I just want to say thanks for the well wishes and concern shown by many of my fellow RC Groupers over my recent stroke.
I'll try to answer any questions regarding my stroke here instead of getting way off topic in the general discussion threads.

On Monday March 25th at around 5:15 PM my left arm seemed to develop a mind of it's own and tried to beat me to death. Luckily I was at work and not on the road home so was able to call out across the room for help. EMS was summoned and I was transported to Manatee Memorial after they decided I had a stroke local to my left arm only. The seizures had stopped by the time EMS arrived but there was no strength left in my arm. I couldn't even lift it without using my other arm to do so. Shortly after arriving at the ER, I experienced another seizure in the same arm but this one was short lived due to whatever the drug was they injected me with. I spent the night in the ER and was transported to the stroke unit the next day.
From there I was given steroids, and anti seizure medications via IV and had multiple CT and MRI Scans (with & without contrast) over a period of a few days. There is a small tumor/lesion of approx. 1.3 cm in my brain that they feel is responsible for my condition and surgery has been scheduled to remove it on April 11th. Prayers for a well trained surgeon with God guiding his hands will be much appreciated for this date. I'm hoping for minimal complications for this event although the surgeon has...Continue Reading

Today is my 3rd outing with the SoloShot3. The 1st time around was a real failure as it was recording video when I thought it wasn't and vice versa.

The second outing was on 4/20 and I shot 4 videos that I condensed into 2. One long one that had all 4 combined with open sky footage removed and one more that used the take off and landing from the 4th video (medium framing) combined with video two that was shot in wide framing mode. The compilation is uploaded at 720 p60, the highligts at 1080 p60.

SoloShot 3 Compilation 4 20 18 FlexJet 90 (13 min 5 sec)

SoloShot 3 FlexJet 90 Highlights 4 20 18 (4 min 22 sec)

...Continue Reading

I had to have one of these after seeing video of it flying. in the announcement thread here on RC Groups

FlexJet - Seth Arnold - One Battery (5 min 7 sec)

Available from Flex Innovations https://www.flexinnovations.com/product-p/fpm3470.htm

Mine arrived at my workplace on Wednesday but just finally getting time to start my blog thread on it. (It's pretty much finished already)

Save yourself some head scratching during the build by visiting http://wiki.flexinnovations.com/wiki/FlexJet and http://wiki.flexinnovations.com/wiki.../LatestUpdates

I had read the original PDF manual but there was at least one addendum in the printed manual I was not aware of when I started the build. As a result I had to ask why my landing gear did not deploy. The addendum says the gear endpoints has to be changed to 125% along with the aileron, elevator and rudder that was covered in the manual I had read.

More posts to follow

Mine arrived yesterday at my work and I got a little done on it last night before calling it a day. Basically, inspected the carton contents and started applying decals since I'd rather work with small sections than try to juggle the assembled model while trying to apply water slide decals. At least they won't be as bad as the A-10 was since there's not as many of them.

More to come in following posts.

Going to go ahead and get this started and will add to it later. My Warthog arrived where I work yesterday (6/5/17) morning about 10:00 AM. So far I haven't made much progress on it since I'm going to put all the decals on it before starting the assembly. This thing is HUGE and I feel it will be easier to handle the individual components than trying o add the 5 million decals with it all assembled.
It appears to have arrived undamaged although I still haven't finished unpacking it yet. The packaging on this one is probably the best I have seen. So far the only items I've removed are the forward fuselage, horizontal stab and vertical fins. I thought it would be wise to start with the nose art so if I screwed it up I could switch to an alternate scheme since 3 different liveries are included with the kit.
I pre-ordered mine the 1st day thy went up from Motion RC and waited a little over two months for it to finally arrive so going to savor the build even if it takes me a while to get it completed.

Taking a little break from MORE decals right now to start this entry. Other than the time consuming job of applying decals the build should go fairly quick when I get that far. If you are contemplating one I would strongly suggest watching the build video done by Capt Mike from the Motion RC staff. His method seems to be a very good example of the correct way to put one of these together.

Freewing A-10 1700mm Thunderbolt II Assembly Guide (16 min 35 sec)

6/7/...Continue Reading

Although I'm very happy with my current little Red Yak 130 (Over 250 flights so far) I got bored and pulled my backup ARF+ out of it's box (again) Thursday evening. I was happy with my Mig 21 makeover so decided to give this one the same treatment. I spent a few hours and probably 1/2 a roll of clear packing tape removing as much of the red paint as I could.
Friday morning rolled around and it was much too windy to fly so spent some more time with the tape, lacquer thinner and finally some white primer to try to get rid of all the red.
Saturday's weather was better but still not great. Still managed to get in a few more flights on my Yak (enough to bring it to the 255 mark) and later Saturday evening started applying camo paint. Today wraps up most of it but it's still a work in progress. Need to do a little touch up in a few places, add panel lines, hook up and set up linkages, etc. I also have to wait for some carbon tube to arrive for making a one piece wing spar. Something I had planned to pick up at the local hobby shop but he didn't have any 6 mm in stock.
I would kind of liked to wait until it's finished to post, but running out of daylight and tired of working on it for now. More to come later....Continue Reading

UPS delivered my new Mig from Motions this morning around 10:00 AM.
Package looked good even on the external shipping box

I begged off and came home a little after lunch then started to work on the project. Motion's website says assembly time is one hour plus. Mine was plus about another 4 houres.

