Well, I haven't touched my blog in 3 years..

2012.. I don't remember doing a lot of flying.
2013.. I am pretty sure I didn't fly a single time..
2014.. I've been flying a pretty good bit. Albeit, just a Parkzone T-28, but I'm flying.

Tonight I started on a kit I've had for quite some time.. A no longer produced Todd Long rekitted by Stevens Aero Gym-E. This kit hails from the days of things called brushes and GWS gearboxes.

The instructions specifically still suggest to leave the combo the same or suffer the consequences.. Well, who follows those things anyway..

So after almost 2.5 years.. I guess I'm back into this thing..

So.. I've grown increasingly sensitive to CA. The typical headaches and "flu" like symptoms, couple that with my patience for watchibg glue dry and I was borderline miserable building with wood glue.

I love wood glue and enjoy working with it, but sometimes you just need the instant bond of CA.

So... I went out and bought a respirator and I'm back to using CA when I want.

Well.. I've been working on some new airfoils and a friend suggested "Why not try one of the small ones first?"

Hmmm.. At almost the same moment he suggested it, I was sitting right next to a partially build core set and thought.. "Ok."

Grabbed a 2730-3000 and a 4.75x4.75 prop, 25A Plush, 3S 900 45C battery and some HXT-900 servos and a lil' Orange 4 channel RX and went town..

I was hoping for a solid 75mph.. I got it. Cruise "3/4 throttle" speed is 75mph all day long according to RCSpeedo. She's good for about 95-100mph at WOT, which isn't too shabby for a 20" span, flat bottom airfoiled bird.

Had to give it a go on 4S.. Swapped out the 4.75x4.75 with a 4.1x4.1 and let her rip. The Plush is having a fit keeping up with the motor and I can't even hit WOT with it, but it was visibly faster.




Not sure why I never threw the video of this up here, but here it is:

RCSpeedo versus Doppler video. (3 min 6 sec)

These days, kits all seem to be foam, and that is not a bad thing. However, I started this hobby on some good ole' fashion balsa.

I have not built a kit from balsa in soo long my wife mentioned to me the other day I needed to start building from "kits again."

Well, I whipped out a AlienAircraft's Kit 304 - The Dragon Seaplane and started building..

Well, my first squirt of CA left me with a horrible headache. Several years ago the wife and I suspected I was allergic to CA, well, she did her "toldja so dance" so I pulled out some wood glue and went to town..

Ahh.. the smell of wood glue!!





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Ok, so the big bag guy towards our CA is moisture. Moisture in the air is what kills our CA..

An easy way to keep our CA alive a little longer is to try and remove the moisture in the air.

I ran down to Wal-Mart and picked up a Sterilite 12 cup container and a couple bags of rice. I've also been saving the silica packets that come with all sorts of electronics. I knew they'd come in handy someday.

So.. Get your container with a gasket..



Throw your silica (if you've been saving it) into the container..



Pour your rice in..

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How's this for some FPV?

A day in the life... (9 min 38 sec)

From the other bird..

Jeff flying (1 min 40 sec)

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Welp, another SEFF is in the books..

While I was there I had 2 planes go in.. One of which, I'll take the blame for. I figured it was totaled. I watched it BOUNCE what looked like at least 10' back into the air when it hit. Found the crash site and gathered up the parts. Not too many parts, but the plane looked thumped. Figured it was totaled, which really bummed me out. The IYF is one of my favorite birds..

Brought it home and checked it out, it looked like it could be repaired, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Wound up with a new trim scheme on the top but kept the old scheme on the bottom. I didn't have any of the original red covering, so there is a bit of a color mismatch, but it's flying great, I'll live with it.

New top:



Old and new bottom:

I've bounced back and forth over the years and had a car here and a car there.. Well, I've been thinking about picking up another car lately..

Last week my brother-in-law won a Traxxas Rally Camaro from the local grocery store and decided he wanted to sell it, so he brought it by the house and left it with me to put on RCG to sell.. Well, I couldn't very well sell it without knowing how it operated, of course, so I ran a handful of packs through it.

It was an absolute blast. Being an on-road car, I couldn't hit the grass with it, but what little running I was able to do was a lot of fun. I knew I had to have my own..

Enter Merv. Merv is a 1/16th scale E-Revo. A scaled down mini version of it's bigger brother the E-Revo. Merv. Mini E-ReVo.. However, my merv is no normal merv. It has been upgraded in most places where an upgrade is available. It's sporting a Castle Sidewinder setup that is suitable for 1/10th off road vehicles. It's had 75% of the plastic components upgraded with aluminum this and steel that and it'll do close to 65mph.. Yep.. 65mph.. It will wheelie at half throttle..


Wow.. This thing is fast..

Got a few runs through it before I broke some stuff.. I went through 2 knuckles pretty quickly. I also killed the center drive shaft, but that's ok, as I have some HR Knuckles already on the way and a GPM center drive shaft.. I got the car back up and running with some spares, so I can keep bashing until the parts get here..





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Edit:

Well it flies.. annndd.. crashes..

TriCopter Rut-Roah.. (2 min 35 sec)

These things are getting cooler and cooler.. I've always liked the way they looked.. Just looked like they would be a ton of fun to play with.. Well, I stumbled across troynh's TriCopter build and thought I'd throw one together..

troynh has a ton of good info in his thread about his tricopter with a scan of his fuse and everything.. I drew my own based on his measurements..



