I guess I am celebrating my 2000th post now. Seems like quite some time since I ventured into the land of RCG's. Funny never wanted to be one of those four digit posters but over the course I have learned a ton and made some great friends along the way. Never figured I would actually meet any of them in this online day and age but through shared passion for the hobby and the shear enjoyment of RC flight I find that I have now met many of my RC Heros and they are just as great in person as they are in the forums. So I have come out of my shell and now I celebrate with my kindred spirits. Thanks all my friends! thanks for sharing and helping me enjoy all aspects of this hobby. This has been a awesome journey and and look forward to continuing and making new friends along the way.

As a way to bring in the New Year and again celebrate this post, our gracious Admin has helped me shorten my call sign from "Milesperpound" to MPP!!!! that should make things a bit easier and you can still call me Mark…. or George or Sam, or whatever .

A look back at where I have been and where I am today:...Continue Reading

The Fun build 4 is coming to a close. It was a fun contest with lot's of great modelers showing off there talents. Well Done Friends!

I did a Guillows SE5 18" rubber conversion. I bought this discontinued kit on Ebay and used Aero-Werkes laser cut parts so I could preserve the kit. I went back to the roots of the hobby and covered it in Japanese tissue. For the flight pack I used a 4SITE micro guts. This worked out OK but I do think I will upgrade the power system.

At any rate if you happen to stumble across this post I would ask if you would vote for a model (maybe mine ). There are some really great build conversions and very talented modelers.

My Thread:

Fun Build 4 - Guillows 18" British SE5, Kit WW-5, with Aero-Werks parts

Contest Thread with pictures


Rubber Conversions Unmodified Voting

Modified Voting

Video of build and flying at the end

Guillows SE5 Kit WW-5 (2 min 49 sec)

Thanks for Voting

I recently completed a biz trip to Southern California. What a wild trip it was. First I was out there for a Triathlon in honor of a schoolmate of mine that passed way in August. Jim Maclaren was a famous amputee triathlete that really inspired many people. Anyway back to aviation. Since one of my Customers is close to Chino, a few hours were to be spent at the Planes Of Fame. As I walked the second hanger in walks POF Steve Hinton and Flying Legends Nick Grey with his son. So of course I had to ask if I could tag along, and they both seemed to be fine with it and their passion for warbird aviation was overflowing. It was just awesome to hear Steve speak about each plane and how it flew or stories of others that had interesting experiences. The banter between them of planes traded or planes flown was just fascinating. I would have loved to have video of this tour but I am sure that would have gotten me excused from this exclusive tour. I think the biggest surprise I had was when he was talking about the FW-190. First the plane is incredible to see up close. To have an airworthy FW is amazing. Here was the kicker. Steve said it wasn't that great to fly. Seemed as it was "Off" or something to that effect. Maybe it was the bearcat engine that he said "slipped right in the FW" but again I was very surprised with all I have read about the plane and it's well balanced design. Oh well I will take his word on this one as I will never have stick time on anything...Continue Reading

Well I know it is not quite over but it seems to be going faster than I can remember. After finishing my Guillows P-38 I thought I would jump right back into building a Guillows P-39 that I have wanted to build since childhood. I started it and then before I know it, my son asked if we could build a plane together so of course you have to strike while the iron is hot. So a Guillows series 500 kit is selected and now sharing the board with the P-39. Man O man I have definitely learned that I am not a multi-tasker and the builds have been creeping along all sumer long. To add fuel to the fire, a friend, let's cal him Fuzz, let's me finish up a Guillows PBY that he had 80% complete. Wow the plane is gorgeous and should have been a really quick flight pack, paint and fly deal but again I find myself torn between all these projects.

I am thankful to have these as I have had a few distractions. Some good some not so good. The good are the family vacation, some bike riding, and biz actually turning the corner. The bad was at the end of May getting run off the road by a drunk driver who two weeks later decides to run over and kill a fellow cyclist. It really bummed me out. I am working on a fundraiser and I will share more of that in the appropriate forum.

