If you are just getting into EDF jets, or having trouble getting them safely back on the ground, then you might want to check out a new video series. It's called By the Numbers: How I land my EDF Jet. Part 1 is out now, and a new part will be published every week.

By the Numbers: How I Land my EDF Jet (and avoid the danger zones) Part 1 (11 min 18 sec)

Contents:

Introduction: Why I Fly RC

1. Ready Room and Flying Status: What’s Up

2. My Hangar

3. My ARF Custom Builds

Build 1: E-Flite Super Cub 25e

The E-flite Super Cub has been the most challenging plane - for me - to take off and land well, but I made a few mods, including an airspeed sensor to provide stall warnings, that helped tame the beast.

• Crash and repair Post 1.
• Crash and repair Post 2.
• Wing Dihedral Correction
• CAD File

Build 2: 3D Hobby Shop 87” Extra 300SHP

Build 3: Extreme Flight 95" Extra 330SC-E

Build 4: Extreme Flight 104” Extra 300

Build 5: SebArt 1.36m (53.5") Mini-Avanti S

4. My Kit Custom Builds

Build 1: Grumman Goose

5. Soaring Logbook

6. EDF Jet Logbook

7. Scale Aerobatics Logbook (Reserved)

8. IMAC Competition Logbook

9. Pattern Competition Logbook

10. Poetry for Pilots

11. Incidents and Accidents

12. LTUP Posts in the RCGroups Basement (where “alternate facts” and conspiracy nonsense proliferate)

My Thoughts on Life, The Universe and Politics:

“Here Be Dragons”
What’s holding us back?
Logical Fallacies
The Dragon in My Garage

After sitting idle for more than a year this blog finally got an update: a new Contents page to help me keep everything organized and find things, and a few entries to cover all of the flying I did over this time span.

I finally jumped into the EDF jet scene, and that has been a lot of fun. For the price you just can't beat a well designed foam jet to get the most heart racing, adrenaline pumping fun out of this hobby.

Well, short of soaring, that is. My new Soaring Logbook will cover all of the adventures there.

Avanti S 80mm EDF Jet - Maiden Flight

Details were posted here.

Reserved

Reserved

Reserved

I need to keep this light to fly competitively in F3S, so there won't be much "custom" work on this one. On the other hand basic telemetry like airspeed and voltage have saved me many times while flying my 80mm foam Avanti. Since the investment here is much greater, I think I will end up including that for safety. I won't be able to compete at all, if I crash it during practice!

Stock specs:
Wing Span: 1360mm / 53,54 in
Length: 1420mm / 55,9 in
Wing area: 38dmē / 589 sq in
Weight (EDF version): 2.9kg / 6,393 lb (without battery)
Flying weight (version EDF): approx. 3.8kg / 8,377 lb (with 5800mAh 6s Lipo)
Wing Loading = 33 oz/sf
WCL = 16

Component weights:
Fuselage (includes pre-installed nosegear, retract, NG Servos - door & steering) 39.3 oz
Canopy + cockpit: 6.2 oz
L Wing + main gear/retract 10.2 oz
R Wing + main gear/retract 10.1 oz
L Stab 1.2 oz
R Stab 1.4 oz
Rudder 0.8 oz
Wing Fences 1.0 oz
Wing/Stab Tubes 1.2oz
Thrust tube 1.9 oz
Hardware 1.3

Total Airframe with landing gear: 74.6 oz

Power components:
TBD

Original RCG build thread (2015):
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...r-Build-Thread

I love seaplanes and really enjoy watching them take off and land. My first RC seaplane was a kit-bashed Ace Seamaster. It was my first entry into electrics back in 1998. The kit was originally designed for a glow engine. I converted it to electric and completely re-designed the tail section from flat surfaces to airfoils with a flying stab. It was heavy with 20 NiCad cells (and boy did they get hot sealed up in the hull), but it flew great.

The Grumman Goose has a long history worth a read. Goose Central covers that and the liveries of various small airlines that flew the Goose. Catalina Seaplanes is one of many companies that served Catalina island, just a short hop off the Southern California coast and close to where I grew up. I'm considering that or a similar paint scheme to put on my Goose.

Right now I'm waiting for my kit to arrive. Meanwhile, take a look at Bart's build. Bart Lammerse designed the 79" (2m) wingspan RC version 1 back in 2014 and the newer version 2, with many improvements, in 2020. He did a fantastic job documenting every step of the build. The model is kitted by rc-europe.

Before I can start my own Goose I need to organize my workshop and build a workbench, so lots to do!

Specs (metric measurements from rc-europe.eu):

Wingspan.........................2000mm (79") ( Wings separate)
Length.............................1620mm ( Fuze in 2 parts)
Weight (prototype)............4800g ( RTF) (10.6 lbs)
Wingload........................ 72g/dmē (24 oz/sq ft) WCL = 9 (Glassed fuse: WCL = 11 at 6 kg RTF)
Wingarea.........................66dm2 (7.1 sq ft)
Engines.......................... 2x 35mm 810kv
ESC's............................. 2x40A
Battery............................ 2x3s3300mAh
Props...............................o.a. Master Airscrew 12x6 3-blad contra rotating.
Servo's............................ 6x Mini/Micro and 1x 6 kilo retract servo
Wheels............................ 2x 4'' Scale tyres (not in kit).

I imagine most people will be relieved 2020 is finally behind us. I am. With 343,000 deaths in just the United States alone, a country with 4.5% of the world's population but 19% of Covid-19 deaths worldwide, I'm grateful to be alive and healthy. With that in mind, here is a look back at my adventures in the RC hobby and the personal wins and losses that made this year unique.

I began the year by posting some poems on the subject of flying, one written during my time as a flight officer in the Navy, and others written for the IMAC newsletter, In the Box. It was January, there was still optimism for the new year, and I wasn't doing much flying. So, why not poetry? Check it out.

