Originally Posted by Limited flyer

Not to worry, one could even bore out the spar hole to accept an 8mm hollow tube,6mm inide the 8, and a 4mm inside the six,the only thing that's gonna break that is a high velocity crash

high velocity....liked that term......hight velocity Bixler!!

Originally Posted by harfordhawk

I only put it up for entertainment value... people .. relax... I know I should have .. could have.. didn't... I just thought people might enjoy it.. Maybe I was wrong..

It was both said and exciting to see the ground come up while watching.

I did go back and saw the "shadow" just prior to impact. Ouch.

Originally Posted by harfordhawk

I only put it up for entertainment value... people .. relax... I know I should have .. could have.. didn't... I just thought people might enjoy it.. Maybe I was wrong..

I was entertained and enjoyed. But then I like to see other peoples disasters.Yes saw the shadow.

More video on a cloudy day at the beach. Also much better (less compression) uploaded via Vimeo.

I detached the audio, so don't think your speakers are broken.

GoPro Hero on RC Plane (3 min 24 sec)

Originally Posted by harfordhawk

I only put it up for entertainment value... people .. relax... I know I should have .. could have.. didn't... I just thought people might enjoy it.. Maybe I was wrong..

Not wrong. Just having fun.

BTW, if you look closely, you can see Elvis in the picture!

Originally Posted by shunyata

Not wrong. Just having fun.

BTW, if you look closely, you can see Elvis in the picture!

NICE! I have to go back and look at that..Elvis is watching...
Flew today with my new spar.. It's pretty solid it seems, but I didn't feel like testing a dive.. ha ha

Originally Posted by harfordhawk

NICE! I have to go back and look at that..Elvis is watching...
Flew today with my new spar.. It's pretty solid it seems, but I didn't feel like testing a dive.. ha ha

.....you'll never know who's watching next......freddy mercury??

Originally Posted by flybabo

Lafayett's tail mod url link at #3, 27 doesn't work - is it typo?

> Invalid Thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator

TRY HERE:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/member.php?u=288699

My blog page. Should be there.
Lafayette

Originally Posted by Lafayette

TRY HERE:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/member.php?u=288699

My blog page. Should be there.
Lafayette

Fixed.
AJ

Wow, I had my first REAL taste of thermals today! I was FPV flying where I usually do, and I was ascending to about 300 meters to do some gliding, though I noticed while climbing that I was having a LOT of turbuluance which I thought was odd because winds where only about 2mph to 6 or 7mph gusts, but mostly fairly calm, plus I was flying with my FY31AP with stabilize on which can easily handle 20mph winds without the type of turbulence I was getting!

I got to my goal of 300 meters (I wasn't watching the altimiter while I was ascending, but watching the view), and cut engine to do some gliding. After a few moments of circuiting around I was back down to 250 meters alt, and then WHAM, the turbulunce hit but this time I was watching the altimter when it happened, I got skyrocketed back up to 320 meters in roughly 15 seconds! I couldn't believe my eyes watching the alt ladder climb like that, I even double checked my throttle and amp pull to make sure the motor was really off :P. I got good thermals speratically for about 5 minutes and I would keep trying to circle around and actually find one and hold onto it, but eventually I got below 225 meters and it stopped :P.

I had a little over 22 minutes of flight time on my 2700mah, and only drew about 1600mah off of it.

Was a very fun flight, plus I did some low altitude passes (about 15 meters, which is low to me :P) around the local marsh paths .

Very cool, NorCal. A very similar experience told me I needed a Radian. lol

So, yeah, I bought one.

Which lead me to this: I have one of these waiting on the bench for me to build it... Top Sky Mini (RE version)

Besides holding the wings on with rubber bands, seems to me that since the foam interlocks so well, that putting this together the way we used to put together balsa, with rubber bands will work well. As with the wing, hold elevator on with 3M hook and rubber band.
Put packing tape along the bottom fuse to clamshell the two sides together and provide a skid plate for landing.

It seems quite strong with this method. Anyone else tried something like this?

We keep ESCs around with female bullet connectors, receiver and battery connectors. We move this between planes.

So if this approach works it makes a 10 minute build time.

I use rare earth magnets to hold the wings in place. Works really well, however my Bixler is always in one piece (I don't need to remove wings for transport). Therefore the wing root dove-tail is not being fitted and undone constantly. Much firmer fit than my Radian.

Guys:

I have attached one of those voltage detector/alarms from HK to my Sky Surfer, that beeps whenever the average voltage of each cell drops below 3.4v (actually 3.4 x 3 = 10.2v).
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...Detector_.html
according to the spec sheet:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...7X151250X0.jpg

Unfortunately the ESC on my SS seems to be cutting off the motor before this alarm is activated.

Thus I need to set the ESC cutoff for a lower voltage, but I have never found any instructions for programming the stock ESC. I wrote Tim at ReadyMadeRC for this information, but since he has not yet gotten back to me, I assume retrieving this information is taking some time.

Does anyone on this thread have programming instructions for the SS stock ESC?

Thanks.

VJ

Getting frustrated with my EZCap not wanting to record well or at all, I decided to use a cell phone mounted to my sun shroud to get a video :P. Almost 23 minutes of flight, using Compact Zippy 2700mah 3s. I am hoping to do a flight where I can get 30 minutes+ of flight time, and I think at about that mark my video battery would be about drained anyway. I did notice a little bit of thermals today, but not like yesterday! I should be getting an HD cam by the end of the week so hopefully soon I can start posting good looking videos :P.

Bixler FPV 5-20-12 (22 min 40 sec)