We don't have a set time we fly there. We used to go after work and be there around 5:30-6:00. Thanks to our friend standard time, there is no light after work anymore. I could possibly do a lunch fly there every other week or so, or do a Saturday sometime. I haven't flown for almost a month, so if I can get my plane going again I wouldn't be opposed to a morning session down in Utah county, and fly again in the afternoon at the oval.

I really hate standard time. It has really limited my time to fly.

Wow today is looking like a great day to fly!!! I can almost smell the .....well cow poop! Im alittle groggy from playing halo till the wee hours of the morn but Ill be ready to fight at noon!

I've got choroplast today. Beautiful weather for a combat session. Anybody else coming?

Another fun day of flying! Thanks everyone!

I came back to find a box of bare 4/5A 1800 and AA 1400 cells on my desk. I should have a pack of each ready to test in combat on Friday. Hopefully with a couple of cycles Fri and Sat, I should have a good idea how well these will work.

Who is planning to come Saturday? 9am Willowcreek Middle School (the Jr high in Lehi we've been using).

We had an awesome group last week. We need that group again but with more hits this week!

Darren

My corn came today whahoo! that was fast service. I'm thinking of clipping my wings to 42". also do you think an 8 cell sanyo faup1950 pack will be to heavy my kans are starting to lose the power they once had. Ive considered buying some GP 1100 but have'nt heard much about them. and I can't justify using my 90$ tanic pack for combat.

Oh come on we all use our $90 tanic packs in combat :-)

Just pad them well. Ive been using mine for 6 months with no insidents. Now Darren on the other hand.....

Darren doesn't count, he doesn't have the same natural inhibitions that the rest of us have. . . the inhibitions that keep us from hitting the ground, trees, poles, large bodies of water, or other pilots. Regret, shame, lack of funding. . . all irrelevant to the fabulous and often risky pilot we lovingly know as Darren.

I've got four 2600mah 3S Tanics. Use them ALL in my corn. Only one has taken damage, got bent a little on a nose-dive into the pavement. But it still flies great. That's my preferred setup. I'm also using two 10 cell GP1100s. Great little packs for the price. Lots of punch, but lower life and heavier. But they're good combat packs. I'd say buy 3 or 4 of them if you want to skip using lipos in your corn.

I don't know why people clip their planes. You lose all that lift for very little weight savings. And if you want to roll faster, just crank your throws up. My unicorn rolls incredibly fast for a wing, is super agile, and I can flat spin it any time I want, not to mention my throws are enough to stop the plane mid-air because they act like air brakes. Also, cutting it down makes it harder to get hits, and harder to see at a distance. Jared cut down his plane right off, and didn't like it. He ended up buying another kit so he could have it full size.

Man, today was a really fun day of flying. We had some cool kills. On one cool hit, Tony sliced my control horn off (again), and my plane dove uncontrollably into a mud puddle. Completely caked in mud. After borrowing a control horn from Lee, I tossed it back up. A few minutes later, after I hit Darren's plane, he went to throw his plane up and said "hey, how come there's mud all over my plane? I didn't land in any mud."

Towards the end of our session, Tony's control horn broke and he went into a dive as well, but he hit the ground much harder. No sloshy mud to break the fall. We've flown these planes for around 8 months, and never had a control horn break, yet we've broken four of them in last 2 sessions. Weird

After another good collision, I think with Tony again, my plane was on it's way down, and I flared it hard, gunned the motor, and then realized that Lee was standing right there, so I pulled back hard and put my unicorn into a hover right next to him. I had just enough speed to climb over him and the plane started a tip stall, which aimed it right at Jared who was standing a few feet away, so I torqued hard and hovered it again for a second, barely missing him, then managed to recover and fly off. One of my most intense recoveries. I wish I had that on video, poor Lee and Jared scared of getting hair cuts. Sorry guys!

One of the funniest hits I've seen happened today. Jared was cruising along nice and slow waiting for me to line up on him. I was catching up quick, full throttle, right behind him, nicely lined up. I flew right into the tail of his plane going pretty fast, but it looked like we were in bumper cars or something because it just pushed him forward and passed all my momentum on to his plane, and my plane came nearly to a stop. Neither plane change course at all, they stayed perfectly straight. It was just funny to watch a "rear end" collision, I could see the little pilot in Jared's plane looking in the rear view mirror going, "oh crap, I'm gonna get rear-ended", then BONK.