FrSky provided a firmware update to prevent Uncommanded Servo Movement, a glitch I experienced during the 2019 IMAC Regional Championship in Muncie. The FW fixed the glitch but created new problems with telemetry. Those problems persisted until I applied another FW patch in June. After months of flying with dire warnings blaring at me from my radio, it was a relief when everything finally worked again.

In February I made my first vehicle purchase specifically for this hobby. I bought a MB Metris, the perfect RC van, just in time for the completion of the custom build of an Extreme Flight 104” Extra 300 V2. I made the Extra electric, so I called it the EV2. It had many unique features that simplified start-up and the swapping of batteries between flights. There were some program glitches...Continue Reading

Back to Gliders: Success with Soaring!

I got started in RC by flying gliders off the slopes along the Southern California coast. A Mark's Models Wanderer was a great trainer and provided hours of fun. I soon advanced to more aerobatic gliders like the Ridge Rat and Divine Wind.

When I turned inland to hunt thermals with an MFA 2M High Sierra I was quickly disappointed. It was a lot of work setting up a bungee high start for a very short glide back. Thermals seemed out of reach every time, even after studying what to look for in the sky and on the ground. I put the High Sierra away and took it out only once, years later, for a single demo flight (for my kids and their friends) on a very windy day.

After nearly thirty years sitting in my basement I took it out for another spin recently. (See pics). The High Sierra was the only sailplane I had in my hangar. I was motivated to try it again when a new guy had moved into town and joined the club. Mark has over thirty years of experience in soaring and can ride a thermal out of sight with anything from a large open 4m ship down to a small 1.5m DLG.

He lent me his copy of Dave Thornburg's Soaring Book and shared many great tips for finding and riding thermals. After all of that I wish I could say I had success with the High Sierra. It just wasn't happening. That glider is a lead sled and just wants to get home as fast as possible.

When Mark offered to sell one of his 2m Art Hobby gliders I jumped at the opportunity....Continue Reading

The plane is a customized Extreme Flight 104" Extra 300 V2, capable of flying two Advanced IMAC sequences in one flight. That's 20 aerobatic figures with climbs to 1,000 feet or more above the airfield.

For video of me flying the Advanced sequence to demonstrate what this plane can do, take a look here.

Link to build log here.

Details on the latest Pattern contest in District 4 can be found here.

We finally had an IMAC contest, and it was a weekend full of surprises, crashes, a spectacular fireworks show, good competition, good food, and great camaraderie. More details - and a cool video! - can be found here in my IMAC logbook.

For the latest incident on my growing list of mishaps, see my post here.

It's not only LiPo C ratings that are over inflated these days. The weight and capacity of the batteries may also not be as advertised or even match the label.

The only safeguard a buyer has is to purchase batteries from a reputable company with a record for honoring warranties. To avoid companies with fraudulent practices, do some research. A good place to start is the Battery Load Test Comparisons thread.

Once batteries are purchased, the buyer should immediately check the battery for weight, voltages and capacity. If the battery is not reasonably close to specs, file a claim to return them under warranty.

I recently purchased 4 Zippy Compact 6s 25c 5800 mAh packs from Hobby King. They are advertised as 745 gram packs, but in fact weighed 803 grams each. All four were going in one plane, so that weight difference was huge!

In addition to the additional weight, the actual capacity of the packs was only 4300 mAh. That's not even usable capacity. That's taking the battery down to 3.3V per cell!

Hobby King wouldn't honor the warranty, because they sat in my basement at storage charge for 20 days beyond the warranty. They took no responsibility for selling overweight batteries with fraudulent labels.

Buyer beware!

The original goal for my electric version of the Extreme Flight 104" Extra 300 V2 was to fly two Intermediate IMAC sequences back to back in one flight. Delays and competition last year meant the plane wasn't ready until this year. By then I had already won a Regional Championship in Intermediate with my 95" Extra, so I moved up to Advanced.

I finally achieved the goal of two sequences in one flight on Friday, July 24. But in Advanced! More details here on the attempt.

For results of the Indy Pattern Contest at the Screaming Eagles RC Club in Plainfield, Indiana, see my post here.

Monty Python's Life of Brian ends with a happy tune: "Look at the bright side of life." There's even a cheery whistle. Now that I got my Black Magic pattern plane back in the air today, I can see the bright side of the tail damage done last week.

What made the recent grounding of my only pattern plane a bit gloomy is the upcoming contest next week. The only way I could continue practicing for the event was to fly my big 104" Extra 300. I had to set it up to respond very similarly to the pattern plane, so the transition back would not be hard. One of the items I changed was a new Flight Mode (FM3) to make the entry into the spin a bit easier. I could now make multiple changes to the control response with one switch. It worked great, but I forgot I had not copied the settings over to the pattern plane.

I got a big surprise today when I flipped to Mode 3 for the spin with my newly repaired pattern plane. There was no throttle control, no aileron, and the elevator went to 100% - full rate with little expo. I ended up snap rolling the plane into a spin. I regained control by switching back to Normal Mode.

I got the plane back on the runway and immediately found the error, then added the settings for the spin mode. The next flight went much smoother when I switched to the new Mode 3. No surprises!

Anyway, the new gear sets have been installed in the old Futaba S9650 servos that control both halves of the elevator. Although only one servo was damaged, I replaced the gears in both servos, since they were well worn. In the process of installing the refurbished servos I found one of the nylon brackets on a control horn had gotten worn and allowed too much free movement of the elevator. That also got replaced. Now, no more slop!

So, look at the bright side of life!

I recently upgraded the firmware on my FrSky Taranis Plus and tested three planes the other day. All good!

For the full report and log files, see my post here.