from Kentucky!  The guy can fly like crazy, even better and crazier than Quang.  He flies an old Trex 450 and a Gaui X5, both old and basically beaters from years of use and likely zillions of flights.

Allen and Quang

Allen doing indescribable 3D with his Trex 450

Allen's 450 and X5

Quang and his Goblin 500 and Hobby People EDF jet...SUPER FAST!

I flew my Goblin 500 for 4 packs, Gaui X5 twice, and the Factor for six packs.  Goblin 500 needed gain lowered, so Quang dropped it a few points for me at the field using his laptop.  That helped a lot to reduce some tail chatter, and I will lower the gain one more point at home.  The increase in motor pulley from 18T to 19T is the cause of the chatter.  Excellent!  Both the 500 and the X5 flew great and I felt real comfortable, owing likely to the clear blue sky and full sun that create the best visibility for my lousy eyes.  Tad flew great with both his 500 and 700, 7 flights in all.  Really coming along good, the confidence shows in the air.

Quang flew his 500, 800, nitro 700, and the red F-16 in the photo above.  He just flies good, period.  Awesome was the jet....super fast.  And with high speed low level passes skimming the grass or dirt, wowser it is impressive.  And it only has elevons for control!  $30 he says, from Hobby People, for the airframe only.  

3rd place!

Prizes for the Challenge...winners pick what they want based on finish position.

Came in 3rd today in the KRCA Club Challenge.  Crazy as it is, Steven came in 1st, Dick 2nd by just 3 seconds over me in 3rd, durn it, haha.  Next came Mike, Bob, Rudy, Ashton, and Ron.  Good fun, and I won $35 plus my choice of planes left, and I took a large Piper Cub that I intend to sell or trade.  Tasks are shown in the pic below.

My flight times were short of the 2 minuted 14 second mark, by 25 seconds, 3, and 12, for the tasks shown.  My internal clock was to sing Lullaby and Goodnight four times, and then add 10 to 20 seconds on the end by counting, dependent on whether I thought I sang fast or slow, haha.  Needless to say, I need another method!!!  FUN nonetheless, and everyone won a prize.  Oh, I flew the Star in the event. It was followed up with a nice hot dog picnic under our awning.

The Star

Dick's Stick

Mike and Ron flew UCanDo's

Old farts having fun

4x4

Got in 4 packs on the Dragon G500, and 4 on the X5 today!  Felt good doing that albeit very tame due to a nasty cough I have had over a week.  Just not feeling too sharp but I need the flying time for relaxation.  At least I did not crash!  I tried my move once and got so off that I ended up doing a backward flip of some sort from a vertical nose up starting position, lol.  Everything went well though, and the new Gobby is a sweet machine like the Pulse edition was.