What else? well when reviewing some of my crappy youtube video's most of which were done fixed position, I figured there has to be a better way to capture some of my planes on video. So instead of asking my almost never...Continue Reading

As a follow on to my Full dress rehearsal post I figured I would update my page. It fly's! pretty fast and a little tricky. This was a fun project and I still need to get it back into the air. On the maiden I had a mishap with landing. The front retract collapsed on landing. This plane is not a floater and as I learned needs to be flown all the way to the ground. Anyway another conversion completed whoo hoo! Now repairs are almost complete and the show must go on.

M

Maiden summery link

Guillows P-38 Maiden (1 min 57 sec)

I have just finished my Guillows P-38 Lightning, Whew, four months and many nights it is now ready to be flown. No matter how much you say to yourself "I am ready" it seems that we are never really ready to commit our model to the wind. Normally I would like to get the maiden out of the way before investing more time and energy on detailing the airplane. But with the cruddy weather and no good place to fly for the moment, I keep adding details that add up to more hesitation to getting it maidened. I guess the good part of this is I can be more thoughtful of how the day will go. Check and double check everything should equate to a successful maiden. Not to worry this will not be a hanger queen and will be flown. The trade off here is more scale looks for less scale like flight. At 32 OZ.' and 215 sq. in.'s of wing surface this will be a rocket.

At any rate, until the fateful day I will continue to make her look better, try not to add any more weight and be patient. I have completed the "full dress rehearsal", all that is left is the "Big Show".

Here are the details:
Guillows P-38 kit #2001
Himaxx 2025-5300 in runner motors
Phoenix 25 ESC 2X
Vario 8b hubs with 8.2" three blade props and spinners (counter rotating)
TP 3S 2100 mAh battery
Hobby King micro air retracts
300 Watts WOT
AUW 32 Oz.'s
Covered in Doculam
Thread:https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show....php?t=1111814

Mark

Guillows P-38 Taxi runs (2 min 39 sec)

I have recently taken up a Guillows P-38 electric conversion. This is going to be a pretty scary build as I have installed retracts adding to an already high wing loading. Oh well you have to scare yourself at least once a year or should I say challenge yourself?

With Halloween almost upon us, the kids wanted something special to help scare their friends on the eve of All Saints Day. So my spouse found some Martha Stewart ideas to copy and out came the plywood, markers, Conduit, fasteners, Scroll saw, Primer, Paint, flood lights, and the kids enthusiasm. That is the great thing about this hobby, you can take a few things you have learned here and in a few hours you have a fun family project complete. Well almost,

Now the Massacre part, no matter how well you vent a basement, If you have a lot of spray painting to do, do it outside or in the garage. Why you may ask? because even with several fans sucking the paint fumes out of the basement they will still find there way throughout the house, partially poison your family, alert your wife's acute sense of smell to seek you out and so begins the massacre. "Can I borrow that sharp looking power tool?" But honey look at the great Halloween decorations we have now........NOoooooooo!

Scrolled in half,

Mark

I have been working on a Guillows Corsair and was ready to maiden it today. I checked the weather last night and the wind looked good and a possible shower around 7AM. I figured that they are usually wrong or at least they are off by an hour or two. I woke up 7:15AM look out side and it is dry with no rain. Excellent. So I pack up, open the garage door and there is a light mist. What? The weatherman are always wrong and they needed to be today. Well maybe it will pass and I will go to the field anyway. So I head over and just as I approach it downpours. Now if this was a drive up to the ski area for a powder day it would have been sunny with not a cloud in the sky. Oh well at least we know the weather will change here in New England. I should have figured that with all the rain we have had the Weatherman was bound to be right.

We were just on vacation and the local grass airport has my favorite weather station. The Weather Rock. It is so simple and smart as it does not prognosticate any weather changes. Any way maybe it will clear later today and the winds will be favorable for my maiden of my Corsair. However as I look at the rock outside my window, it is pretty wet!

