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I'm starting to VLOG about my RC experience on youtube.com

VLOG - #2 RC Addict **Rancho San Antonio Flight** (5 min 3 sec)

I've been eyeing this airframe since the day it came out. However at the time it came out I was "away" from the hobby. Well here it is May 2017 and I am once again neck deep in this wonderful hobby of RC flight.
The last few build videos I had were a bit to verbose for my taste. And I didn't feel I was bringing any value by endlessly droning on about things like surface hinges. So I'll be using quite a bit of time lapse photography and only expanding as needed.
As always please feel free to subscribe to the hobby geek channel if you are interested in following my builds and flying.

0 - Extreme Flight Yak 54 60" EXP (6 min 25 sec)

If you have a truck camper you know the major draw back to an otherwise amazing truck accessory is that you have to crawl to the back to grab payload at the front of the bed.
Now when your'e 10 years old there is nothing better than crawling around in a dusty old truck bed. Hunched over like golum searching for his "precious" in the depths of the misty mountains. But I'm not a 10 year old, I'm 41 and my knees hurt when crawling and my back hurts when I'm hunched. Therefor my next project will be to install a sliding bed into the back of the truck.
Just like my earlier project of building a work bench, its import for me to let you know I am not a wood worker.
I will be hobbling this thing together with hope, prayer, a dash of cursing, and plenty of confusion. But the job will get done.
To start with I'm cutting the side pieces I need to form the inner box and outer box.
I will be using 1x8 boards for the outer box and 1x6 boards for the inner sliding box. You will see why I'm doing this later in the build.
It makes sense to me right now, but perhaps I will find it was incorrect half way through the build.
I will be using a 48x77x5/8 plywood for the outer base and a 48x77x1/2 plywood for the inner sliding box.

1 - Slide out truck Bed (1 min 34 sec)

Hello!
For my second installment of “Whats on the bench?” I will be putting together an oldie but a goodie. The Extreme Flight Edge 540 48” model has been around for some time, many modelers have enjoyed the precision and floatiness of this model.
I first purchased this model back when it was first released early 2010.
It was a game changer for me, I had not flown anything as stable and nimble all at once. I was able to make significant improvements in my flying AND simultaneously had more fun.
So much fun that I ended up crumbling one of the frames. I quickly purchased another one of these frames and for the next ~year it was my go to aerobatic airframe.
Then I had to take a step away from the hobby, this happened fairly abrupt as my duties as a Husband, Father, and career man quickly took over every waking moment.
After about 5.5 years away from the hobby I dusted off the 540 this past summer and took it for a spin.
Well unfortunately due to a EXPO misunderstanding in my new”er” Futaba radio the landing did not go well. I ended up pancaking the landing gear (which is very hard to do in this airframe). I made an attempt to fix it on my own using extreme flights motor box replacement parts, but the former I needed wasn’t included.
Also I didn’t collect all the pieces from the field so I wasn’t able to trace out a new piece another balsa sheet.

Anyhow I think it's all for the best as I want to record this next build to...Continue Reading

Hello All!
I've decided to come up with a somewhat disciplined approach to my flights. Each week I will focus on a maneuver for each flying session. I will spend the majority of my air time working on the weekly maneuver. I will then edit a video which will show the first day of attempting the maneuver then a clip of a few moments of the last flights.
I will be doing this to be as objective as possible with my flight assessment. The hope is by going out to fly with a itinerary already in place I will hopefully improve on the decided upon maneuver much quicker than if every flight was a "fun flight".

This week I decided to focus on left rolling circles. While I do have a fair amount of confidence in rolling in a straight line, the act of turning when rolling has always been a bit of a mind melt.
I decided to go with the left turn first because I believe the left roll is my natural tendency.
Included is the video of the five days of rolling.

I do not see a whole lot of improvement between the first day and the fifth day, however on the sticks I know I was feeling more relaxed with the maneuver. If experience tells me anything the only way to perfect anything is to get relaxed while doing it.
Because of this I do believe the focus has paid off.
For the next five day window I will be working on the right rolling (right turning) circles.
We are expecting rain where I live, so there is a chance I will not be able to get very many flights in for this period.
But there is always the sim! I may splice in some sim flight vids.

The model is a twisted hobbies Flash NG.

Thanks for reading and watching!
Regards,
Hobby Geek

Practicing Rolling Circle (Left Roll, Left Turn) (1 min 13 sec)

Hello All!
I wanted to start a blog series called “What's on the Bench”. As the name implies it will be a platform which will allow me to share with everyone what I’m currently working on in the hobby.
I have a fairly specific interest when it comes to RC so I think this will be catered more towards the ARF aerobatic planes and heli category. However, I do love to tinker with all kinds of things so don’t be to surprised if there are a few topics from “left field” every now and again.

The first blog will be about creating the object with which all other topics will need - the BENCH!
Thats right folks, although I have been in and out of this great hobby of RC flight since 2001 I have yet to build a proper workbench to host my years of building/repairing. I have had a stop gap solution of using a folding picnic table much like this:

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...mentid=9793154


Using a table like this has its advantages, it's cheap, convenient, easy to break down and store, and you don’t care too much about getting it gunked up. However the one major downfall is it is horribly amateur. How could any self respecting hobbyist continue to build anything worthwhile on such a rickety impermanent work bench???

Well NO more my friends! If I’m going to invest my precious time into this hobby I’m going to have to buy or build a respectable work bench worthy of many glorious RC projects.
Since I prefer to always do things affordable (when possible) and in...Continue Reading

I'll start off with a sort of Bio-Blog.
41 year old silicon valley tech worker. I've been interested and/or participating in RC flying since childhood. Starting in late 2004 I took the plunge back into RC planes and heli's in a big way. From 2004 to 2010 I was up to my ears in the hobby, however all good things come to an end. And in 2010 when my oldest daughter was born I slowly walked away from the hobby.
Mid last year I came down with a uncontrollable fever to start back up in RC flying. I decided to dust off my trusty Extreme Flight Edge 540 and take to the sky. Most of the important lessons learned during my 6 year run some how did not end up being followed during the maiden flight. To make a long story short the re-maiden flight ended badly.
I then decided to change gears and buy a twisted hobbies Flash NG to get myself back in the game. I started that build in September 2016 and finished in January 2017.

This is not exactly the progress I was looking for, but I did have excuses.

Fast forward to today February 14 2017. I'm happy to say I have done at least one hobby related activity every day for the entire 2017 year. Whether it be practicing on the SIM working on a model (both repairs and builds) and of course the most important FLYING!

I hope to take more time to share what I'm doing with the community this time around.
The last time I was into the hobby it was purely a introverted activity, I took all the knowledge that the community (mostly in forums some flying site advice too) and did not give back much.
This time around I do plan to do much more documenting and sharing of my journey.

Thanks for reading!
Happy Flying!