First, the sad news.

Our area's remaining brick-and-mortar hobby shop is no more due to the sudden and unexpected death of its last owner a couple of weeks ago. Uncle Don's Hobbies began as Uncle Don's Toys in Palm Springs, California in 1955. Original owner and founder Don DuBose, who passed away this past June, was literally the toy vendor to the stars. Red Skelton and Elvis Presley were among his regulars; DuBose was also the caretaker of Frank Sinatra's extensive toy train collection.

The good news is, the employees are regrouping to open a new store in a new location. I wish them well as do all the members of our local hobby community.

The free glider in question is a Hitec Weekender eHawkEye three-channel complete with its box, instructions and decal sheet, not to mention both servos, the brushless outrunner, the prop and the ESC. Mostly shopworn and dirty, this little glider which served as a display model at the hobby shop has been flown, but very little. It's cleaned up nicely and everything works. A test flight will be coming soon once the desert heat cools down.

I'm particularly happy that I was finally able to get that RC Leading RC126 hexacopter in the air. The new transmitter I purchased had a bad power switch and it finally quit working. Duoduogood.com cut me a pretty good deal on a new transmitter and FC board. When they finally arrived, the new transmitter powered up - and wouldn't bind to either board! My friend, a top-notch broadcast engineer, had installed some new components in the first replacement transmitter. I transferred those parts to the original transmitter and bingo! It's flying on the new FC board and I've kept the original as a spare.

The piece de resistance of all this is the completed HobbyKing DC-3, reborn as a C-47. I have some more decals to add to the wings, but I'll double-check the prototype at the Palm Springs Air Museum before I proceed. I admit to having some fun taxiing it in front of my house! No room for takeoff, though.

This has been a heck of a lot of work on a foam model, but it's been nothing but fun thus far! What's more, I'm still ahead of the game with the cost of all of the supplies compared to starting with a new ARF or bare airframe.

As of today, some details are now in place including the windows, oil coolers and skylight dome. The new Park Flyer Plastics cockpit kit was installed last weekend and it looks absolutely stunning. I'm not going to use the radial engines; according to Keith Sparks at Park Flyer Plastics, the heavy cowls with their out-of-scale engines help with the CG. The cowls themselves are painted and once I dress the damaged hubs with my Dremel, I'll tackle the remaining engine detail.

Repairs are down to the removal and straightening of the main landing gear struts and painting is down to the wheels. The prototype What's Up Doc? has natural aluminum wheels and the model, interestingly enough, had wheels painted olive drab from the factory.

The museum staff members have been a tremendous help and I was fortunate enough to get a lot of detail shots of the aircraft while it was in a hangar being overhauled. I've also been offered a ride once repairs are complete and believe me, I'm going to take them up on that generous offer.

I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel! Stay tuned for more....Continue Reading