Build Thread

Mark

Guillows Corsair Taxi (1 min 33 sec)

...Continue Reading

Well this will be my 1000th post here on RC Groups. What have I done? Because of electrics I have spent the last four and half years posting to many different threads. It started with a GWS ME-109. Fist you look at what everyone is saying for a month or so then without too much thought you write up your first flying experience. Folks then chip in with been there done that and give you other ideas on how to enjoy the hobby more, oh and of course a welcoming you to the group



Next after breaking the fear of thinking you will be laughed at with every post you realize that we are like minded folks and sharing our experience off the flying field is fun and rewarding. So you then decide to start a project and a thread of your own. it took a few days to hit the “add new thread” button, and then you watch to see if anyone could care less about getting some old obscure kit to fly on electric power. Within minutes, they come and share thoughts experiences and help the newbie through the process of getting another airplane airworthy. I was amazed that I caught the interest of some of the masters of the hobby and their wisdom and encouragement helped me do something I had been trying to do since my childhood, get a Guillows kit to fly. Thanks.

Next the addiction stage. I found myself going down many thread paths learning about each topic and broadening my interests. You make friends along the way, some close by and some on the other side of the world. It is cool that...Continue Reading

Normally I would say that Friday the thirteenth is a pretty lucky day. Today not so hot. I was going to maiden my Super Chipmunk and I always warm up before any maiden attempt to get the fingers loose or as loose as possible on a 25 degree morning. On my previous blog post you can see that I saved my GWS Corsair when I lost an aileron servo during my last flight. Well I guess I can not blame today’s loss on Friday the 13th, but my own stupidity. I have caught reversed servos before on pre flight but today I just stared at the movement and not remembering that I just replaced the servo took for granted my trusty Corsair. Anyway, I hand launched at full military power found the reverse and flew it as best I could. Chopped throttle started pulling back around and caught the trees, the end. The Lucky part is the motor ESC and battery all fell to the ground and I even have the 9 7.5 APC prop still in tact.

Lesson learned the hard way. I will miss my Corsair as it was one of my first Warbirds. I now have a hole in my hanger being void of an airworthy Corsair. I have several models in the queue and one of them is a Guillows Corsair. It will be fun to convert but will never be able to replace a trusty every day flyer like the GWS Corsair. I guess I should get a new one or try to repair the old one when it comes out of the tree. Good bye old friend at least for now. And there will be no Super chipmunk maiden today for obvious reasons; it is OK to be a little superstitious, rather than STUPID-STITIOUS .

Mark

Recently I have learned the importance of Rudder and Udder. With Rudder I chose early on to include it with most of my models and yesterday it saved one of them. With Udder I am reminded how much fun this hobby is and trying different things can give you a good laugh.

First the rudder, I have an old GWS Corsair that I have been flying for over three years. It has gone in a couple of times but has endured and has always been a favorite go to plane. I was flying her yesterday and all was good. Loops rolls hammerheads, knife edge inverted all the basic maneuvers. I am so comfortable with this plane that I fly it with gloves on during these cold New England days. Well getting to the point, I was about 5 minutes in to the flight when she started rolling left and was not responding to aileron control (was stuck at full left deflection). I chopped the throttle to keep her from flying out of control or into something like the ground at ninety degrees. Then I realized that I have throttle, then elevator and then naturally instinct took over and rudder was applied and I got her back to level flight. I jockeyed the throttle a bit and was locked into a slow descending turn to the left. I was able to reasonably get her on the ground before finding the woods just ahead. I did have to land her with a little throttle to keep the elevator and rudder effective. So the moral of the story is that if I had no rudder I would have been picking up a pile of foam. But that’s not all. Using the...Continue Reading

It was a perfect day to fly during lunch today. However I decided to go up to Waterbury Oxford airport here in CT to see the Collings foundation Wings of freedom. I found out about it last month when Aluminum Overcast was here on tour last month. These are a real treat as they only come by once a year and are incredible restorations that you can climb through and if your wallet allows it, fly in them.

More than the B-24, B-17, B-25 and the P-51C are the folks that come to this attraction. When Aluminum Overcast came to the airport there were several veterans touring the bomber. I was in line with a Veteran and his daughter and I was able to strike up a conversation with him. Turns out he loves airplanes however he was a twice wounded survivor of D-Day, I thanked him and shook his hand.

