When I bought this kit about a year ago, the plan was for it to be my introduction to balsa and the whole modeling aspect of RC planes.

But I never did get around to it; I get impatient when I'm spending my off-time building or repairing instead of flying. I've since found out that I don't mind working on helis, since that's more mechanical than micro-woodworking.

I introduced my old man to RC last year about this time; my siblings, his mother, and I all chipped in and bought him an introductory setup, an Ultrafly Cessna 182, Hitec Flash 5 radio, batteries, charger, etc. But I'm getting off-topic here. The point is that he likes modeling at least as much as flying. He built his .40 size Piper Cub recently.

So I gave him my .20 House of Balsa Piper Cub kit to build for me. It's not all that scale. It has a hell of a lot of dihedral, an open nose (it was designed for a tiny glow engine, remember) and no ailerons. I'm not big on Cub Yellow anyhow, so I supplied him with transparent blue Ultracote to wrap it in. Since this is my first balsa plane, I was thrilled with the idea of being able to see through the wings when it passed overhead. He did a heck of a good job, I think. The landing gear is not pictured and doesn't have wheels yet. (why they feel this doesn't need to be part of a kit is beyond me ) I've been belly-landing it.

It's got:

• A Himax 2812-0850 (this is its fourth airframe!)
• A couple of CommonSenseRC 8C 2000 mAh 3S LiPos
• A couple of HS-81s for

...Continue Reading

I started with an E-Sky Honeybee fixed pitch. It has taken a beating, I'll tell you. Luckily spare parts are inexpensive, and BPHobbies has flat rate shipping of $6 for them. So every time I break a part and need to order, I order 2 or 3 of that part, so I'm ready for next time. The problem is that I haven't really been breaking the same parts.

I'm on my second set of landing gear, my second head, and my second plate thingy. (not the swashplate, the rectangular one)

Yesterday, I was packing up the helis for my club's first indoor flying session at a new, larger gym. When I got outside, it was so warm, beautiful & calm, I just HAD to fly outside for a bit first. You know where this is going by now, right?

Long story short. I accidentally left the dual rates on 70%. I got up about 50' high, and the wind took me away, even with full cyclic fighting. That extra 30% throw would've come in handy. As it is, I had to give up fighting the wind and slowly throttle down. I wound up crash landing it on a roof. Cabin parts flying and the head popped off. The only mechanical thing that was broken was one ball link bar. But I don't have any spares of that one part. I could almost build a whole 'nother head with my spares, except for that !$%^# part.

I bought an E-Sky Lama V3 a week or two ago. This is more like it. It is designed for flying indoors, and has a much quicker learning curve. I tried flying it outside too. Same result; the slightest puff of wind and it was carried...Continue Reading