A wonderful little cardboard box hit my PO box this morning! One HobbyKing KK quadcopter control board, one power distribution board and four Afro ESCs with SimonK firmware waited within.

I quickly learned this is NOT a project for the faint of heart. The electronics from the Rotor Concept HPQ1 which is going to receive all these lovely goodies have a wider mounting footprint than the standard 45mm spacing on the HK electronics. So, I have to make some sort of an adapter plate. I hope I can find a piece of scrap acrylic; that would just be cool.

That's the easy part. Less easy is the setup of the control board since HK's online manual is borderline gibberish. That's where my quad expert buddy comes in. First things first, so I'll get the new electronics mounted soon and go from there.

I might do a review of the components and the conversion over at The E Zone, so stay tuned.

...but still on the other side of the country!

It took less time for my HobbyKing order to go from Hong Kong to New York than it has for it to go from New York to Flushing.

Oh, well. At least it's moving. By this time next week, I might actually have the goodies in hand and installed on my quad frame.

Plenty to keep me busy in the meantime.

I tell you, when HobbyKing turns up the heat, the stuff gets here fast. My quadcopter stuff hit American shores today! OK, so it's in New York and I'm in California, but the goods are closer than ever. That will be one fun project!

Finding time for all the other projects I have in mind will take time, but it'll be time well wasted.

So, it's off to the next project!

At least it did long enough for me to order some parts. Kindly refer to my blog a couple of posts back.

I in turn refer to the Rotor Concept HPQ1 quadcopter I picked up at the 2012 AMA expo. Looked good to me, having had zero quad experience.

Besides, Rotor Concept sold them online for $899! They still do! So, a $299 show special with a radio, battery, charger, GoPro mount and aluminum case must be the ultimate deal of all time on the ultimate quad, no?

No.

The radio was junk from the get-go and the onboard electronics proved to be junk later on. It's little more than a LotusRC T380 RTF which sells for about $250 via any number of Asian mail order companies. We won't even discuss the customer service nightmares associated with Rotor Concept.

One lives, one learns.

So, plunge taken in order to recoup my investment; see my post titled "To Wii or Not To Wii." A new KK board is on its way from HobbyKing as is a power distribution board and four Afro 30-amp ESCs, all nicely flashed with SimonK firmware right out of the packages. This is stuff which literally didn't exist back when I bought this paperweight and I couldn't have told you who SimonK was back then if you'd paid me. The whole enchilada set me back less than a hundred bucks.

Including shipping.

I'll be working with Chad Graham, the fellow who recommended the stuff to me in the first place and who posts here as "TheOne420." I'm kind of afraid to ask where he came up with that name...

Anyway, I might do a review of the conversion at Ezonemag.com for those looking to do a similar project.

Now to wait for the goods to arrive from Hong Kong.

Ah, summertime. Nice, hot and perhaps a bit too hot.

That didn't keep me from trying out the World Models P-51 with its new ArmSafe arming system earlier today. FYI, I talked about it in my last blog.

For the first time in all the time I've had the thing, I actually felt safe putting the wing and belly scoop on it with the battery plugged in. Small wonder, since the arming plug wasn't in place at the time. No chance of an accidental bump of the throttle putting an unpleasant end to the day.

It's also a LOT faster than I remembered and despite the very small ailerons, I actually got the model to roll for the first time! I even tried some inverted with it.

Problem: Trying to take off from short grass caused a noseover and bumped the motor slightly loose from its mount. The odd sound which I thought was simply harmonics later turned out to be a loose motor. No tools meant only one flight, but it was a beauty. That model's light wing loading even makes for some of the best landings I've ever managed to pull off with a model plane and today's was no exception.

All's now well with the mount and I do believe it's going with me to the field tomorrow if I do in fact go.

The ArmSafe kit now has a new home in the World Models P-51 as does an Airtronics receiver. I took the Futaba out of it to use in an upcoming Ezonemag.com review and the Airtronics receiver came out of one of the nitro models I'll be dusting off soon. I figured that I can simply share a receiver between the two.

That little Mustang is a delicate thing and with little room to work, but I got that kit installed. There was simply no place to put it to make it look reasonably attractive, but that's the way it goes. At least I can get it ready to fly without worrying about getting sliced into tender strips of meat with an accidental bump of the throttle.

Onward to the next project, assuming some money doesn't get sidetracked into a Blade Nano QX quadcopter.

I just HAD to go ahead and fly one of those little gems and I kind of wish that I hadn't!

On the other hand, some 15% nitro, a receiver battery and a starter battery will get my Great Planes Spitfire .25 back in the air. That innocent looking Spitty is one of the hairiest rides I have, so it hasn't seen action in awhile. It's small, fast and not nearly as forgiving as my souped-up Multiplex FunJET, capable of the same speed and beyond. The Spitty is about four years old and still looks close to new. The same model with the same O.S. engine is flyable on RealFlight 6.5; the computer shows 85 MPH (137km/h) in straight and level flight with power dives flirting with nearly 100 MPH (180km/h).

Decisions, decisions.

Well, I did it.

I went to the hobby shop and picked up an ArmSafe system for the little World Models P-51. I figured that I might as well get it installed while I wait for its new battery to arrive from Hobby Lobby.

Last time I checked the tracking, it had just left Nashville.

Sounds like a good name for a country song, but I digress.

That system will be installed tomorrow. The USPS tracking says the battery should arrive by Friday and if it does, that little sweetie is going with me to the club on Sunday, assuming the club's videographer will be there to shoot video of a couple of current review subjects for Ezonemag.com.

I don't think that I have more than $125 in the whole thing and that includes the original $40 purchase price when I bought it from a club member complete with everything but a receiver. I'd transfered the original Turnigy motor to another project, but it was destroyed in a crash. The current SuperTigre setup consists of an extra SuperTigre .10 outrunner sent as part of a warranty claim along with a SuperTigre ESC. Both motors were fine; I just had to buy another ESC for use in the P-51. The timing is kind of high on that motor and no spare ESC I had on hand wanted to work properly with it.

Next up will be the E-flite P-47 and its paint touch-up. That'll be next week.

In certain areas at certain times of the year, it's too cold to fly.

Right now, it's almost too hot where I live!

So, I am therefore moving some backlogged projects to the front:

*I've been blogging on and off seemingly for ages about a Great Planes Ultimate .46 given to me by a friend after someone else had given it to him after a minor crash. It had been built as an electric, so the firewall needed reworking. Best of all, I found a part I thought was missing! It was the last piece of the puzzle, as it were. I had a crash-damaged Pitts muffler I was thinking of using, but a new one can wait until I get the engine and radio installed.

*My rebuilt World Models P-51 electric with its SuperTigre .10 outrunner has spent most of its rebuilt time languishing in my closet. I was using the single 1600mAh li-po from my late and lamented Escale Zero from Hobby Lobby. Between one battery and the fact the wing needs unbolting with each battery change meant this sweet-flying model stayed at home more than it's been flown in a long time. The thought of an accidental bump of the throttle while that system was energized was enough to keep me away. I'm buying a safety plug tomorrow and a new battery is on its way from Hobby Lobby!

*I'm getting ready to order the ESCs and control board needed to get my Rotor Concepts HPQ1 quadcopter back in the air and no, I'm not using the factory junk. I mentioned a couple of blogs back how a quadrotor expert buddy of mine has...Continue Reading