One of the "hardest" parts of the tri builds that I have seen is the issue with the yaw motor. Most guys go from very simple to very elaborate setups.. After looking at troynh's videos and his yaw setup I thought this was the best setup I had seen..

It's very simple. Uses some 1/4 threaded rod, CF arrow shaft and some pushrod of your choice.. The following 3 pictures will show the basic setup..



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I've been asked several times to put up some pics of a few of the ARF's we've built for customers.. I haven't been taking pictures of them until recently and thought I'd throw them up here.....Continue Reading

I've got a few birds coming from the motherland for review this summer..

First in is the new MiG 15 from Hobby Lobby.. I'll save the goodies for the review, but she should fly Friday!

Not something you hear everyday, but well, in this case - it's very true.. This Demon rocks.. Adam did the build up for me since I'm uber slacker and didn't have time to get it done..

I told him what I wanted and he made it happen.. I am always amazed at how the cover schemes come out just like you ask for them to when Adam builds a bird..

In this case - A RiteWing Demon 40..

Setup:

Mega 16/30/2
Phoenix 125
6S 3700 (2x3700's)
APC 6x4 Sport
hitec HS5475

If it'll do 150 straight and level, I'll be pumped..

Well.. I thought I'd get some pics of my new toy..

Demon 40".. Adam did the hard parts for me and as usual, he nailed it.. Thanks bro!

Top:





Bottom:

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I get this question pretty often..

What prop? Well, the answer to that, is at first, a question.. What size pack are you running? 2S? 3S? 12S?

I fly the SF mostly on 2S.. I just like it that way.. It rocks on 3S but becomes a different animal. Much faster and obviously has more punch..

The Fly was developed to fly on 2S, the Etec 1200 was the battery of choice at the time.. However, the HD props were not even around yet and GWS SF's props were being used..

If you are going to run 3S the 8x4HD would definitely be the prop to run, if you cared about treating the motor properly.. Otherwise, you may melt the stock motor.

As far as the 8x4 vs 8x6 deal..

The only area the 8x4HD loses to the 8x6HD is in top end speed.. As it should..
The only place the 8x6HD loses to the 8x4HD is in low end thrust.. As it should..

On 2S I read the following:

8x6 Peak amps of 13.6 @ 102watts..



On 8x4 Peak amps of 12.31 @ 83watts..



The 8x4HD blows the 8x6HD out of water in the thrust department.. It does give up ground in the speed department..

In the charts, the 8x4 appears to have given up the ghost sooner.. I wanted to do a "duration" run as well.. It's obvious by the numbers, the 8x4HD would last longer, but that's assuming you can keep the plane out of the trees.. I killed my prop and being it's snowing outside, I came in..

SuperFlyRC.com will keep both props on hand so anyone can make the proper choice.. If you are going to be running 3S, let us know.. We'll make sure you get the 8x4..

I recently picked up a CBA III to test some batteries with.. I've always wondered "is it really what it says it is?"

Well, with this device we can all find out..

So far, I am just running the packs at a 1C rate of discharge..

I recently took 3 of my 1300 packs and ran them at 1C..

Looks like they are all decently close to 1300mah packs..

The Parkzone came in first at 1.27ah.. $34.95
Followed by the Turnigy at 1.26ah.. $10.97
Last, the CSRC pack at 1.21ah.. $38.95

Looks like the Turnigy kept it's voltage the longest..

All packs have seen the same life.. 4 flights on each pack..

Well.. I've been looking for a FVK Bandit for a while and they go so fast that I was having a hard time, so I wound up finding a "previously bashed" one for pennies.. Extremely cheap, so I bought it thinking I would just fix it and learn something in the process..

I haven't done much fiberglass repair, but the damage looked slight enough that I thought I'd tackle it..

Dave or shhhhh! here on the groups does these repairs for decent trades, so if you have a busted bird you don't want to fix yourself, shoot Dave a message..

I'll be trying to repair mine soon..

Need to snag some Z-poxy and some micro balloons..

Well, I heard all the talk about how nice this bird was, so I had to check one out.. However, I couldn't leave it alone.. Had to make it Tram's..

Just a group of pictures I came across of some airplanes I've owned at one point or another..

Most of these are long gone.. Still have a few of them though......Continue Reading

Well.. You can't have too many builds going at once right?

So.. I thought I'd start a quasi-log of my Beanie Mig 21.. The build is mostly Blucor foam using a technique I've never used before, however, so far it is going pretty well..

Arron loved his so much that he said I had no choice but to build one.. Well, a few days later a box shows up with a Yak in it.. Thanks bro..

I wanted to give it a decent paint job and play with my new Iwata Eclipse.. Were it not for adreher and his videos found here.. I don't think I would have been able to do it.. Thanks!

So.. here she is.. Still needs electronics, but we'll get to that..

I've always loved this airplane. Just something about it.. It's the Sabre's better looking sibling.

Well, I recently came across a scratch build of the Sabre that was obvious not an attempt to catch every scale line of the Sabre. However, it had that "I bet that is a BLAST to fly" look to it.. Sport scale, I suppose you could call it..

I started thinking about it and decided to give it a go with the Fury..