Today I met a Spitfire pilot that lives the next town over from me. He had gone up in the P-51 the day before and you could see the memories of flying coming back to life. Of course he was asked how the Mustang compared to the Spitfire and he simply said the Spitfire was marvelous. He and his wife’s story were very interesting. He had fled Holland to England to fly Spits, His wife worked in the Holland resistance. I can only imagine the stories she must have. Today they enjoy sailing and it was an honor to meet them both.

My last encounter was Ray who had been shot down over Czechoslovakia. It turns out one of the fellows riding in the B-24 to RI today, his uncle was aboard...Continue Reading

It has been a while since I have updated here so here it goes….

I have been building a Ron Daniels Tempest but have managed to fit in a little fun with my beaten up Corsair. I added a HL Bombdrop to it and took some video with my new camera. The video look excellent on my computer but it gets really grainy and looses quality when converted and compressed. Canon does a nice job but the AVI Moving Jepeg is disappointing thus far for sharing on the net. If anyone knows a good conversion software would love to hear about it. It is a shame not to have near the quality for sharing.
Edit: On GWS corsair hit the file link to youtube then at the bottom there is a link for high quality. Big difference.

Enjoy,

Mark

GWS Corsair B RunII (3 min 27 sec)

GWS Corsair (1 min 43 sec)

...Continue Reading

Today was one of those days, Kids sick wife sick late to work no flying and just hard to get it all going. So to further exacerbate the mood of the day, what better to do than to mess around with Photoshop?

I have been building a Guillows P-47 and had some old pictures of my friend’s dad’s plane that inspired me. So some cut paste filter remove color, oh the possibilities are endless. I ended up with these creations. Better get back to work now. Perhaps a Photoshop of me working oh so hard……He he he….

Mark

P-47 thread

Well finally crossed off a long time to do item, Re- Maiden my LA P-51. I was flying down at my field yesterday and as I was about to slip and fall on my butt I looked at the glaze across the entire field that was holding all 210 pounds of me.As I barely dented the snow pack it occurred to me that I have a very long runway. So instead of building my Guillows P-47 last night I worked on getting my LA 51 into shape for another go. The first time was a real wild ride and I was lucky that wasn’t a rebuild for me. You can see that here Wild ride Mustang So everything is in working order only thing different was I took out two of the Vario blades as I have not really landed it on it’s gear and was afraid of chopping in with the four balder .

So down to the field this morning and it hadn’t softened too much so I was ready to go. I brought my UF FW190 a good rival for the Mustang and figured she would perform with an FW eyeing her. Hooked her up did range and controls check all seemed good. 4-5 Kt breeze strait down the field she wind milled right into it. I did a takeoff roll and the tail lifted but I shut her down just to see how well she would roll on the snow and how long I would need after a touch down. Had to walk to pick her up as the breeze was too much to taxi back.

I lined her up again and did a nice steady throttle up, tail raised and off the ground. A little more power and a nice climb out. WOW under control and flying. Next flip the gear switch and up ľ‘s...Continue Reading

My FBO burned to the ground last week. This is the building I used to fly out of and did most of my private pilot certificate and IFR rating at. One of my friends worked at the charter service and the loss is unbelievable. Somewhere around 20-25 million in aircraft destroyed in the fire. I am sad as I am not sure they will recover from this and the planes… oh so many planes.

Well the flying has been superb the last few days. Sunshine and little wind makes those flybys just so nice. I have been flying my beat up Corsair and my newest Yak 9. Good old fun.

I have also cleared the board and started an old crashed Guillows P-51 that have had lying around. It is a gas to electric conversion and will take a bit of work but should be a fun project. I had to remake a wing and decided that a built up balsa, sheeted with torque rods is the way to go. So far wing 3 Oz’s and I should be able to strip the airframe down to 2 or so Oz's. I guess I will start a thread soon. I know another Mustang.....

Enjoy,

...Continue Reading

I started in this hobby with a Epp foam plane and beat the heck out of it until I learned to fly. I then moved on to the GWS faomies that are cheap and fly well. As I have taken on new challenges in this hobby I find myself in a bit of a quandary. I have built a couple of balsa kits and have put quite a bit of time into them. Of two Guillows balsa kits one is flying and the other is in pieces. I also built a Lazar arts P-51 Mustang and had one flight on it and I was lucky to get it down in one piece. My latest project is a Warbirdkits.com Yak 9 that I have put some good time into and is ready to maiden.

