Listening to Deep Purple greatist hits at 2am prepping to fly in the morning.

The wing gets tidied up, reinforced and more fwd CG. Made up two xt30 2S battery packs... out go the huge xt60's.

Next is Ramstein the CF golf shaft stick. With a CF sail batten spar... golf sail... what next?

Then fiddle with the micro sloper.

Are three planes enough for one day of flying?
Will be taking everything required to fix them in the field....

:- )

So this foamboard is not the easypeel type...

But why??? Why peel it?

Well i am going to make a sloper and i
am aiming for a high level of fit and finish. The first task is to get the wing material in spec: light and paper free.

Yep, tedious scrubbing with a toothbrush!

My wing plan is a direct copy of the NanoPlanes falcon , two sheets, a ply wing rib and cf spar.
Well i reckon i can do a close aproximation.

Anyhow, back to scrubbing!

:- )

I am a confirmed bicyclist. I have about four, and parts...

So yeah this is my plane rack that i threw together in a hurry, it took longer than it should have...

Hangs off my rear carrier, easy on eady off. Has tie down points for string or elastic. My huge wing and fuse fits on it ok, my little sloper is fine.

Paint is drying. I have a hill i want to bike to for micro sloping. Heck, may as well make another plane while i wait...

Bike to the slope!

:- )

Wooo... excited to try the wing out again.

So, I was looking for the nose to glue back on, ugh, i was standing on it... oh dear, never mind. Smashed off then stood on, the cheek!

So far:

Lead ballasted: CG is about 50mm fwd of engine firewall.

Hot glue hinge sucked so went back to gaffa tape.

Lost my good battery, on back up now. Replaced xt60 plugs with xt30. Smaller... easier to pack.

Have to launch it solo. Gulp.

Paint job. RC Punk styles, need to get some zips in there and safety pins and cone studs... invasion stripes rule. Needs stickers. Its not very punk at all, yet...

Waiting for the evening to mature, less folks at the park and less sunburn.

:- )

Bought cheap as heck epoxy... smelled bad. Really bad, very runny, not ok. Oh well...

Next day came back to this, disaster. DARN IT!

Im pretty sure thats some kind of horrid solvent type "glue" in an epoxy set of tubes.

Avoid!

The cheap epoxy sources have dried up for some reason, i knew i should have bought all the stock when i had the chance.

Next!

:- )

Yup. I finally did it.
(Broke prop off eflite umx pitts)

Q:But why????

A:CLASSIC MISTAKE !!!

TX WAS SET TO FLYING WING.
( with a reversed channel...)

Walk of shame home.... darn!

Next !

Just back home from Auckland.
What a day!
Met up with a pal and we took his gear and mine for a fang round the local park.
My HLG, my FW, his FW, my umx pitts, and his quad.
Too much fun an learning was had. My pal was a fixed wing newbie and we had a blast. Too cool.

A DC3 flew over us !!!! Wild.

News:
We got my wing flying !!!! It was waaaay too weight back, taped a steel pin drill to the nose an went great! Tested it out by hand launching into a bush till it was right. Flys really well.

Oh, but this is really all about my pal and his flitetest wing he made and actually flew. FIRST TIME EVER with fixed wing. A great first time experience. Awesome!!!!

I am so exhausted im gonna put up some pics and turn in .

I flew a quad for the first time. Its a bit like a heli really.... ha ha. I crashed it twice.

Ok bye zzzzz :- )

Ps broke the FW's other wing off this time!

Thursday 7 Feb 2024
22:00 hrs
New Zealand

Todays blog topic:

Chuck Glider Park Action. Flat land sloping... ( Can that even be a thing ? )

So, I may have shared this plane before, I think, a previous "show and tell". I really should check ...
Never mind. Moving on.

So I had it flying a while back then hung it up on the wall... well that didn't last. Its back! in action.

I can't remember why I hung it up last time. The old braincells are a bit scattered these days. Shrug.

So what's new?

I took out the FS2A Flysky RX
( it's in the eflite UMX Pitts special.. oh! That's why it got hung up..ahh...)
and I put in the ESky ET4 ( Big Lama coax heli ) RX in. Works fine.
Now I have two radio systems up and running.

Mods:
Cut down the Elevator: it was way too huge.
Set the CG to 1/3 chord.
Added wing tips: random design out of the last of my foamboard.
RX ant is vertical. ( that is a long story. )

The flying:

Super light breeze. Sun is going down. Perfect for a remaiden.
Kicked the ele up a few clicks to make sure it was not going to nose dive
while I scramble to get control...
and... rolling to the left creates havoc and it cartwheels to the deck. Uh... oh..
After several repeats for the same behaviour I do a PRE FLIGHT and yes the
alies are inverted. Duh...

