Hi gang!

I'm sure some of you have been wondering where I've been - well, we went out for a boating trip on the sailboat. I was planning on taking the Switchback on floats along, but had unforseen difficulties with the new ESC (namely, it was backordered). Thus, I only took the Tiger Moth on floats. Due to the restricted space in the sailboat, I didn't want to take my delicate baby Cessna 180 along with me. The Tiger Moth was loads of fun! I took two charged qualcomm packs along with me, as well as my 7 cell 300 NiMH's and charger. Here's a point of interest: The Tiger Moth will indeed ROW with the DX-A power and qualcomm batteries! The ROW isn't the LEAP from the water that the 7 or 8 cell packs provide, but it's nicely scale. In fact, the water handling is so good (keep in mind I'm still using the 15" www.foamfloats.com Tiger Moth original floats) that I was able to ROW successfully after 25 minutes of flying! At that point, the pack doesn't provide enough oomph to actually hear the difference in power between half and full throttle, but the plane will still BARELY climb at full throttle. Thus, if your moth will still climb under power, you can still ROW her! I was stunned. Through the 5 days away, I got in 22 flights. That's not bad considering two days were either too windy or rainy to fly.

Among my escapades, I managed to do some carrier landings onto the sailboat while we were motoring. At cruise speed, the boat does about 4.5 knots and I was flying in basically no wind, so the moth was overtaking the boat at about 2 knots (estimated). That speed made hand catches dead easy! I even crashed on deck once (no damage) and may post the videos on silentflightonline soon. I'll add an update to this thread if I do.

Here's a picture of my "flying field" so to speak. We anchored in a good sized and rarely travelled bay on the Shuswap Lake, and were mostly sheltered from wind and waves. Conditions were ideal for flying!

Here's a shot showing my alternate flying site. It's a bit of a pool created by the falling water line in the late summer. Even when the lake was rough, the pool was always flat calm. It's a foot deep at the deepest point.

Here's how we got from the boat to the beach - rubber dinghy! I rowed while Christine sat and held the dog. Due to space constraints the Moth was happily towed behind the raft.

Here's the moth at rest on the pool. Note I've covered these floats in silver solite as well. It works great, but be sure to glue those seams!

Somehow, unlike the Cessna, no matter how hard I try I won't be able to fool anyone into thinking this is a full scale picture. Oh well. I like the effect, anyway!

Here's a shot of the Moth beached.

Here's the last shot for now. Enjoy!

Martin

Welcome back Dreamer,

Beautiful pictures. Beautiful boat, beautiful scenery.

BC

Life is GOOD!

Great pix,

Thanks,
Dave

Boy, am I jealous, Dreamer! My folks lived just out of Sicamous on Shushwap lake for about 5 years after Dad retired. Those shots sure bring back some fond memories of that beautiful part of B.C. And you and Christine (and the dog) got to sail and fly for 5 days, while I had to toil for my bread

Glad you got the holiday, and happy to see you back.
Brad.

Fantastic pictures! Glad you got a chance to get away for awhile. Great write up on Chilliwack by the way!

Jeff

Dreamer,

All of your photos make me want to go on a vacation, as usual, and they are expertly composed, as usual!!!

I have to share with you that I got a HUGE chuckle out of the photo of you towing the Moth behind the rubber raft! -That's just a kick, man!

Regards,

CheeseWing

You towed the Moth behind the dinghy?!? ROTFLOL!!!!!! That's hillarious! Do you have any picture fo you rowing with the precious cargo in tow? That would be priceless.

I have no pictures of us rowing while towing the Moth, unfortunately. I didn't feel like giving my camera to a stranger and rowing away from him I agree that would be a classic shot, though.

Martin

Great pics Dreamer, makes me want to go there! You know what you should have done....taken a photo of the TM towing the raft!Would've come in handy next time some guy says electrics don't have any power! Welcome back. -thumbs