Here is my JW48 Ultra light and JW Tweety build....Continue Reading

Recently my beloved Futaba 10CAP Transmitter has been having some problems with the trim switches. After of season the buttons barely working the elevator trim finally stopped working completely. This was not a good thing because I was flying when it finally failed. The plane was ballooning and no matter what I did it would not trim the nose down. I kept fiddling with the trim and eventually bumped it in the wrong direction trying to make it work I could not correct it and further worsening the situation.

We rounded up some tools on the mountain and pulled the transmitter apart but were unable to get it working. I had to use the subtrim to adjust the elvator just so I could fly.

Futaba 10CAP trim switch failure (2 min 51 sec)

Futaba 10CAP trim switch failure3 (1 min 14 sec)

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Here are a few Iphone videos from yesterday. It really turned into a beautiful day. I think it was good air right up until sunset. I flew the Raven one last time on the bottom before leaving around 5pm. Tails on the Uber kits are no good for DS. They are great for light air but even in big front side lift they were getting bent all over the place. Couldn't even DS the Raven because the tail was fluttering and trying to break apart. The Uber moth did OK but is also visibly weak in the air.

Über moth (1 min 26 sec)

Uber moth ds (0 min 37 sec)

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Building this kits has been an absolute blast. I have built a lot of foam kits in my day and the instructions and plans in these kits are part of what make them so great. Just like with any foamy, it is only as good as it is built. I know that my methods are far from what the instructions say to do. I usually give the instructions one good read and toss them aside for the build. This is part of the fun for me. I prefer to take what I can from the instructions and use my own techniques and experience to complete the kit from there. This works well for me because I only have so many minutes or hours a day to build and so you end up doing whatever you can based on the time you have.

First picture is of the remains of my first M60. It didn't look much better before Bobby harvested my 225 servos from it. It would have lived much longer but I flew the battery voltage down to nothing and handed the radio over to Dax, who managed a few laps before it pounded in one last time. It had been pounded in many times in its life and always survived but on that day we found it broken beyond repair.

I always wanted to try to Uber version of these kits and although they are more money I really like what seems like more a more durable and Super slippery design. Only the test of time will let me know if it holds up as well. It should be a lot easier to iron out the wing in the beds without the fuse attached.

There is one thing I was not happy about. If you plan on building...Continue Reading

This is my little home brew swept wing kit made from scratch. It uses the JW airfoil and the tail design was copied from my half pipe. Spars are simply flat carbon ribbon glued with gorilla. Airtronics digital servos, homemade battery and assan 2.4 Rx. Center section was glass reinforced before taping. I am keeping this one light weight for front side and light wind. With no fuse it should be very slippery on the frontside.

Here are two short clips I just posted using my new Contour HD Camera. I prefer it to my gorpo because of the giant switch to start and stop recording. The audible sounds let you know everything is working. I am really excited about the new GPS versions which embed GPS Coordinates into the video.

I was using my headlamp because I did not yet have a head band to use. You can see the front of the headlamp in the shots. I have a new band on order as well as some other goodies.

HB50 motor pre-flight test (0 min 18 sec)

Launching the hB50 (0 min 47 sec)

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Got two pylon racers ready for the 2011 Central Utah Pylon Racing Association(CUPRA) season. One with the Turnigy Motor and one with the tower pro. Everything is tested and ready but I pulled the radios for other projects so need to get some more on order.


I finally found the problem I was having with my turnigy system. Everything runs great on the bench test but, like clock work, the system would short out right before I was ready to launch for a race. Motor was new and had never flown so I assumed it was ESC or break in wires. Replaced everything but the motor for the next race. Ran everything on the bench and of course it worked fine. Go to launch at the next race and something is shorting out again. The other night I decided to pull the motor apart and inspect all the wiring. The motor was wound so poorly the wires were intermittently coming in contact with the magnets.(see picture)

Here is a bit of the video we captured last Sunday. Editing is a little ruff because my computer is old and can barely do anything with the raw files.

Unfortunately we had problems with the Panasonic AV cable and could only downlink the video from the go pro camera. For this reason we did not try to operate the zoom during flight.

The inversion that day was horrible so visibility and lighting are very poor. It does show you just how stable the platform is, note there is no stabilization on the camera gimbal.

I left one of the high speed passes in this video with a view from both cameras. This will give you an idea of the two views we see from the ground station. It also lets you see how fast this ship can really go. Winds were northwest at 5 mph and the ship is pushing upwind on that pass.

Hb50 with dual cam gimbal (5 min 37 sec)

Here is my latest creation for our HB50 Hyperblimp airship. http://www.hyperblimp.com/hb50/
The Gimbal will carry just about any HD camera plus we will be mounting an GoPro underneath so we can view a wide angle shot while the main camera is zoomed in for a close up shot. Should help with referencing and tracking object especially while flying FPV.

Sway Dampening for Hyperblimp Gimbal (0 min 27 sec)

Ground Station and Camera Gimbal for HB50 (1 min 55 sec)

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LED Halfpipe Night Flying (0 min 38 sec)

Got my halfpipe done. Did some upgrades of course.