After one good mid-air collision, I was nose down right over the runway. I thought I had plenty of height and speed to pull out, so I gunned the motor and pulled up, but not quite hard enough. My prop was spinning full speed when I belly flopped on the pavement. . . sheered both blades of the prop right off. It sounded horrible, but didn't do any damage beyond the prop, so I swapped props and went right back up.

Darren and I had an awesome head-on collision today, but we both recovered and flew off. A little later he was in a gradual banking turn when I dove in on him and t-boned him hard from above. I was surprised it didn't snap his plane in half given that his plane was in two pieces last week and he had glued it back together. He must have taped it good because it took the impact well and kept flying.

My favorite part of the day was at the very end. Darren has been threatening over the past few weeks to crank his throws way up, like mine, so he can try out some of the crazy flat spin stunts I've been doing. Well he did it, and today we flew our planes up real high, then put them both into flat spins side by side, and just let them drop in crazy flat spins all the way to the ground. It looked so cool. . . so so cool. It's really impressive to watch. Of course, I pulled out before I hit the ground, unlike Darren who just had to ride it all the way down to impact!!! HaHAHAHA.

I do believe Darren escaped the day with no barbed wire fence incidents though, so that's good!

(I tease too much!)

Now just because my Lipo packs fly out of my plane and explode on occasion is no reason to single out my battery record...

And just because today my Unicorn somehow managed to barely miss Todd and miraculously crash between Jared, Lee and Lee's airplane on the ground is no reason to question my safety record...

And just because I wacked a flight box on take-off today with my A-10 is no reason to think I'm reckless...

And just because I spin my Unicorn all the way into the ground, toss it in the air when it is nearly ripped completely in half to watch it flap like a bird, and hang it on a barb wire fence in a "just a little too low" pass is no reason to question my inhibitions.

Hummm....

Ah, nevermind.


Darren

ROFL!!! Darren, you kill me man! I can't wait to do tandem flat spins again, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it all day! Get your gryphon done so we can do that with those planes as well.

BTW, I ordered 2 new tanics today for my Gryphon. a 1550 2 cell and a 1050 3 cell. I can't wait to see that thing flying with 11.1 V at 12C. Woot! I'm hoping I can do unlimited vertical!!

You should have ordered from CBP.
You can get 3s 1100 for $37.50

CBP? I know I've seen that before. What is the URL?

CBP is www.CheapBatteryPacks.com

They actually split in two a month or two ago. www.maxamps.com is the other company.

These two companies are my largest battery suppliers -- though I must admit I experiment with batteries from all over including the really cheapo stuff on E-bay.

But these two companies have the best deals on GREAT batteries usually. The 4s2p 1800 cells (3600mAh total) pack I use for my F-18 comes down barely warm after flights in the 25-30Amp range.

Both have KILLER deals going on NiMH cells that'd work great for Unicorns. Maxamps has their 25A 1800mah 4/5A on sale for under $1. If you widen the Unicorn battery bay just a little, these cells fit just fine longways. 10 cells in series will fit in the wing -- a little hotter than a 3s pack usually. If you wanted to save a little weight, a good 9 cell pack is usually very close to medium quality 3s lipo.

Because I fly higher voltage, less current, I'm building up a 10 and a 12 cell 1400mah pack to test Friday.

The 1800 cell is quite a bit hotter (and heavier) than the GP1100. The 1400 is probably a little weaker but more capacity at a slight weight penalty.

Darren

My favorite scene from yesterday was my recovery over the poop field. The field, which is currently covered in wet soggy manuer, is a few feet lower then where we stand to fly. I got hit over it and was going down fast. Just as my plane went out below the horizon line so I couldnt see it anymore I gunned it and pulled up and somehow recovered without hitting the ground. I wish I could have seen it because it couldnt have been more then 2 inches off the ground.

Wish I could make it Friday! Ill be there Saturday though

Of corse almost getting wacked by Todd's then Darrens planes made for a rather exciting day too :-)

Wow, I wish I'd have known that they had good lipos at CPB. I've only got nimh packs from them. That is really cheap. Could have gotten 3 for the price of 2 I got from tanic. Anybody tried their Irate packs? How do they compare to Tanics?