Relaunch at 45deg. Goes up like a rocket. Roll it left and spiral down to a perfect nose landing.
No damage. Get back up in the air.
Ah... I have...Continue Reading

Hiya.

Back from the park.
Air was clean, no breeze, sun was below horizon. Dew on the grass. Air density? No idea.

Practised flat figure eights, loops and Immelman . Good times!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immelmann_turn

This is the fkysky fs2a rx plane. No stabilisation. 30% expo on alie and ele.

Learning to be responsive on the throttle: in danger of hotrodding into the ground i back off, and in wallowing on the stall i power out.

Slow cruise and gliding is dreamy.

Belly landing is fine in short grass.

Best mod is taking the under carriage off ( plus the fs2a rx)

I would say it's about 1% to 2% glue so far...

Even if i paid full price for it i would say its return on investment would be A to A+ .

Issues i see are: expensive servos, some glue joins are a bit naff and its overall fragile nature. (The box is really really good .)

I love it.

: -)

Glued and bound a crossbar onto the fuse/shaft with thread and ca.
Doubled sided taped the 9g servos on then added a zip tie. The servos are taped together aswell.

Im using premade control rods from a pkz spares kit, which works out really well, they have screw on clevis and a guide tube. For the money they are great.

I have decided the the sevos needed to move from the empenage fwd... and this solution presented itself.

Fun!

:-)

AUW of 280 gr
Wing span 800mm
Overall lenth 450mm
Foam.

Flew really terribly! Minor amounts of control and it would streak earthward with glee.

Tried changing the CoG, but i am guesstimating.

Wing finally cracked after yet another nose dive. It has mental nose up/down instability.

I think weight is the critical feature here, it needs a decent speed to stay aloft and that introduces the wild up/down and zooming away from pilot problem. I would hazard that it wants to fly really fast...

Launching is harder than the vampire as it has no ventral fin. This occured to me mid field....

Hmmm... i just dont have the wing magic yet!

:-)

Hey :-)

Yet another crash. Fly Crash Learn Repeat ( hopefully getting better each time ! ) .

I rebuilt the "Vampire", my FW scratch build, after the last succession of nose dives.
Crumpled and lose foam board cut off and new nose built on.

I tried moving the CoG fwd... that was interesting but mostly resulted in super nose dive.
Moved CoG aft ( battery ) and it was easier to keep aloft for the milliseconds it was "flying".

Launching it was a bit of a trail, I had to throw it with the motor OFF to prevent prop rash.
This tended to make the launch a parabola and recovering was a trial. Tried an upward throw
at about 45deg and this made a huge difference. So I learned me that trick.

Added some lead ballast as far aft as possible on the wings and the launching was getting better.
So there is a thing. Launch angle and CoG trim.

During the "flights" there were some heart warming moments, the thing can go pretty fast but it's
really unstable. Being quick on the stick is super duper important. Not a trainer type flight model. Nope.

A servo arm actually rotated on the spline after and really hard nose landing. Drat. Glue ?

Overall I think I am getting the bug, it's taking it time to take hold but I feel it slowly spreading through my system.
Only two servos to wreak !

My next scratch build will be all Foam Board and pretty light, longer ( more aft ) wings and better options for
CoG fettling.

I was hoping that the cool stripe paint job might have been good luck but I think it was blind optimism!

TLDR:

New launch angle ( 45 deg up ) .
More aft CoG.
Longer wings ( more fwd and aft ).
Possibly the Elevons are way too stupidly huge and are just "air braking"...

Will bicycle into town to get a stack of foam board or.... maybe hot wire a wing out of a
insulation board that I have laying around for that perfect idea... hmmm....

:- )

Hey there.

I have taken the UMX Pitts out a few times now and gotten the hang of it. Or so I thought...

Out in the park I met three young lads from the Congo who were very keen to have a look
at my plane. Very chatty and polite. Time to fly... ok lads stand back please...

Started flying sedately, all good... and then ... I did start showing off a bit....

Things were going very well, ooh and aah from the lads ( loops and so on ) and then... CRASH !
Oh dear.
In the course of doing a vertical corkscrew inverted hammer head loop, i flew into the deck.
Quite the thump.
Tossed the battery out.
Flying is interrupted by terra firma...