More to come...

First of all I want to say this is like a disease for which there is no cure. I have a couple of genuine turbine aircraft that I fly as well (see page two in the "My Jet Set" portion of my blog for more details) but just can't seem to help myself on these little foamy jets from Freewing.

I was a little concerned when my package arrived from Motion as the shipping box showed some typical UPS handling, but none of it got transferred to the model itself.

Assembly is typical Freewing with most parts being attached by screws. I did have to join the front and rear fuselage halves and glue in the landing gear mains. Also wound up carving a trough in the bottom side of the rudder for the servo extension plug to live in. That was the only way to get the vertical fin to fully seat.

For more detail on this model I would suggest the "official" thread here on RC Groups. https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show....php?t=2233094

First let me say this is not my plane. It was bought by a friend of mine a little over a month ago and he had not started on it. With a another crappy weather weekend coming up I talked him into letting me take it home with me for the weekend. Steve doesn't like to build anyways and it gave me something to do for today. There's also a full discussion thread for this model here. Lots more information than in this little two post build.

I must be getting slow in my old age. Motion's website says 2 hours and I'm guessing I've put around 8 into it. I didn't think about taking any photos until after having the nose attached. As a heads up, dry fit to check before applying any adhesive. I had to ream the alignment tubes in the rear fuselage to get the ones from the front part to go into them.

After looking through the manual, I decided to attach the elevators (step 3 by he manual) before moving to the vertical fins since the model needs to be upside down to install them.

Coming back to step 2, (installing the vertical fins) there were plastic wire retainers attached to the fuselage. I'm guessing to keep the wires from falling down into the fuselage during shipping. They have to be removed to install the verticals. There's no way they will seat with them in place. The left (port) side was especially a pain in the with 3 different leads.

I was among the MANY who pre ordered this model from Motion RC back in December. Mine finally arrived yesterday where I work. I was stuck at the courthouse due to a jury summons but my friend/neighbor/co-worker Brian brought it home to me yesterday evening after he got off.

I didn't get much accomplished last night other than some inspection of parts pulling the fuselage out of he bag and cycling the gear. I wound up breaking one of the main gear door hinges when I plugged in the battery pack since it stuck on the cradle I had it sitting in. I was able to epoxy it back to the door and it seems to be holding OK. I plan to order another main gear door set from Motion just in case though.
The photos below are as far as I got last night. Hopefully more progress to report this evening.

For now, I have to head back to the courthouse and spend another long boring day. Yesterday left me more tired than working all day

Took a ride over to Paradise field in Lakeland FL yesterday for the last day of the 12 O'clock High event. Shot quite a few photos and around an hour of video while there.

1st video A mix of a F-5 and F-16 turbine jets shot today at 12 O'clock High. The F-16 had a smoke system that showed up nicely against the crisp blue sky.

F-5 and F-16 with smoke (7 min 22 sec)

Mine arrived on Thursday and started on it that evening after getting home from work. Finished it up this morning and hoping to maiden it tomorrow.
I've shot a few photos along the way but the lighting un my living room really sucks.

Although this is the thrust vectored version, I have no intentions of using it. That it came with it kept me from buying for a long time but finally gave into the temptation since I'm a fan of the "bug". Personally, I would have rather them (Freewing) used those servos for some working rudders instead.

That said, there was some minor shipping damage but nothing I'd think worth sending it back over. (I can do a lot more damage than that flying it )Freewing still needs to improve the packaging on this one though.

More to come...

With all the rain we had Friday and Saturday, the grounds were pretty much "swamp land" today. There was still a lot of good flying though. The pilots had to contend with about a 15 mph crosswind but I saw no crashes.
I have a total of 12 videos in cue for Youtube and the 1st couple have finished uploading. Check back later for more.

For now, here's a slideshow from the stills to get it started.

2014 Top Gun 01 (2 min 34 sec)

Since I have a section of my blog dedicated to my racing boat fleet thought maybe I should add in one for my EDF's since I've been playing with them longer than I have boats. More details on the individual models in the following posts.

I couldn't really make up my mind on which forum to put this in So just opted for my blog.
My flying buddy, co-worker, neighbor and I played hooky from work today and took a little trip over to Lakeland for Florida Jets. (Actually we had pre booked the day off for the occasion so it wasn't and unexcused absence).
Saw lots of thing I'd like to have but the only thing I bought was a new set of 3/16" struts from the BVM tent for my BVM F-80 (P-80) and some lunch. I did shoot some videos and photos though.