I am finding that my Mustang is becoming a hanger queen as I don’t want to risk loosing the time spent building it. At the same time I built it to fly and with all the fixes it should fly well. I keep meaning to bring it to the field but I come up with excuses. My Yak 9 I also have put some time into it and I am just waiting for a perfect day to give it a go. I had a nice tall grass field to maiden but they mowed it last week. Now I need to rethink sending her off over short grass.

I would not be thinking so much about this if I was about to maiden a foam bird that you put together in a couple of hours. Oh well I will have to turn them into the wind and trust my building skills.

Update 8/23/07 Maiden Successful very happy. https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...9&postcount=35

...Continue Reading

Well I have been building a Warbirdkits.com Yak 9 and queuing up the re re re build of my Guillows P-40. My goal was to finish up the Yak 9 by the end of the Tour De France and start back on my P-40. As the P-40 thread started to come back to life I found I was not ready to dive back in and digressed on a few other interests that would be better suited for this blogging thing.

Well the Yak to date is covered assembled and almost ready to go.

AUW with a 1320 TP 3S battery is 15.5 Oz.’s
I ran up the Himax 2025-5300 with 4:1 GB and was pushing 22 amps and 230 Watts on a Vario 8.2” three blade prop pitched to 6” Hmmm might be a bit too much.

I am still a little tail heavy and the right wing is heavier than the left. I guess I should correct this.

The Tour De France,
I figured that I would share a few of my thoughts on this since Rekitter and I had an exchange on this in the P-40 thread. I love cycling and watching the coverage on TV here in the states. This has been a real treat over the last several years. Lance Armstrong as a seven time winner has done as much for the sport of cycling as Brushless motors and lipo’s have done for RC aircraft. He has moved on now and it seams that we have a Discovery team victory with two members on the podium. Although we don’t know until all the blood results are in. It is a shame to have a sport so clouded in Performance enhancing drugs. Still though, I will continue to watch and build model planes for the Tour De...Continue Reading

With Fathers day coming up I figured I would remember my father as he just passed away recently. He was WW II veteran and piloted and shared gunner duties in a White M3 half track in Europe. Now I will never know what he really did over there but some things I guess should be left alone and remember the good things.

He was not a pilot, at least not of an airplane but I am sure he took a few shots at some of the planes we model today. He did like flying. I got to take him on a flight to long Island and the hundred dollar hamburger at the 56th fighter squadron restaurant on Republic Farmingdale field. He loved it and loosened up a bit about the times of his service, the good times that is. He talked of his camping trip in Europe and how he got to drive a Sherman tank in the NYC victory parade. Pretty cool stuff but never anything more. I will miss him. Happy fathers day dad, you have earned your wings.

Well I have been busy building another Guillows electric conversion. This has been a bit time consuming but also something I really enjoy. The only down side is the lack of maintenance time on the rest of my fleet, and as I fly that fleet is starting to shrink. So far during this build I have a loose motor mount in my spitfire not a big deal, Crash repairs on my Eflight P-47 “Mad Cow” and GWS Corsair #2. I guess the numbers always catch up to you at some point and I find that I am putting off fixing until I am done with this build. Now If I can just keep a few birds flying for another week or so I will be able to do some maintenance.
Question: Are we ever finished with a model as opposed to the model being finished with us? the world may never know.

My Mad Cow literally went Mad. I threw it up and it did the wild ride hard into the ground. I am still trying to figure it out as this was one of my best flying planes. The MonoKote really saved it.

Corsair #2 was doing some touch and goes and in the process of doing a go around I sent her right into a tree. Why do all parking lots’ now come with trees? Oh well now I can practice my C/A and goes…..

LA P-51, Maidens gone bad, this one seems, was my fault, well they were all my fault come to think of it, CG was off and servo mounts pulled out from the desperation trying get my Mustang down in one piece. I love this plane and it is ready to go just waiting for the right conditions and a parking lot with no trees. https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=646704

Enjoy,

Mark