See attached pics. A certain amount of glueing is required, looks like it will pull through.
Glue percentage is going up.

Note to self:
Set a throttle end point that prevents high speed nonsense until fully proficient. !!!

By the way it was glorious until I hit the deck.... I did laugh a bit.

Fun!

:-)

Hi there, been away from TX for a while. Life things...

The news:

TX mod

3 x Li-ion battery pack for FS - i6 TX.

Batteries harvested from dead laptops ( 18650 made in Japan ).
Wired in series with a balance charger lead. Taped up.

Voltage regulator from JAYCAR ( NZ/Aussie ), takes a wide range of input voltage
and regulates down to selectable voltage ( it is not a switch mode device ).
It takes the 11.1volt li-ion pack and regulates down to 6v.

Battery box solution: I just chopped out the 4xAA box and gaffa taped up a pozzie
for the battery. I did seal up the TX PCB with some glue to prevent moisture ingress.
TX still works.

All soldered in and working fine. Battery level has not shifted after three decent flights.

Flying wing pusher:

About 280 grams, 2s battery and small motor.

Well I thought that I could have fun with this scratch build... it's a handful to fly and
terrible at landing. Tried shifting CoG but it just made it different worse. The power train
was good for it but yeah, trying to get it to go in any direction was futile.
Maybe a longer nose might help smooth it out, smaller elevons and ... more flying skill.
The core of the model is core flute with foamboard flappy bits, LE and box....
Or maybe become a wall flower.


E-flite UMX Pits Special.

Can't find the old pics... never mind.

Swapped out the Spectrum RX which was fidgeting a servo. Replaced with FS2A
RX , soldered the servo leads...Continue Reading

Hey there.

It's 2023. Wow. Older. Life and everything.

Back in the garage building planes and crashing them.

Piper Super Cub.
UMX Pitts Special.
Large Stick.
Small Stick.

Various fuselages etc.

Still using the FlySky i16 TX and RX. Still good after all these years. and an FS2A RX. Cheap and good.

Flying the Large Stick - "Rammstein" - in the local park. It's too big for it. 1 metre wingspan and likes to go fast.
Also have a new foam wing for Rammstein - it has a coreflute wing right now - which is wider and thicker and constant chord. Maybe be better for the small park.

Building a small stick bush plane. Getting close to a maiden. Small and good for the smallish park.

Swapped out the SAFE etc RX from the Pitts, FS2A rx in it. Patched up the paint. Looks fine. Taxi tests check out.

Mucking about with li-ion batteries instead of Li-po, the li-ion are way cheaper - free - and less hassle with "puffieness" etc.
I don't tend to pull amps and like to FLY instead of " prop hang"....

I better scoot, things to do or I will get in trouble.

Cheers !

Ladies and Chaps.

It's been some time since I last logged in here.... been busy. Sort of.

Making wings! Well ok trying to. : - )

Learning to fly in wind in crappy planes what I have been building.
( I know I should of posted pics... ugh, they are sooooo bad! )

Getting the hang of things in PicaSim. It's great!

OK be good now and have fun!

Salute!

L.F.K.

OK I am tad lubricated. : -)

I watched a heli fly over it was just cruising an had an enclosed tail. Not sure what it was.
BUT is was pretty darn quiet. Except the thwacking sound. But still, it was pretty low key.

Decided to not G.A.F about things today and let it all hang out.
So I pulled up my super cool made in NZ ultra deck chair and sat in the sun with my shirt of like mr Putin and sank a bleer. or three.
It was great. But... soon it will will be too hot to do this without flash goggles and a leather jacket. Sigh.
Rad count will go through the roof.

No idea if anyone reads this but a BIG hello to you. And PEACE be to you. God I sound like a hippy...

Seriously chaps.
RC modelling is great.
But remember to pass on those great models, gathering dust, to the next gen.
Don't let them rot!

( Seen a few "after they passed" sales on the local auction website, heck some were EXTENSIVE...)

Which reminds me....

Bo cool, respectful, no bigoted BS and lend a hand when you can. It's the best way. : - )

Salute!

Robert. ( Ok I had at least four, no five, beers and am looking at the fridge.. )

PS. Esky Big Lama is my first Heli and I am pretty darn happy with it. !

Actually I really really need to pee. Darn sitting here for too long! I'm not going to make it!

and flies.
Heck, I have problems swatting them because they fly so well.
Just over familiar micro copters with no manners. BUZZ OFF!

bzzzz zz z z z z zzz zzzz....


Back real soon!

he he.

Robert.