LED system
Carbon TE spar
Torsional Glassed TE
Glassed stabilizer with reinforced securment points
Glassed center section LE to TE
hitec HS-225 servos
6 volt
2.4 Rx
gooped TE foam and gooped tips
Torsional wing taping

Very excited to do some night flying and night DS!

This 2-1/2 minute video is of a vacuum bagged vertical stab built for a dynamic soaring glider.

More pictures and information on the build:
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show....php?t=1173646

Vacuum Bagging Vertical Stab in T-tail (2 min 34 sec)

I picked up some new keychain cams just before my DS trip to California. The air was not so great on Parker so I decided to do some on-board camera flights with a ribbon tied to the back of my JW.

I'm excited to see what can be done with this concept. Seeing layers and turbulence will be interesting, but I am also excited to see how long of ribbon I can DS with. The goal would be to try to catch up with my own ribbon and have it strung though the entire circuit.

JW with On-board Camera and Ribbon Streamer (2 min 52 sec)

Here is a few seconds of the video we captured on a wide angle HD GoPro Hero camera. It gives you a very unique perspective that other video cameras cannot.

The location is North Ridge Point of the Mountain, Utah and the glider is a 3 meter ship called the Crossfire. The winds were very late to switch and build for the evening. Some isolated showers to the west swirled the valley winds for two hours before turning Northwest. Once the wind started we had a clean layer until sunset sent us packing.

Wide Angle Camera - POM Dynamic Soaring (2 min 53 sec)

I had to butcher the video to get something uploaded to youtube. The raw file won't even play on my home computers. Had to play it on my new computer at work before I could smoothly get the mp4 videos to play. The camera records 60 fps at 1080p. If I had something to edit the video correctly I would post some short clips in higher quality. Had to convert the files into AVI before I could cut them up in movie maker.

Sunday we got out and flew a new HB50 envelope with front and rear thrust vectoring motors. The envelope has our best helium retention yet and the speed on this thing is incredible. It is hard to believe that it is 50' long when it can fly so nimble. I can't wait to see what top speed is with some 6s packs.

It is very exciting to have such great results with these HB50 platforms. I got a few more ideas to come. The next few hyperblimp prototypes are going to fly faster, more aggresively, be more effeciently and have even better helium retention.

Full auto pilot integration is going to take some time and money but the results from the weekend remind me we are on path to doing some great things.

HB50 flight with dual motors 03-21-10 (5 min 12 sec)

Spent my Saturday seeing what the pylon racing is all about. Met up with the Central Utah Pylon Racing Association (CUPRA) on a sod farm in Payson, Utah. After waiting for the frost to melt off I got my first taste of how it works. Judges call out any cuts at the pylons. If you cut you have to do an extra lap. If you cut twice in one round you are Disqualified. Everyone launches on the judges count and points are earned for your placement in each race. Highest points for the day wins.

It was a good crew to hang out with. Some good competition and comradery. Wish I didn't have to drive so far but it was for some good fun.

03-20-2010 pylon racing.wmv (1 min 27 sec)

Weather was very unpredictable on 03-19-10 at point of the mountain in Utah. Warm sunny snow showers and some crazy winds. Direction was cross to the hill during the big wind. The best layer came late in the evening before sunset as the winds died down.

I tossed my camera on my backpack and filmed a few turns with my JW. It got really light when I landed and over shot my LZ. Came down hard right on the rocky ridgeline. Not happy about the deep scratches but you got to pay to play this game.

Friday night POM.wmv (0 min 59 sec)

vigor vs-12m - My first experience (0 min 46 sec)

I've got 6 kits for a 62" EPP MOM racer for point of the mountain. Ted, Bobby and Dan have contributed in getting things ready. Should be able to crank out another 6 kits on saturday with some help.

The wing airfoil is MH-32. Spar designs are still up in the air. The first wing I built with 4mm square carbon rods top and bottom spars and a 5mmx1.5 carbon strip on the trailing edge. The wing came out much stiffer then I could have imagined however it did lack some torsional strength. If I use the same spar system again I will need to do some taping on 45's to tighten it up. The alternative seems to be a wood spar with a carbon top and bottom cap. This will make a much flexier wing but will cost much less. My

The wing flew pretty much as expected. My differencial was a little off but it rolled very crisp. With a little more dihedral it should be a good wing for thermals too. Ted was there flying his one D which was just slightly slower and slightly heavier(race legal foil). That MH32 ballasts up very well so I expect it will get be much faster on a good day....Continue Reading

I finished these just in time to take to CA with me over Thanksgiving. I really went all out to make these as durable as possible. One was suppose be 60 oz or under but with the battery in the wing plus book covering my "lite" build will balance in around 80-85oz. The Medium heavy build came in over 90oz. The triple spar heavy foam build will be over 100 oz. This one is for John and I was able to get it to him while I was on weldon. It still needs hinges, linkage and balancing before its ready to fly.

I took the medium heavy build with to CA and left the lite build for another day. The first morning on weldon Jen was helping glue my fuse in place when tragedy struck. While I was squeezing a load a glue under the fuse the backside of tube blew out and a giant blob of glue landed on the wing. This of course did not clean off easily and it destroyed a once beautiful layer which held down the book covering seams. I was peeling layers of goop off my finger for the next few days....Continue Reading