1st up, a little photo slide show from the stills shot today. It will eventually have a soundtrack after Youtube gets finished with it.

Slide Show (1 min 24 sec)

I seem to be getting warbird fever now.
There's already a fairly old thread for this model here on RCG in the fuel warbird section but here's my version anyways.
This one arrived 10/21 but wanted to get at least partially started on it before starting a build thread in my blog.

I hadn't ordered servos yet as I wanted to see what would fit. HS-225MG's are a little too small but HS-645MG's could be made to work with a little material removal.

I would have ordered the retracts and struts when I ordered the plane but Horizon is out of stock (backorder) on the struts. I'm wondering if maybe the Robart 3/8" Robo-strut would fit in the Eflite retract. (Turns out they don't, but the set I ordered will go to good use in my big scratch built delta)

This is one of those instances of giving in to peer pressure since my flying buddy Brian is building one of the ESM Sea Fury's. On the other hand, I suppose I could use a "giant scale" warbird since I don't have any yet.

There's already a build thread on one of these here on RCG but I like to roll my own so will just do mine here in my blog.

Mine came from TBM http://www.troybuiltmodels.com/items/ESMP39-80FAF.html in Sarasota so I didn't have to deal with shipping charges. That's a good thing considering the dimensions.

I recently decided I wanted to build a hexa and ran across the "SIX" on Hobby King.
The price was definatley cheap enough and the way it was laid out looked very similar in construction to my Hover Things HT-FPV quad.So, I put it, a couple of the NTM 2826-1200's, and a couple of Turnigy Plush 25's in my shopping cart. (I already had four at home from a quad that I decided not to build)

The glass quality seems very good and everything fit quite well right out of the box. The only complaint I have is from one piece of incorrect harware. One of the spacers for attaching the top plate to the lower one was wrong. (see following posts as this will also be a build log as I progress along.)

I recently purchased one of the Hobby King Hi Def "Wing Cams" while searching for something lighter and with a narrower field of view than the GoPro Hero.

With a FOV of 120 degrees on the WingCam compared to 170 degrees on a GoPro it fit the bill nicely. It's also considerablt lighter than the GoPro.

The wing cam weighs in at 1.5 oz. with the velcro strip I use for attaching it The GoPro HD Hero comes in at 3.4 oz. for just the camera.


The wing cam features 4 different resolutions for recording. 720P 60 (60 frames per second). 720P 30 (30fps) 1080P 30 (30fps) and Full HD 30 (30 fps)

After you finally figure out the "chinglish" manual that can be down loaded from Hobby King, it's operation is fairly simple and straight forward.

Video quality is acually quite good when you take into consideration the big price difference between the two. A new wing cam is barely 1/3 the cost of a new Hero 2.


I liked the camera well enough to create a Youtube video on the setup of the camera that's much easier to follow than the manual when it comes to making the basic setup.

Note that you will need a monitor (TV) that will accept a HDMI or TV/AV input to make any changes.

Wing Cam Setup (6 min 17 sec)

I've also done another clip for comparisons of the different capture settings. Flying with my Hover Things FPV quad it looks as if I need to do a little better job of balancing my props, but will eventually get all the "jello" effect taken care of.

Other than that, I'm really very impressed with the video quality. This video starts at the 720P60 setting, then to 720P30, followed by 1080P30 and Full HD30. It's a little longer than I originally intended at 7 minutes long but it takes a little over the anticipated 90 seconds on each setting to get up to altitude, make a pass or two and back down again.

Hobby King HD Wing Cam Resolutions Comparison.wmv (7 min 18 sec)

I was fortunate enough to attend the NAMBA 2011 FE Nats hosted by the Waveblasters in Fort Pierce, FL last week. Other than the 3 hour drive each way to get there and taking about a week to recover from it had a great time. (one for the bucket list)

I arrived on June 1st for the open water practice day then stayed in a notel overnight to run in the P-Mono class on the 2nd. Placing 3rd in the 1st heat, 2nd in the 2nd heat and getting a DNF in heat 3. (guess I got a little over zealous and wound up rudder side up on the 2nd lap) That gave me an 8th overall out of 15 in the class. I drove back home after the races to finish prep on my other boats and spend a couple of nights at home before driving back on Saturday to run 2 classes on Sunday.

Saturday was spent shooting tons of video and Sunday's racing netted me a 3rd overall in 1/8 scale hydro and 2nd overall in S-T Mono. (No, I'm not a great driver and my boats are not that fast. There were only 5 boats signed up for either of those classes. Only 4 actually ran in the 1/8 hydro and only 3 in S-T Mono)

Below is a small sampling from the vids I shot while there.

2011 FE Nats Sampler.wmv (2 min 37 sec)

The entire collection can be found in this thread. https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show....php?t=1449884